THE EXPERIENCES OF RÂJA HAJI
HAMID
I've spent my life in war and strife,
And now I'm waxing old;
I've planned and wrought, and dared and fought,
And all my tale is told;
I've made my kill, and felt the chill
Of blades that stab and hew,
And my only theme, as I sit and dream,
Is the deeds I was wont to do.These things were told me by Râja Haji Hamid, as he and I lay smoking on our
mats during the cool, still hours before the dawn. He was a Sĕlângor man who
had accompanied me to the East Coast, as chief of my followers, a band of
ruffians, who at that time were engaged in helping me to act as 'the bait at the tip
of the fish-hook,' in an Independent Malay State—to use the phrase then current
among my people.
We had passed the evening in the King's Bâlai watching the Chinamen raking in
their gains, while the Malays gambled and cursed their luck, with much slapping
of thighs, and frequent references to God and his Prophet,—according to whose
teaching gaming is an unclean thing. The sight of the play, and of the fierce
passions which it aroused, had awakened memories in Râja Haji's mind, and it
was evidently not without a pang that he remembered that the turban round his
head,—which his increasing years, and his manifold sins, had driven him to
Mecca to seek,—forbade him to partake publicly in the unholy sport. Like most
of those who have outgrown their pleasant vices, he had a hearty admiration for
his old, prodigal, unregenerate self; and, as I lay listening, he spoke lovingly of
the old days at Sĕlângor, before the coming of the white men.
'Allah Tûan! I loved those old times exceedingly! When the Company had not
yet come to Sĕlângor, when all were shy of Si-Hamid, and none dared face his