Being an Account of an Ascent of Mount
Ophir in Malaya, by His Excellency, the Tuan
Hakim of Maur, and the Writer
“And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold,
four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to King
Solomon.”—1 KINGS IX. 28.
“For the King’s ships went to Tarshish with the servants
of Huram; every three years once came the ships of
Tarshish, bringing gold and silver, ivory, and apes, and
peacocks.”—2 CHRONICLES VIII. 21.The rose tints of a tropical sunrise had broken through the heavy bamboo chicks
that jealously guarded the rapidly fleeting half-lights of my room: there came
three deferential taps at the door, and the smiling, olive-tinted face of Ah Minga
appeared at the opening. “Tabek, Tuan,” he saluted, as he raised the mosquito
curtains, and placed a tray of tea and mangosteens on a table by my side.
I sprang to the floor and across the heavily rugged room, and pulled up the
offending chick.
Across the palace grounds, fresh from their morning bath, across the broad river
Maur, for the nonce black in the shadow of the jungle, across the gilded tops of
the jungle, forty miles away as the crow flies, rested the serrated peak of Mount
Ophir.
Directly below me, a soldier in a uniform of duck and a rimless cap with a gold
band was pacing up and down the gravelled walk. A little farther on a bevy of
women and children were bathing in the tepid waters of the river, while a man in
an unpainted prau was keeping watch for a possible crocodile.