The river is broad, yellow and turbid. At the back of the sandy shore grow the casuarinas, and when the breeze stirs their lace-like foliage they make a sound as of people talking. The natives call them talking trees and say that if you stand under them at midnight you will hear voices of unknown people telling you the secrets of the earth.
A green hill. The jungle reached to its crest, an intoxication of verdure, and the luxuriousness was such that it left you breathless and embarrassed. It was a symphony of green, as though a composer working in colour instead of with sound had sought to express something extraordinarily subtle in a barbaric medium. The greens ranged from the pallor of the aquamarine to the profundity of jade. There was an emerald that blared like a trumpet and a pale sage that trembled like a flute.
The yellow river under the breathless sun of midday had the white pallor of death. A native was paddling upstream in a frail dug-out so small that it hardly showed above the surface of the water. On the banks of the river, here and there, were Malay houses on their piles.
Toward evening a flight of egrets flew down the river, flying low, and scattered. They were like a ripple of white notes, sweet and pure and springlike, which an unseen hand drew forth, like a divine arpeggio, from an unseen harp.
S. A boy of eighteen who has just come out. A rather good-looking youth, with blue eyes and curly chestnut hair that grows thickly on his neck. He is trying to grow a moustache. He has a charming smile with him. He is ingenuous and naïf. He has the enthusiasm of youth and the mannerisms of a cavalry officer.
The mangrove swamp. Along the coast and at the mouth of the river grow mangroves and nipah. The nipah is a long-leafed dwarf palm, like those palms which in old pictures you see carried on Palm Sunday. They grow at the water’s edge, reclaiming the soil, and when they have made fresh, fruitful earth they die down and the jungle takes their place. They are the pioneers preparing the country for the traders and the motley crowd of humanity that come after them.
The Sarawak River. The mouth is very broad. On each side are mangrove and nipah washed by the water and behind the dense green of the jungle, and in the distance, darkly silhouetted against the blue sky, the rugged outline of a mountain. You have no sense of gloom, of being shut in, but of space and freedom. The green glitters in the sunshine and the sky is blithe and cheerful. You seem to enter upon a friendly, fertile land.
A blue sky, not pale with the languor of great heat, nor violent like the skies of Italy, but as though Prussian blue were mixed with milk; and like little sailing boats on the sea white clouds, shining in the sun, pass leisurely.
A room. The walls were of unstained wood and on them hung photogravures of Academy pictures, Dyak shields, parangs and huge straw hats with a symmetrical decoration in gay colours. Long cane chairs. Pieces of Brunei brass ware. Orchids in a vase. The table was covered with a dingy Dyak cloth. On a rough wooden shelf were cheap editions of novels and old travel books in battered leather. In one corner a shelf crowded with bottles. Rattan matting on the floor.
The room opened on to a veranda. It was only a few feet from the river, and from the bazaar on the opposite bank you heard the beating of a gong for some Chinese festivity.
The chik-chak. It is a small brown lizard which gives the sound from which it gains its name. You can hardly believe that so loud a noise can come from so small a throat. You hear it at night, a curiously human sound that breaks upon the silence suddenly, and there is something derisive about it. You might think it was chuckling with amusement at the white men who come and go and leave all things as they were.
In the early morning the colours are brilliant, yet tender, and then as the day wears on they grow tired and pale. They are then only the various tones of the heat. It is like a Chinese melody, in the minor key, which exacerbates the nerves by its monotony. The ear awaits a resolution which never comes.
The prisoners are engaged in public works, and you see them, under the guardianship of a Sikh, on the roads, taking their work not too hardly, and those in chains, because they have previously escaped, are to all appearances not much inconvenienced by them.
The jungle. There is no sign of a pathway and the ground is thickly strewn with decaying leaves. The trees grow dense, trees with enormous leaves and trees with the feathery foliage of the acacia, coconut trees and the areca palm with its long, straight white stem, bamboos and wild sago like huge bunches of ostrich feathers. Here and there, white and naked, is the skeleton of a dead tree; and its whiteness against all the green is startling. Here and there, rival kings of the forest, tall trees, with profuse and heavy foliage, soar above the common level of the jungle.
Then there are the parasites, great tufts of green leaf growing in the fork of a tree, flowering creepers that cover a tree like a bridal veil; sometimes they wind a sheath of splendour round the tall trunks and throw long arms of flowers from branch to branch.
In the early day all this green is blithe and exhilarating. There is nothing sombre or oppressive in it, but in the passionate wildness of all that growth a strange excitement. It has the daring abandon of the maenad rioting along in the train of the god.
Going up the river. High overhead fly a pair of doves and a kingfisher darts rapidly across the water, a flash of colour, a living jewel, brilliant like a Chinese porcelain. Two monkeys sit side by side on a branch with their tails hanging down; another monkey leaps from branch to branch. There is the ceaseless sound of the cicadas, and the sound has a sort of fury. It is as continual and monotonous as the rushing of a brook over a rocky bed. Then suddenly it is silenced by the loud singing of a bird, whose notes are those of an English blackbird.
At night the frogs croak, croak, croak, such a racket; and now and then some singing bird of the night breaks in upon it with a few short notes. The fireflies give the shrubs the look of a Christmas tree all lit up with tiny candles. They sparkle softly; the radiance of a soul at peace.
The river narrows and it is like a leafy reach of the Thames.
The fever bird. It has three notes, and it just misses the fourth which would make the chord, and the ear waits for it maddeningly.
The Bore. We saw it coming from a good way off, two or three large waves following one another, and it didn’t look very alarming. It came nearer, very quickly, with a roar like the roar of a stormy sea, and I saw that the waves were much larger than I had thought. I didn’t like the look of them, and I tightened my belt so that my trousers shouldn’t slip down if I had to swim for it. Then in a moment the Bore was upon us. It was a great mass of water, eight, ten, twelve feet high, and it was quite plain at once that no boat could weather it. The first wave dashed over us, drenching us all and half filling the boat with water, and then immediately another wave struck us. The boatmen began to shout. They were prisoners from the up-country jail and they wore their prison clothes. They lost control of the boat; the force of the water turned it round so that we were broadside on as we were carried on the crest of the Bore. Another wave dashed over us and we began to sink. Gerald, R. and I scrambled from beneath the awning under which we had been lying, and suddenly the boat gave way under us and we found ourselves in the water. It was surging and storming round us. My first impulse was to swim for the shore, but R. shouted to Gerald and me to cling to the boat. For two or three minutes we did this. I expected that the waves would pass as the Bore swept up the river and that in a few minutes at the outside we should find ourselves once more in calm water. I forgot that we were being carried along with the Bore. The waves kept dashing over us. We were hanging on to the gunwale and the base of the framework which supported the rattan mats of the awning. Then a bigger wave caught the boat, and it turned over, falling upon us, so that we lost our hold. There was nothing then but a slippery bottom to put our hands to, and as the keel came within reach we made a desperate grab at it. The boat continued to turn, like a wheel, and then we caught hold of the gunwale with a greater sense of security, only to feel the boat turn again, forcing us under water, an
d the whole business repeated itself.
This went on for I don’t know how long. I thought it was because we were all clinging to the side of the boat, and I tried to get some of the crew to go round to the other side; I thought that if half of us remained on one side while half went over to the other, we could keep the boat bottom down and so easily hang on; but I could make no one understand. The waves swept over us, and each time the gunwale slipped out of my hand I was pushed under, only to come up again as the keel gave me something to cling to.
Presently I began to get terribly out of breath, and I felt my strength going. I knew I couldn’t hold out much longer. I thought the best thing was to make a dash for the bank, but Gerald begged me to try to hold on. The bank now didn’t look more than forty or fifty yards away. We were still being carried along among the seething, pounding waves. The boat went round and round and we all scrambled round it like squirrels in a cage. I swallowed a good deal of water. I felt I was very nearly done. Gerald stayed near me and two or three times gave me a hand. He couldn’t do much, for as the side of the boat fell over us we were equally helpless. Then, I don’t know why, for three or four minutes the boat held keel downwards, and we were able to hold on and rest. I thought the danger was past. It was a precious thing to be able to get one’s breath. But on a sudden the boat rolled right round again, and the same thing repeated itself. The few moments’ respite had helped me, and I was able to struggle a little longer. Then again I became terribly out of breath and I felt as weak as a rat. My strength was gone, and I didn’t know if I had enough now to try to swim for the shore. Gerald by this time was nearly as exhausted as I was. I told him my only chance was to try to get ashore. I suppose we were in deeper water then, for it seemed that the waves were not so turbulent. On the other side of Gerald were two of the crew, and somehow they understood that we were down and out. They made signs to us that now we could risk making for the bank. I was dreadfully tired. They caught hold of a thin mattress as it floated past us, it was one of those that we had been lying on, and they made it into a roll which they used as a life-belt. It didn’t look as though it would be much use, but I took hold of it with one hand, and with the other struck out for the shore. The two men came with Gerald and me. One of them swam by my side. I don’t quite know how we reached it. Suddenly Gerald cried out that he could touch the bottom. I put down my legs, but could feel nothing. I swam a few more strokes, and then, trying again, my feet sank into thick mud. I was thankful to feel its beastly softness. I floundered on, and there was the bank, black mud into which we sank up to the knees.
We scrambled up with the help of roots of dead trees that stuck out of the mud, and when we came to the top found a little flat of tall rank grass. We sank down and for a while lay there stretched out and exhausted. We were so tired that we couldn’t move. We were covered with black mud from head to foot. After a time we stripped off our things and I made myself a loin cloth out of my dripping shirt. Then Gerald had a heart attack. I thought he was going to die. I could do nothing but let him lie still and tell him it would pass over. I don’t know how long we lay there, the better part of an hour, I should think, and I don’t know how long we were in the water. At last R. came along in a canoe and fetched us off.
When we got to the Dyak long-house on the other side where we were to spend the night, although we were caked with mud from top to toe, and were in the habit of having a swim three or four times a day, we couldn’t bring ourselves to go into the river, but washed ourselves perfunctorily in a pail. None of us said anything, but we certainly all felt that we didn’t want to have anything more to do with the river that night.
Looking back, I was surprised to notice that not at any moment had I been at all frightened. I suppose the struggle was so severe that there was no time for any emotion, and even when I felt my strength going and thought that in a moment or two I should have to give up, I am not conscious that I had any feeling of fear or even distress at the thought of death by drowning. I was so tired that it seemed to me rather in the nature of a relief. Later in the evening when I was sitting in a dry sarong in the Dyak house and from it saw the yellow moon lying on her back it gave me a keen, almost a sensual pleasure. I couldn’t help thinking that I might at that moment have been a corpse floating along with the tide up the river. And next morning when we started off again to go down stream I found an added pleasure in the cheerful sky and the sunshine and the greenness of the trees. The air was singularly good to breathe.
The Dyak House. It was very long, built on piles, with a thatched roof. Access was obtained by climbing up the trunk of a tree which had been rudely notched into steps. There was a veranda outside, the floor of which was made of bamboos attached with rattan; and within a long common-room with a platform and the rooms in each one of which lived a family. At the sides of the common-room stood the large jars which are the Dyaks’ wealth. When we came in, clean mats were unrolled and laid down for us to sit on. Chickens flew about. A monkey was attached to one of the posts. Dogs wandered around. Beds were made up for us on the platform. Through the night cocks crowed and with the dawn they made an infernal racket. Then the noise of the household began again. The men set out for their work in the rice-fields. The women went down to the river to get water. The sun had scarcely risen and the long-house was already as busy as a hive.
The Dyaks are rather small, but very trimly built, with brown skins, large shining eye, flat in the skull like the eyes of Coptic mosaics, and flat noses. They have ready, sweet smiles and engaging manners. The women are very small, shy, with something hieratic in their immobile faces, pretty, with dainty little figures when they are young. But they age quickly, their hair goes grey, and the skin hangs loosely on their bones, all wrinkled and shrivelled; and their dried breasts are pendulous. There was an old, old woman, quite blind, who sat in a corner like an idol, upright on her haunches, taking no notice of anyone. The busy life passed her by and she remained absorbed in memories of the past. The preparation of the rice is left to the women. There is an absolute division of labour, and it would never occur to a man to do anything that immemorial custom has established as woman’s work. The women wear nothing but a cloth reaching from the waist to the knee. Round their arms is curled silver wire and many have silver wire curled round their waists. It looks like a huge watch spring. They carry their children on their backs, making a seat for them from a shawl tied round their necks. The men wear silver bracelets, ear-rings and rings, and in full dress they are handsome and jaunty. Many of them have long hair hanging down their backs; and the slightly feminine appearance it gives them is strange and ambiguous. For all their ready smiles and pleasant manners you feel in them a latent savagery which is a little startling.
Under the long-house pigs rustled around devouring garbage, and chickens and ducks kept up a constant clatter. From the house to the river a pathway was made of roughly-hewn planks so that you should not have to walk in the mud of the track, but when the tide is low you have to climb up slippery banks of mud, dark and slimy, into which you sink knee-deep.
When I got back to Kuching I wrote to the Resident with whom we had been staying and asked him if he could see his way to commuting the sentences of the two prisoners who had saved my life. He wrote back and told me that he had set one of them free, but was afraid he could not do anything for the other, since on his way back to Simiangang he had stopped off at his own village and killed his mother-in-law.
An eastern river. On either bank the jungle spread densely, and under the full moon it was blacker than the night, silent with a silence in which was something ominous. You shuddered as you thought of the dark, violent things which its thick foliage shrouded. It seemed to wait expectantly. But in the clear sky the moon proceeded leisurely: it was like the squire’s lady, portly in her Sunday best, sailing up the aisle of the village church. Then in the east, beneath a ragged fringe of cloud, a faint redness appeared. On the placid river a sampan glided silently and against the water you saw the
dim figure of the standing fisherman. On the bank a solitary light gleamed friendly amid the jungle wildness, and you guessed that a grass hut stood there clinging to the water’s edge and pressed upon fiercely by the lush extravagance of palm and strange-named tree and creeping plant. Now the redness in the East was lurid. The ragged clouds were torn and tortured: the sun was rising unpeacefully as though he strove desperately with unknown, dark and merciless powers. And when you looked up the river it was day; but when you looked back, the moon shone tranquilly and the night lingered serene.
L. He is a little over forty, of about the middle height, thin, very dark, slightly bald, with black hair and large eyes à fleur de tête. He has not the look of an Englishman, but rather of a Levantine. He speaks, without modulation, on one note. He has lived so long on outstations that he is shy and silent in company. He has a native wife whom he does not care for and four half-caste children whom he is educating in Singapore to be clerks in Government offices in Sarawak. He never wants to go to England, where he feels himself a stranger. He speaks Dyak and Malay like a native; he was born in the country and knows the native mind better than he knows the English. He got engaged to a girl on one of his leaves in England, but the thought of his native family harassed him so that he broke off the engagement. He would much sooner be on an outstation than in Kuching. He seldom smiles. He is a morbid, melancholy man, very conscientious, and always afraid of doing wrong. When he talks, without humour, he is verbose and dull. Life is a blind alley.
The bazaar at Kuching. The bazaar consists of narrow streets with arcades like those of Bologna and each house is a shop in which you see the thronging Chinese pursuing the busy life of the Chinese town, working, eating, talking. On the banks of the river are the native huts, and here, living their immemorial lives, are the Malays. As you wander in the crowd, as you linger watching, you get a curious, thrilling sense of urgent life. You divine a happy, normal activity. Birth and death, love and hunger; these are the affairs of man. And through that press of people passes the white man who rules them. He is never part of the life about him. So long as the Chinese keep the peace and pay their taxes he does not interfere with them. He is a pale stranger who moves through all this reality like a being from another planet. He is no more than a policeman. He is the eternal exile. He has no interest in the place. He is only waiting for his pension, and he knows that when he gets it he will be unfit to live anywhere but here. In the club they often discuss where they shall live when they retire. They are bored with themselves, bored with one another. They look forward to their freedom from bondage and yet the future fills them with dismay.
A Writer's Notebook (Vintage International) Page 21