kamooning wood each week keep them supplied with their one article of dress—
the sarong. They never heard of the Bible, but they are very religious, and at
sunrise and sunset, at the deep-toned boom of the hollow log that hangs before
their little thatched mosques, they fall on their faces and pray to “Allah, the All
Merciful and Loving Kind.”
When the Crown Prince had stepped modestly back among his brothers and
cousins, a holy man in green robes and turban came forward and read an address
in Arabic. He recited the glories of the Prophet, the promises of the Koran, and
then told of the ancient greatness of Johore,—how it once ruled the great
peninsula that forever points like a lean, disjointed finger down into the heart of
the greatest archipelago of the world,—how its ruler was looked up to and made
treaties with, by the kings of Europe,—of the coming of the thieving Portuguese
and the brutal Dutch,—of the dark, bloody years when the deposed descendants
of the once proud Emperors of Johore turned to piracy,—of the new days that
commenced when that great Englishman, Sir Stamford Raffles, founded
Singapore,—down to the glorious reign of the present just ruler, Abubaker.
Our eyes wandered from time to time out through the cool marble courts and
tried vainly to pierce the botanic chaos that crowded close up to the palace
grounds. Banian and sacred waringhan trees covered great stretches of ground,
and dropped their fantastic roots into the steaming earth like living stalactites.
The fan-shaped, water-hoarding traveller’s palm formed a background for the
brilliant magenta-colored bougainvillea. The dim, translucent depths of an
orchid-house lured us on, or a great pond covered with the sacred lotus, blue
lilies, and the flush-colored cups of the superb Victoria regia commanded our
admiration. Palms, flowering shrubs, ferns, and creepers rioted on all sides.
Monkeys swung above in the ropelike tendrils of the rubber-vines, and spotted
deer gamboled beneath the shade of mango trees.
The brilliant audience listened with bated breath to the dramatic recital of their
nation’s story. Even we, who did not understand a word, were impressed by their
flushed faces and eager attention, and when the band in the columned corridors
beyond broke forth into the national anthem of Johore and the vast concourse
outside took up the shouts of fealty that began within, I, for one, felt an almost
irresistible desire to join in the shouts and do honor to the kindly old Sultan and
his graceful son.