THE VILLAGE ON FIRE.

249

with a smart gust, and almost simultaneously the deserted village burst into flames in two or three places. We went immediately to quarters, and prepared for an attack, fancying, from the sudden way in which the fire commenced, that it was the act of some of the banditti of whom the chieftainess had warned me.

The flames spread with awful rapidity: everything was well calculated to promote ignition-houses, grass, leaves were as dry as three months of a broiling sun could make them; in fifteen minutes, one broad wave of fire had enveloped the whole village, and being to windward of the gun-boat, we had to get the night awnings down, and drop the vessel very expeditiously out of the way. This done, I landed two parties of men, ten in number each; one party to try and stay the fire, the other, armed, to resist any of the "Orang-jahat," if they were about.

Sad as the scene was at first, it became truly terrible when the flames extended themselves to the tops of the cocoa-nut trees!— the felt-like substance between the roots of the leaves, as well as the leaves themselves, catching fire, and communicating from one to the other, until the whole plantation resembled a row of gigantic torches flaming and waving in the

250

FLAMING COCOA-NUT TREES.

air. We were of course unable to make any further attempt to stay the conflagration, and some had narrow escapes of their lives from the fierce rapidity with which the fire leapt from one object to the other, and licked up with its fiery tongue everything as it went.

No natives nor Siamese were to be seen in any direction; and I afterwards pretty correctly ascertained the origin of the fire. Under every one of the houses, which, as usual, were raised some three feet from the earth, the natives of Tamelan had been in the habit of throwing the husks of the rice used daily in their families, forming, on the day they left, very moderate-sized heaps, and when they departed, the embers from their hearths had been thrown on those heaps of husks. So long as it was calm, the ignited husks of rice had merely smouldered, but directly the breeze sprang up, they were fanned into flames, and in a few minutes, as I have described, wrapt the whole village in a sheet of fire.

The people of Tamelan had evidently determined that their conquerors should not dwell in the houses their industry had constructed; and my Malays seconded them, by not pointing out to me the conse

TRACES OF MAN RAPIDLY OBLITERATED.

251

quence likely to arise from leaving the smouldering fires in the deserted village. Next day, the sun rose on a row of calcined trees, and a patch of burnt fragments. Tamelan no longer existed, and the next monsoon, with its rains, would hand over to the dominion of the jungle the very spot on which it stood. The footsteps of man are readily obliterated by the rapid growth of Eastern vegetation: its action is to be compared to nothing but that of the ocean, which bears but the impress of the stamp of the steamship for a minute, and then laughs and rolls on, scorning the pigmy that has crossed its surface. So the green forests of these lands of rank vegetation close in and wave over race after race of men, who battle with it for awhile, and pass away, leaving no more traces of their existence in the perishable records of this earth, than does the keel of the ship over the surface of the waters.

In the forests of Malayia, the traveller already finds remains of temples and inscriptions, hidden in creepers, vines, and jungle-grass: they have not even a tradition attached to them, and the best-read Eastern historian cannot decide whether the once great kingdom of Pegu extended its boundaries thus far, or whether these ruins are those of some ancient

252 TRACES OF MAN RAPIDLY OBLITERATED.

Malay nation, which held a sway in this peninsula before a pressure from the north forced them to push throughout the archipelago, nay, even Polynesia, for a resting-place, extinguishing, in their character of conquerors, the negro race which undoubtedly was the aboriginal one of those islands.

A CREW OF WRETCHED FUGITIVES. 253

CHAP. XIX.

-

A Crew of wretched Fugitives. "Orang-laut," or Sea Gipsies. Low Civilisation of the "Orang-laut."

Total

Absence of all Religious Feeling. - Their Mode of Living. The personal Appearance of Orang-laut. Dearth of fresh Water. Ordered to procure Water up the River. Parlis and Pirate Fleet. — Interview with Haggi Loūng. Permission granted to procure Water. Tom West's Address to the Malays. - Paddle up the River. - Tropical Malayan Scenery. - Pass Kanah. - Obtain fresh Water.

LET us return, however, to Tamelan. I filled my water-casks with all the water that was procurable, and started out of the river. When crossing Setouè Bay a prahu was seen coasting along the edge of the jungle, and after a short chase we caught her. The people in her were devoid of the usual Malay clothing, and in a most abject condition; they described themselves as Orang-Patani, or people of Patani (a Malayu-Siamese province on the opposite coast), and said they were flying before the Siamese

army.

My Malays owned they were countrymen, but