The Further Side of Silence |
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Allah argus pheasant Awang bamboo bank beast betel nut boat body chanced Chêp Chief cried darkness Dâto dawn dead death earth eyes fear feet fell fire followed forest girl ground Hairy Face Haji Haji Ali hand Harelip head heart Hôdoh hour Jělai Juggins jungle jungle-folk Kâya Kelantan kill knew Kria Kria's kris Kûlop Rîau Kûlop Sûmbing Laish leaped lived looked Malay Malay Peninsula Malayan Mamat Mat Drus Mat Kilau Mînah Mîsong Muhammadan native neighbours never night once Pahang Pahang River Pandak Âris Peninsula Pêrak Pi-Noi raft Râja rattan rice river Sâkai camp Sâkai country Saleh salt lick Semang Sentul side sight silence Sir Hugh Clifford sleep sound spear squatted stood stream suddenly Sultan Tělom things tiger tion tree Trenggânu Tuan Tûan Bângau Tungku Ûmat Ûmat's village watched wife wild woman women words
Popular passages
Page vii - The stories composing this book, with a single exception "The Ghoul', which reaches me at second hand - are all relations of incidents in which I have had a part, or in which the principal actors have been familiarly known to me. They faithfully reproduce conditions of life as they existed in the Malayan Peninsula before the white men took a hand in the government of the native states, or immediately after our coming - things as I knew them between...
Page 77 - Clifford, p. 16. has fallen heavily in the mountains, the Telom will rise fourteen or fifteen feet in a couple of hours; and then, for a space, its waters change their temper from wild, impetuous rage to a sullen wrath which is even more formidable and dangerous. But it is when the river is shrunken by drought that it is most of all to be feared; for at such times sharp and jagged rocks, over which, at ordinary seasons, a bamboo raft is able to glide in safety, prick upward from the bed of the stream...
Page 262 - ... unhurried, and his people, young and old, streamed along at his heels, adopting the same nimble gait. They were travelling now far faster than any Malay could hope to do through virgin forest, but they were leaving a trail behind them that any child could follow, and In their passage they were practically clearing a path for the use of their enemies. All day they kept on steadily, only halting now and again for a brief breathing-space when old Sem-pak, overweighted with the load of her seventy...
Page 265 - ... darkness, and the complete loss of the sense of sight served to quicken even their rudimentary imaginations into the conception of a thousand nameless terrors. An hour later the tiger seemed to draw off a little, and then the JunglePeople, who had been too intent upon the beast to spare a thought for any other danger, became aware that human beings were in their vicinity. How they knew this it would be impossible to explain ; the instinct of the wild tribes is as unerring as that of many animals,...
Page 253 - Roots of many kinds were there, some sour jungle-fruits, and a miscellaneous collection of nastiness, which Ka' divided among all the folk present with extreme nicety. Food is so important to the wild Sakai, who never in human memory have had sufficient to eat, that the right of every member of the tribe to have a proportionate share of his fellows' gleanings is recognized by all; and in time of stress, if a cob of maize has to be shared by a dozen, the starving creatures will eat the grain row by...
Page 269 - ... huddled up against one another quaking miserably, waiting in dumb despair for the dawn and for death. So soon as the slow daylight began to make itself felt in the obscurity of the forest, investing the watchers, as it seemed, with a new and wonderful gift of sight, the hunting-party began to close in around its quarry. One or two of the younger Malays who carried muskets, fired a few shots into the thick of their victims, with the object of frightening the last atom of fight out of them, and...
Page 152 - Malay, and has provided him with a soil that produces a maximum of food in return for a minimum of grudging labor; but, rightly viewed, he has suffered from her hands an eternal defeat. . . . The cool, moist fruit groves of Malaya woo men to the lazy enjoyment of their ease during the parching hours of midday, and the native, who long ago has retired from the fight with Nature, and now is quite content to subsist upon her bounty, has caught the spirit of her surroundings, and is very much what environment...
Page 259 - ... silence dreary, desolate, miserable, during which the tap of a wood-pecker could be distinctly heard, while old Sem-pak's gasps, and the throbbing of the listeners' hearts seemed to make a noise like the rhythmical beat of a drum. Then in an instant the whole jungle seemed to have become filled by all the devils in Hell. Every member of the little band was sounding the danger-yell, a shrill, farcarrying cry, half hoot, half scream, in which the despair of the miserable Jungle-Folk makes itself...
Page 262 - Ka' called to his people to follow him, and turning his back upon the ascent in front of him, for none dared again face the fury of the Familiar, he plunged into the jungle, worming a way through the packed treetrunks and the dense undergrowths with incredible speed and deftness. Ka' went at a kind of jog-trot, steady, swift, but careful and unhurried, and his people, young and old, streamed along at his heels adopting the same nimble gait. They were travelling now far faster than any Malay could...
Page 265 - Again and again it prowled about and about the shivering creatures, as though herding them ; but they could see nothing through the intense darkness, and the complete loss of the sense of sight served to quicken even their rudimentary imaginations into the conception of a thousand nameless terrors. An hour later the tiger seemed to draw off a little, and then the JunglePeople, who had been too intent upon the beast to spare a thought for any other danger, became aware that human beings were in their...