Among the Carrabees.The story of Bâyan the Paroquet, which I am about to tell, is another rather
striking instance of the utter impunity with which the son of a Chief may take
life, under the rule of a Native Prince in an Independent Malay State.
I first met Bâyan the Paroquet some six months before his death, when I was
making my way across the Peninsula, viâ the Slim Mountains, in 1887. We were
camped for the night at a spot in the jungle on the Pêrak side of the range, in a
natural refuge, which has probably sheltered wayfarers in these forests ever since
primitive man first set foot in the Peninsula. The place is called Bâtu Sâpor—the
Stone Lean-to Hut—in the vernacular, and the name is a descriptive one. It is
situated on the banks of the Brêseh, a little babbling stream which runs down to
the Slim. The banks are high and shelving, but, on the top, they are flat, and it is
here that the gigantic overhanging granite boulder stands, which gives the place
its name. It is of enormous size, and is probably deeply embedded in the ground,
for large trees have taken root and grow upon its upper surface. It projects some
thirty feet over the flat bank, and then, shelving suddenly away to the ground,
forms a stone roof, under which a score of men can camp with ease. The Pahang
Prince, with whom I was travelling, unlike most of the men of that breed, was a
very nervous person, and it was not without much persuasion that I had
succeeded in inducing him to join me in my camp under the shadow of the great
rock. He feared that it would topple over and crush us, nor was he completely
reassured until Saiyid Jasin—the chief of his followers—a shrunken, wizened
little man of many wiles, had propped the stone up with a slender sapling, over
which he had duly recited certain magic incantations.
My attention was specially attracted to Bâyan the Paroquet, because he was the
man who was told off to shampoo me after my march. He was a man of about
forty years of age, thickset and large-limbed for a Malay, with a round bullet-
shaped head, and a jolly smiling face.
Now, Bâyan the Paroquet was what is technically termed a Pĕng-lîpor Lâra—or
'Soother of Cares,'—a class of men which is fast dying out in the Peninsula, as
other mediæval landmarks become effaced. These people are simply the
wandering bards and minstrels, who find their place in an Independent Malay
State as naturally as did their prototypes in the countries of Europe during the
Middle Ages. They learn by rote some old-world tale, which has been
transmitted by word of mouth through countless generations, and they wander