d and falling
out from the use of the syrah leaf. She had settled the engagement
of her oldest boy to a little girl of two years in a neighboring
kampong, and was dusting out the things in the camphor-wood chest,
preparatory to the great occasion.

I used to wonder, as I wandered through one of these secluded little
Malay villages that line the shores of the peninsula and are scattered
over its interior, if the little girl mothers who were carrying water
and weaving mats did not sometimes long to get down on the warm, white
sands and have a regular romp among themselves,--playing "Cat-a-corner"
or "I spy"; for none of them were over seventeen or eighteen!

Still their lives are not unhappy. Their husbands are kind and sober,
and they are never destitute. They have their families about them,
and hear laughter and merriment from one sunny year to another.

Busuk's father-in-law is dead now, and the last time I visited Bander
Bahru to shoot wild pig, Mamat was punghulo, collecting the taxes
and administering the laws.

He raised the back of his open palm to his forehead with a quiet
dignity when I left, after the day's sport, and said, "Tabek! Tuan
Consul. Do not forget Mamat's humble bungalow." And Busuk came down the
ladder with little Mamat astride her bare shoulders, with a pleasant
"Tabek! Tuan! (Good-by, my lord.) May Allah's smile be ever with you."

A CROCODILE HUNT

At the foot of Mount Ophir

The little pleasant-faced Malay captain of his Highness's three-hundred
ton yacht Pante called softly, close to my ear, "Tuan--Tuan Consul,
Gunong Ladang!" I sprang to my feet, rubbed my eyes, and gazed in
the direction indicated by the brown hand.

I saw not five miles off the low jungle-bound coast of the peninsula,
and above it a great bank of vaporous clouds, pierced by the molten
rays of the early morning sun. As I looked around inquiringly, the
captain, bowing, said: "Tuan," and I raised my eyes. Again I saw the
lofty mountain peak surmounting the cushion of clouds, standing out
bold and clear against the almost fierce azure of the Malayan sky.

"Mount Ophir!" burst from my lips. The captain smiled and went
forward to listen to the linesman's "two fathoms, sir, two and one
half fathoms, sir, two fathoms, sir"; for we were crossing the shallow
bar that protects the mouth of the great river Maur from the ocean.

The tide was running out like a mill-race. The Pante was backing from
side to side, and