IN THE DAYS WHEN THE LAND WAS
FREE
Alas, the shifting years have sped,
Since we were hale and strong,
Who oft have seen the hot blood shed,
Nor held the deed a wrong;
When the flames leap'd bright, thro' the frightened night,
When the sćrak rang thro' the lea,
When a man might fight, and when might was right,
In the Days when the Land was Free.The Song of the Fettered Folk.In 1873 the people of Pahang who, then as now, were ever ready to go upon the
war-path, poured over the cool summits of the range that forms at once the
backbone of the Peninsula and the boundary between Pahang and Sĕlângor.
They went, at the invitation of the British Government, to bring to a final
conclusion the protracted struggles, in which Malay Râjas, foreign mercenaries,
and Chinese miners had alike been engaged for years, distracting the State of
Sĕlângor, and breaking the peace of the Peninsula. A few months later, the
Pahang Army, albeit sadly reduced by cholera, poured back again across the
mountains, the survivors slapping their chests and their kris-hilts, and boasting
loudly of their deeds, as befitted victorious warriors in a Malay land. The same
stories are still told 'with circumstance and much embroidery,' by those who took
part in the campaign, throughout the length and breadth of Pahang even unto this
day.
Among the great Chiefs who led their people across the range, one of the last to
go, and one of those whose heart was most uplifted by victory, was the present
Mahrâja Pĕrba of Jĕlai, commonly called To’ Râja. His own people, even at that
time, gave him the title he now bears, but the Bĕndăhâra of Pahang (since styled
Sultân) had never formally installed him in the hereditary office of which he was