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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
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