met Bayan the Paroquet some six months before his death, when I
was making my way across the Peninsula, _via_ the Slim Mountains, in
1887. We were camped for the night at a spot in the jungle on the Perak
side of the range, in a natural refuge, which has probably sheltered
wayfarers in these forests ever since primitive man first set foot in
the Peninsula. The place is called Batu Sapor--the Stone Lean-to Hut--in
the vernacular, and the name is a descriptive one. It is situated on the
banks of the Breseh, a little babbling stream which runs down to the
Slim. The banks are high and shelving, but, on the top, they are flat,
and it is here that the gigantic overhanging granite boulder stands,
which gives the place its name. It is of enormous size, and is probably
deeply embedded in the ground, for large trees have taken root and grow
upon its upper surface. It projects some thirty feet over the flat bank,
and then, shelving suddenly away to the ground, forms a stone roof,
under which a score of men can camp with ease. The Pahang Prince, with
whom I was travelling, unlike most of the men of that breed, was a very
nervous person, and it was not without much persuasion that I had
succeeded in inducing him to join me in my camp under the shadow of the
great rock. He feared that it would topple over and crush us, nor was he
completely reassured until Saiyid Jasin--the chief of his followers--a
shrunken, wizened little man of many wiles, had propped the stone up
with a slender sapling, over which he had duly recited certain magic
incantations.

My attention was specially attracted to Bayan the Paroquet, because he
was the man who was told off to shampoo me after my march. He was a man
of about forty years of age, thickset and large-limbed for a Malay, with
a round bullet-shaped head, and a jolly smiling face.

Now, Bayan the Paroquet was what is technically termed a _Peng-lipor
Lara_--or 'Soother of Cares,'--a class of men which is fast dying out in
the Peninsula, as other mediaeval landmarks become effaced. These people
are simply the wandering bards and minstrels, who find their place in an
Independent Malay State as naturally as did their prototypes in the
countries of Europe during the Middle Ages. They learn by rote some
old-world tale, which has been transmitted by word of mouth through
countless generations, and they wander from village to village, singing
it for pay to the unlettered people, to whom these songs and stori