Man, Past and Present - Part 27
Library

Part 27

The evidence that Malagasy is itself one of these Oceanic tongues, and not an offshoot of the comparatively recent standard Malay is overwhelming, and need not here detain us[541]. The diffusion of this Austronesian language over the whole island--even amongst distinctly Negroid Bantu populations, such as the Betsileos and Ta.n.a.las--to the absolute exclusion of all other forms of speech, is an extraordinary linguistic phenomenon more easily proved than explained. There are, of course, provincialisms and even what may be called local dialects, such as that of the Antankarana people at the northern extremity of the island who, although commonly included in the large division of the western Sakalavas, really form a separate ethnical group, speaking a somewhat marked variety of Malagasy. But even this differs much less from the normal form than might be supposed by comparing, for instance, such a term as _maso-mahamay_, sun, with the Hova _maso-andro_, where _maso_ in both means "eye," _mahamay_ in both = "burning," and _andro_ in both = "day." Thus the only difference is that one calls the sun "burning eye," while the Hovas call it the "day's eye," as do so many peoples in Malaysia[542].

So also the fish-eating _Anorohoro_ people, a branch of the _Sihanakas_ in the Alaotra valley, are said to have "quite a different dialect from them[543]." But the statement need not be taken too seriously, because these rustic fisherfolk, who may be called the Gothamites of Madagascar, are supposed, by their scornful neighbours, to do everything "contrariwise." Of them it is told that once when cooking eggs they boiled them for hours to make them soft, and then finding they got harder and harder threw them away as unfit for food. Others having only one slave, who could not paddle the canoe properly, cut him in two, putting one half at the prow, the other at the stern, and were surprised at the result. It was not to be expected that such simpletons should speak Malagasy properly, which nevertheless is spoken with surprising uniformity by all the Malayan and Negro or Negroid peoples alike.

In Madagascar, however, the fusion of the two races is far less complete than is commonly supposed. Various shades of transition between the two extremes are no doubt presented by the _Sakalavas_ of the west, and the _Betsimisarakas_, _Sitanakas_, and others of the east coast. But, strange to say, on the central tableland the two seem to stand almost completely apart, so that here the politically dominant Hovas still present all the essential characteristics of the Oceanic Mongol, while their southern neighbours, the _Betsileos_, as well as the _Ta.n.a.las_ and _Ibaras_, are described as "African pure and simple, allied to the south-eastern tribes of that continent[544]."

Specially remarkable is the account given by a careful observer, G. A.

Shaw, of the Betsileos, whose "average height is not less than six feet for the men, and a few inches less for the women. They are large-boned and muscular, and their colour is several degrees darker than that of the Hovas, approaching very close to a black. The forehead is low and broad, the nose flatter, and the lips thicker than those of their conquerors, whilst their hair is _invariably_ crisp and woolly. No pure Betsileo is to be met with having the smooth long hair of the Hovas. In this, as in other points, there is a very clear departure from the Malayan type, and a close approximation to the Negro races of the adjacent continent[545]."

Now compare these brawny negroid giants with the wiry undersized Malayan Hovas. As described by A. Vouchereau[546], their type closely resembles that of the Javanese--short stature, yellowish or light leather complexion, long, black, smooth and rather coa.r.s.e hair, round head (85.25), flat and straight forehead, flat face, prominent cheek-bones, small straight nose, tolerably wide nostrils, small black and slightly oblique eyes, rather thick lips, slim lithesome figure, small extremities, dull restless expression, cranial capacity 1516 c.c., superior to both Negro and Sakalava[547].

Except in respect of this high cranial capacity, the measurements of three Malagasy skulls in the Cambridge University Anatomical Museum, studied by W. L. H. Duckworth[548], correspond fairly well with these descriptions. Thus the cephalic index of the reputed Betsimisaraka (Negroid) and that of the Betsileo (Negro) are respectively 71 and 72.4, while that of the Hova is 82.1; the first two, therefore, are long-headed, the third round-headed, as we should expect. But the cubic capacity of the Hova (presumably Mongoloid) is only 1315 as compared with 1450 and 1480 of two others, presumably African Negroes. Duckworth discusses the question whether the black element in Madagascar is of African or Oceanic (Melanesian-Papuan) origin, about which much diversity of opinion still prevails, and on the evidence of the few cranial specimens available he decides in favour of the African.

Despite the low cubic capacity of Duckworth's Hova, the mental powers of these, and indeed of the Malagasy generally, are far from despicable.

Before the French occupation the London Missionary Society had succeeded in disseminating Christian principles and even some degree of culture among considerable numbers both in the Hova capital and surrounding districts. The local press had been kept going by native compositors who had issued quite an extensive literature both in Malagasy and English.

Agricultural and industrial methods had been improved, some engineering works attempted, and the Hova craftsmen had learnt to build but not to complete houses in the European style, because, although they could master European processes, they could not, Christians though they were, get the better of the old superst.i.tions, one of which is that the owner of a house always dies within a year of its completion. Longevity is therefore ensured by not completing it, with the curious result that the whole city looks unfinished or dilapidated. In the house where Mrs Colvile stayed, "one window was framed and glazed, the other nailed up with rough boards; part of the stair-banister had no top-rail; outside only a portion of the roof had been tiled; and so on throughout[549]."

The culture has been thus summarised by T. A. Joyce[550]. Clothing is entirely vegetable, and the Malay _sarong_ is found throughout the east; bark-cloth in the south-east and west. Hairdressing varies considerably, and among the Bara and Sakalava is often elaborate. Silver ornaments are found amongst the Antimerina and some other eastern tribes, made chiefly from European coins dating from the sixteenth century. Circ.u.mcision is universal. In the east the tribes are chiefly agricultural; in the north, west and south, pastoral. Fishing is important among those tribes situated on coast, lake or river. Houses are all rectangular and pile-dwellings are found locally. Rice is the staple crop and the cattle are of the humped variety. The Antimerina excel the rest in all crafts.

Weaving, basket-work (woven variety) and iron-working are all good; the use of iron is said to have been unknown to the Bara and Vazimba until comparatively recent times. Pottery is poor. Carvings in the round (men and animals) are found amongst the Sakalava and Bara, in relief (arabesques, etc.) among the Betsileo and others. Before the introduction of firearms, the spear was the universal weapon; bows are rare and possibly of late introduction; slings and the blowgun are also found. Shields are circular, made of wood covered with hide. The early system of government was patriarchal, and villages were independent; the later immigrants introduced a system of feudal monarchy with themselves as a ruling caste. Thus the Antimerina have three main castes; _Andriana_ or n.o.bles (_i.e._ pure-blooded descendants of the conquerors), _Hova_, or freemen (descendants of the incorporated Vazimba more or less mixed with the conquerors), and _Andevo_ or slaves. The king was regarded almost as a G.o.d. An inst.i.tution thoroughly suggestive of Malayo-Polynesian sociology is that of _fadi_ or tabu, which enters into every sphere of human activity. An indefinite creator-G.o.d was recognized, but more important were a number of spirits and fetishes, the latter with definite functions. Signs of tree worship and of belief in transmigration are sporadic. At the present time, half the population of the island is, at least nominally, Christian.

A good deal of fancy is displayed in the oral literature, comprising histories, or at least legends, fables, songs, riddles, and a great ma.s.s of folklore, much of which has already been rescued from oblivion by the "Malagasy Folklore Society." Some of the stories present the usual a.n.a.logies to others in widely separated lands, stories which seem to be perennial, and to crop up wherever the surface is a little disturbed by investigators. One of those in Dahle's extensive collection, ent.i.tled the "History of Andrianarisainaboniamasoboniamanoro" might be described as a variant of our "Beauty and the Beast." Besides this prince with the long name, called _Bonia_ "for short," there is a princess "Golden Beauty," both being of miraculous birth, but the latter a cripple and deformed, until found and wedded by Bonia. Then she is so transfigured that the "Beast" is captivated and contrives to carry her off. Thereupon follows an extraordinary series of adventures, resulting of course in the rescue of Golden Beauty by Bonia, when everything ends happily, not only for the two lovers, but for all other people whose wives had also been abducted. These are now restored to their husbands by the hero, who vanquishes and slays the monster in a fierce fight, just as in our nursery tales of knights and dragons.

In the Philippines, where the ethnical confusion is probably greater than in any other part of Malaysia, the great bulk of the inhabitants appear to be of Indonesian and proto-Malayan stocks. Except in the southern island of Mindanao, which is still mainly Muhammadan or heathen, most of the settled populations have long been nominal Roman Catholics under a curious theocratic administration, in which the true rulers are not the civil functionaries, but the priests, and especially the regular clergy[551]. One result has been over three centuries of unstable political and social relations, ending in the occupation of the archipelago by the United States (1898). Another, with which we are here more concerned, has been such a transformation of the subtle Malayan character that those who have lived longest amongst the natives p.r.o.nounce their temperament unfathomable. Having to comply outwardly with the numerous Christian observances, they seek relief in two ways, first by making the most of the Catholic ceremonial and turning the many feast-days of the calendar into occasions of revelry and dissipation, connived at if not even shared in by the padres[552]; secondly by secretly cherishing the old beliefs and disguising their true feelings, until the opportunity is presented of throwing off the mask and declaring themselves in their true colours. A Franciscan friar, who had spent half his life amongst them, left on record that "the native is an incomprehensible phenomenon, the mainspring of whose line of thought and the guiding motive of whose actions have never yet been, and perhaps never will be, discovered. A native will serve a master satisfactorily for years, and then suddenly abscond, or commit some such hideous crime as conniving with a brigand band to murder the family and pillage the house[553]."

In fact n.o.body can ever tell what a Tagal, and especially a Visaya, will do at any moment. His character is a succession of surprises; "the experience of each year brings one to form fresh conclusions, and the most exact definition of such a kaleidoscopic creature is, after all, hypothetical."

After centuries of misrule, it was perhaps not surprising that no kind of sympathy was developed between the natives and the whites. Foreman fells us that everywhere in the archipelago he found mothers teaching their little ones to look on their white rulers as demoniacal beings, evil spirits, or at least something to be dreaded. "If a child cries, it is hushed by the exclamation, _Castila!_ (Spaniard); if a white man approaches a native dwelling, the watchword always is _Castila!_ and the children hasten to retreat from the dreadful object."

For administrative purposes the natives were cla.s.sed in three social divisions--_Indios_, _Infieles_, and _Moros_--which, as aptly remarked by F. H. H. Guillemard, is "an ecclesiastical rather than a scientific cla.s.sification[554]." The _Indios_ were the Christianized and more or less cultured populations of all the towns and of the settled agricultural districts, speaking a distinct Malayo-Polynesian language of much more archaic type than the standard Malay. According to the census of 1903 the total population of the islands was 7,635,428, of whom nearly 7,000,000 were cla.s.sed as civilised, and the rest as wild, including 23,000 Negritoes (_Aeta_, see p. 156). At the time of the Spanish occupation in the sixteenth century the _Visayas_ of the central islands and part of Mindanao were the most advanced among the native tribes, but this distinction is now claimed for the _Tagalogs_, who form the bulk of the population in Manila and other parts of Luzon, and also in Mindanao, and whose language is gradually displacing other dialects throughout the archipelago. Other civilised tribes are the _Ilocano_, _Bicol_, _Pangasinan_, _Pampangan_ and _Cagayan_, all of Luzon. Less civilised tribes are the _Man.o.bo_, _Mandaya_, _Subano_ and _Bagobo_ of Mindanao, the _Bukidnon_ of Mindanao and the central islands, the _Tagbanua_ and _Batak_ of Palawan, and the _Igorots_ of Luzon, some of whom are industrious farmers, while among others, head-hunting is still prevalent. These have been described by A. E. Jenks in a monograph[555].

The head form is very variable. Of 32 men measured by Jenks the extremes of cephalic index were 91.48 and 67.48. The stature is always low, averaging 1.62 m. (5 ft. 4 in.) but with an appearance of greater height. The hair is black, straight, lank, coa.r.s.e and abundant but "I doubt whether to-day an entire tribe of perfectly straight-haired primitive Malayan people exists in the archipelago[556]."

Under _Moros_ ("Moors") are comprised the Muhammadans exclusively, some of whom are Malayans (chiefly in Mindanao, Basilan, and Palawan), some true Malays (chiefly in the Sulu archipelago). Many of these are still independent, and not a few, if not actually wild, are certainly but little removed from the savage state. Yet, like the Sumatran Battas, they possess a knowledge of letters, the Sulu people using the Arabic script, as do all the Orang-Malayu, while the Palawan natives employ a variant of the Devanagari prototype derived directly from the Javanese, as above explained. They number nearly 280,000, of whom more than one half are in Mindanao, and they form the bulk of the population in some of the islands of the Sulu archipelago.

Some of these Sulu people, till lately fierce sea-rovers, get baptized now and then; but, says Foreman, "they appeared to be as much Christian as I was Mussulman[557]." They keep their harems all the same, and when asked how many G.o.ds there are, answer "four," presumably Allah plus the Athanasian Trinity. So the Ba-Fiots of Angola add crucifying to their "penal code," and so in King M'tesa's time the Baganda scrupulously kept two weekly holidays, the Mussulman Friday, and the Christian Sunday.

Lofty creeds superimposed too rapidly on primitive beliefs are apt to get "mixed"; they need time to become a.s.similated.

That in the aborigines of Formosa are represented both Mongol (proto-Malayan) and Indonesian elements may now probably be accepted as an established fact. The long-standing reports of Negritoes also, like the Philippine Aeta, have never been confirmed, and may be dismissed from the present consideration. Probably five-sixths of the whole population are Chinese immigrants, amongst whom are a large number of Hakkas and Hok-los from the provinces of Fo-Kien and Kw.a.n.g-tung[558].

They occupy all the cultivated western lowlands, which from the ethnological standpoint may be regarded as a seaward outpost of the Chinese mainland. The rest of the island, that is, the central highlands and precipitous eastern slopes, may similarly be looked on as a north-eastern outpost of Malaysia, being almost exclusively held by Indonesian and Malayan aborigines from Malaysia (especially the Philippines), with possibly some early intruders both from Polynesia and from the north (j.a.pan). All are cla.s.sed by the Chinese settlers after their usual fashion in three social divisions:--

1. The _Pepohwans_ of the plains, who although called "Barbarians," are sedentary agriculturists and quite as civilised as their Chinese neighbours themselves, with whom they are gradually merging in a single ethnical group. The Pepohwans are described by P. Ibis as a fine race, very tall, and "fetishists," though the mysterious rites are left to the women. Their national feasts, dances, and other usages forcibly recall those of the Micronesians and Polynesians. They may therefore, perhaps, be regarded as early immigrants from the South Sea Islands, distinct in every respect from the true aborigines.

2. The _Sekhwans_, "Tame Savages[559]," who are also settled agriculturists, subject to the Chinese (since 1895 to the j.a.panese) administration, but physically distinct from all the other Formosans--light complexion, large mouth, thick lips, remarkably long and prominent teeth, weak const.i.tution. P. Ibis suspects a strain of Dutch blood dating from the seventeenth century. This is confirmed by the old books and other curious doc.u.ments found amongst them, which have given rise to so much speculation, and, it may be added, some mystification, regarding a peculiar writing system and a literature formerly current amongst the Formosan aborigines[560].

3. The _Chinhwans_, "Green Barbarians"--that is, utter savages--the true independent aborigines, of whom there are an unknown number of tribes, but regarding whom the Chinese possess but little definite information.

Not so their j.a.panese successors, one of whom, Kisak Tamai[561], tells us that the Chinhwans show a close resemblance to the Malays of the Malay Peninsula and also to those of the Philippines, and in some respects to the j.a.panese themselves. When dressed like j.a.panese and mingling with j.a.panese women, they can hardly be distinguished from them. The vendetta is still rife amongst many of the ruder tribes, and such is their traditional hatred of the Chinese intruders that no one can either be tattooed or permitted to wear a bracelet until he has carried off a Celestial head or two. In every household there is a frame or bracket on which these heads are mounted, and some of their warriors can proudly point to over seventy of such trophies. It is a relief to hear that with their new j.a.panese masters they have sworn friendship, these new rulers of the land being their "brothers and sisters." The oath of eternal alliance is taken by digging a hole in the ground, putting a stone in it, throwing earth at each other, then covering the stone with the earth, all of which means that "as the stone in the ground keeps sound, so do we keep our word unbroken."

It is interesting to note that this j.a.panese ethnologist's remarks on the physical resemblances of the aborigines are fully in accord with those of European observers. Thus to Hamy "they recalled the Igorrotes of North Luzon, as well as the Malays of Singapore[562]." G. Taylor also, who has visited several of the wildest groups in the southern and eastern districts[563] (_Tipuns_, _Paiwans_, _Diaramocks_, _Nickas_, _Amias_ and many others), traces some "probably" to j.a.pan (Tipuns); others to Malaysia (the cruel, predatory Paiwan head-hunters); and others to the Liu-Kiu archipelago (the Pepohwans now of Chinese speech).

He describes the Diaramocks as the most dreaded of all the southern groups, but doubts whether the charge of cannibalism brought against them by their neighbours is quite justified.

Whether the historical Malays from Singapore or elsewhere, as above suggested, are really represented in Formosa may be doubted, since no survivals either of Hindu or Muhammadan rites appear to have been detected amongst the aborigines. It is of course possible that they may have reached the island at some remote time, and since relapsed into savagery, from which the Orang-laut were never very far removed. But in the absence of proof, it will be safer to regard all the wild tribes as partly of Indonesian, partly of proto-Malayan origin.

This view is also in conformity with the character of the numerous Formosan dialects, whose affinities are either with the Gyarung and others of the Asiatic Indonesian tongues, or else with the Austronesian organic speech generally, but not specially with any particular member of that family, least of all with the comparatively recent standard Malay. Thus Arnold Schetelig points out that only about a sixth part of the Formosan vocabulary taken generally corresponds with modern Malay[564]. The a.n.a.logies of all the rest must be sought in the various branches of the Oceanic stock language, and in the Gyarung and the non-Chinese tongues of Eastern China[565]. Formosa thus presents a curious ethnical and linguistic connecting link between the Continental and Oceanic populations.

In the Nicobar archipelago are distinguished two ethnical groups, the coast people, _i.e._ the _Nicobarese_[566] proper, and the _Shom Pen_, aborigines of the less accessible inland districts in Great Nicobar. But the distinction appears to be rather social than racial, and we may now conclude with E. H. Man that all the islanders belong essentially to the Mongolic division, the inlanders representing the pure type, the others being "descended from a mongrel Malay stock, the crosses being probably in the majority of cases with Burmese and occasionally with natives of the opposite coast of Siam, and perchance also in remote times with such of the Shom Pen as may have settled in their midst[567]."

Among the numerous usages which point to an Indo-Chinese and Oceanic connection are pile-dwellings; the chewing of betel, which appears to be here mixed with some earthy substance causing a dental incrustation so thick as even to prevent the closing of the lips; distention of the ear-lobe by wooden cylinders; aversion from the use of milk; and the _couvade_, as amongst some Bornean Dayaks. The language, which has an extraordinarily rich phonetic system (as many as 25 consonantal and 35 vowel sounds), is polysyllabic and untoned, like the Austronesian, and the type also seems to resemble the Oceanic more than the Continental Mongol subdivision. Mean height 5 ft. 3 in. (Shom Pen one inch less); nose wide and flat; eyes rather obliquely set; cheekbones prominent; features flat, though less so than in the normal Malayan; complexion mostly a yellowish or reddish brown (Shom Pen dull brown); hair a dark rusty brown, rarely quite black, straight, though not seldom wavy and even ringletty, but Shom Pen generally quite straight.

On the other hand they approach nearer to the Burmese in their mental characters; in their frank, independent spirit, inquisitiveness, and kindness towards their women, who enjoy complete social equality, as in Burma; and lastly in their universal belief in spirits called _iwi_ or _siya_, who, like the _nats_ of Indo-China, cause sickness and death unless scared away or appeased by offerings. Like the Burmese, also, they place a piece of money in the mouth or against the cheek of a corpse before burial, to help in the other world.

One of the few industries is the manufacture of a peculiar kind of rough painted pottery, which is absolutely confined to the islet of Chowra, 5 miles north of Teressa. The reason of this restriction is explained by a popular legend, according to which in remote ages the Great Unknown decreed that, on pain of sudden death, an earthquake, or some such calamity, the making of earthenware was to be carried on only in Chowra, and all the work of preparing the clay, moulding and firing the pots, was to devolve on the women. Once, a long time ago, one of these women, when on a visit in another island, began, heedless of the divine injunction, to make a vessel, and fell dead on the spot. Thus was confirmed the tradition, and no attempt has since been made to infringe the "Chowra monopoly[568]."

All things considered, it may be inferred that the archipelago was originally occupied by primitive peoples of Malayan stock now represented by the Shom Pen of Great Nicobar, and was afterwards re-settled on the coastlands by Indo-Chinese and Malayan intruders, who intermingled, and either extirpated or absorbed, or else drove to the interior the first occupants. Nicobar thus resembles Formosa in its intermediate position between the continental and Oceanic Mongol populations. Another point of a.n.a.logy is the absence of Negritoes from both of these insular areas, where anthropologists had confidently antic.i.p.ated the presence of a dark element like that of the Andamanese and Philippine Aeta.

FOOTNOTES:

[492] Here E. T. Hamy finds connecting links between the true Malays and the Indonesians in the Bicols of Albay and the Bisayas of Panay ("Les Races Malaques et Americaines," in _L'Anthropologie_, 1896, p. 136).

Used in this extended sense, Hamy's _Malaque_ corresponds generally to our _Malayan_ as defined presently.

[493] Ethnically Malayo-Polynesian is an impossible expression, because it links together the Malays, who belong to the Mongol, and the Polynesians, who belong to the Caucasic division. But as both undoubtedly speak languages of the same linguistic stock the expression is permitted in philology, although, as P. W. Schmidt points out, "Malay" and "Polynesian" are not of equal rank: and the combination is as unbalanced as "Indo-Bavarian" for "Indo-Germanic"; it is best therefore to adopt Schmidt's term _Austronesian_ for this family of languages (_Die Mon-Khmer Volker_, 1906, p. 69).

[494] Indonesian type: undulating black hair, often tinged with red; tawny skin, often rather light; low stature, 1.54 m.-1.57 m. (5 ft.

0-1/2 in.-5 ft. 1-3/4 in.); mesaticephalic head (76-78) probably originally dolichocephalic; cheek-bones sometimes projecting; nose often flattened, sometimes concave. It is difficult to isolate this type as it has almost everywhere been mixed with a brachycephalic Proto-Malay stock, but the Muruts of Borneo (cranial index 73) are probably typical (A. C. Haddon, _The Races of Man_, 1909, p. 14).

[495] Recent literature on this area includes F. A. Swettenham, _The Real Malay_, 1900, _British Malaya_, 1906; W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, 1900; N. Annandale and H. C. Robinson, _Fasciculi Malayenses_, 1903; W.

W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden, _Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula_, 1903.

[496] J. Leyden, _Malay Annals_, 1821, p. 44.

[497] In some places quite recent, as in Rembau, Malay Peninsula, whose inhabitants are mainly immigrants from Sumatra in the seventeenth century; and in the neighbouring group of petty Negri Sembilan States, where the very tribal names, such as _Anak Acheh_, and _Sri Lemak Menangkabau_, betray their late arrival from the Sumatran districts of Achin and Menangkabau.

[498] _The Malay Archipelago_, p. 310.

[499] For Celebes see Von Paul und Fritz Sarasin, _Reisen in Celebes ausgefuhrt in den Jahren 1893-6 und 1902-3_, 1905, and _Versuch einer Anthropologie der Insel Celebes_, 1905.

[500] In 1898 a troop of Javanese minstrels visited London, and one of them, whom I addressed in a few broken Malay sentences, resented in his sleepy way the imputation that he was an Orang-Malayu, explaining that he was _Orang Java_, a Javanese, and (when further questioned) _Orang Solo_, a native of the Solo district, East Java. It was interesting to notice the very marked Mongolic features of these natives, vividly recalling the remark of A. R. Wallace, on the difficulty of distinguishing between a Javanese and a Chinaman when both are dressed alike. The resemblance may to a small extent be due to "mixture with Chinese blood" (B. Hagen, _Jour. Anthrop. Soc._ Vienna, 1889); but occurs over such a wide area that it must mainly be attributed to the common origin of the Chinese and Javanese peoples.

[501] A. H. Keane, _Eastern Geography_, 2nd ed. 1892, p. 121.

[502] _Academy_, May 1, 1897, p. 469.

[503] Cool, p. 139.

[504] _The Malay Archipelago_, p. 175.

[505] In _Malay Sketches_, 1895.

[506] Cf. M. A. Czaplicka on Arctic Hysteria in _Aboriginal Siberia_, 1914, p. 307.

[507] On these national pastimes see Sir Hugh Clifford, _In Court and Kampong_, 1897, p. 46 sq.