painfully they baled her out, and then lay for many hours too inert to move.
Late on the third day they reached the shore, but they had been carried many
miles down the coast to a part where they were unknown. The eight naked men
presented themselves at a village and asked for food and shelter, but the people
feared that they were fugitives from some Râja's wrath, and many hours elapsed
before they received the aid of which they stood so sorely in need.
The beliefs and superstitions of the Fisher Folk would fill many volumes. They
believe in all manner of devils and local sprites. They fear greatly the demons
that preside over animals, and will not willingly mention the names of birds or
beasts while at sea. Instead, they call them all chĕweh—which, to them, signifies
an animal, though to others it is meaningless, and is supposed not to be
understanded of the beasts. To this word they tack on the sound which each
beast makes in order to indicate what animal is referred to; thus the pig is the
grunting chĕweh, the buffalo the chĕweh that says 'uak,' and the snipe the chĕweh
that cries 'kek-kek.' Each boat that puts to sea has been medicined with care,
many incantations and other magic observances having been had recourse to, in
obedience to the rules which the superstitious people have followed for ages.
After each take the boat is 'swept' by the medicine man, with a tuft of leaves
prepared with mystic ceremonies, which is carried at the bow for the purpose.
The omens are watched with exact care, and if they be adverse no fishing boat
puts to sea that day. Every act in their lives is regulated by some regard for the
demons of the sea and air, and yet these folk are nominally Muhammadans, and,
according to that faith, magic and sorcery, incantations to the spirits, and prayers
to demons are all unclean things forbidden to the people. But the Fisher Folk,
like other inhabitants of the Peninsula, are Malays first and Muhammadans
afterwards. Their religious creed goes no more than skin deep, and affects but
little the manner of their daily life.
All up and down the coast, from Sĕdĕli in Johor to the islands near Sĕnggôra, the
Fisher Folk are found during the open season. Fleets of smacks leave the villages
for the spots along the shore where fish are most plentiful, and for eight months
in the year these men live and sleep in their boats. The town of Kuâla
Trĕnggânu, however, is the headquarters of the fishing trade, as indeed it is of all
the commercial enterprise on this side of the Peninsula. At the point where the
Trĕnggânu river falls into the sea, a sandy headland juts out, forming a little bay,
to which three conical rocky hills make a background, relieving the general
flatness of the coast. In this bay, and picturesquely grouped about the foot of
these hills, the thatched houses of the capital, and the cool green fruit groves