ming of the pictures.

HUGH CLIFFORD.

BRITISH RESIDENCY,
PAHANG, MALAY PENINSULA,
_November 7, 1896._

CONTENTS

As I came through the Desert thus it was,
As I came through the Desert.

_The City of Dreadful Night._

PAGE

1. THE EAST COAST 1

2. THE PEOPLE OF THE EAST COAST 17

3. THE EXPERIENCES OF RAJA HAJI HAMID 30

4. THE BATTLE OF THE WOMEN 37

5. IN COCK-PIT AND BULL-RING 46

6. THE WERE-TIGER 62

7. THE AMOK OF DATO KAYA BIJI DERJA 78

8. THE FLIGHT OF CHEP THE BIRD 96

9. THE VAULTING AMBITION 111

10. 'ONE MORE UNFORTUNATE' 125

11. AMONG THE FISHER-FOLK 134

12. THE STORY OF BAYAN THE PAROQUET 151

13. THE TALE OF A THEFT 161

14. IN A CAMP OF THE SEMANGS 171

15. HIS HEART'S DESIRE 182

16. A NIGHT OF TERROR 196

17. IN THE DAYS WHEN THE LAND WAS FREE 210

18. UN MAUVAIS QUART D'HEURE 230

19. UP COUNTRY 245

L'ENVOI

THE EAST COAST

The charmed sunset linger'd low adown
In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale
And meadow, set with slender galingale;
A land where all things always seem'd the same!
And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.

_The Lotos-Eaters._

In these days, the boot of the ubiquitous white man leaves its marks on
all the fair places of the Earth, and scores thereon an even more
gigantic track than that which affrighted Robinson Crusoe in his
solitude. It crushes down the forests, beats out roads, strides across
the rivers, kicks down native institutions, and generally tramples on
the growths of nature, and the works of primitive man, reducing all
things to that dead level of conventionality, which we call
civilisation. Incidentally, it stamps out much of what is best in the
customs and characteristics of the native races against which it
brushes; and, though it relieves them of man