There was the usual pomp of a body-guard, some of whom are in
attendance, and a military display on the pier, well drilled, and well
officered in quiet, capable, admirable, unobtrusive Mr. Syers; but
gentle Mrs. Douglas, devoted to her helpless daughter, standing above
the jetty, a lone woman in forlorn, decayed Klang, haunts me as a
vision of sadness, as I think of her sorrow and her dignified
hospitality in the midst of it.

Now, at half-past eleven, we are aground with an ebb-tide on the bar of
the Selangor river; so I may write a little, though I should like to be
asleep.


Bernam River, Selangor, February 8th.--"Chi-laka!" (worthless
good-for-nothing wretch), "Bodo!" (fool). I hear these words repeated
incessantly in tones of thunder and fury, with accompaniments which
need not be dwelt upon. The Malays are a revengeful people. If any
official in British service were to knock them about and insult them,
one can only say what has been said to me since I came to the native
States: "Well, some day--all I can say is, God help him!" But then if
an official were to be krissed, no matter how deservedly in Malay
estimation, a gunboat would be sent up the river to "punish," and would
kill, burn, and destroy; there would be a "little war," and a heavy war
indemnity, and the true bearings of the case would be lost forever.

Yesterday, after a detention on the bar, we steamed up the broad, muddy
Selangor river, margined by bubbling slime, on which alligators were
basking in the torrid sun, to Selangor. Here the Dutch had a fort on
the top of the hill. We destroyed it in August, 1871. Some Chinese
whose connection with Selangor is not traceable, after murdering nearly