Page 124 - Malay sketches

MALAY SKETCHES

Singapore with which they hoped to deal an effective
blow to their enemies.
but of Van
I have said I knew little of Cavaliero,
I know
Hagen, who took command of the recruits,
less. I was told that he had been an officer in the
Netherlands army, and that he lost his commission
owing to some breach of discipline, but that he was
a man of birth, character, and courage.
His heterogeneous force, composed of natives of
half-a-dozen nationalities, went by sea to Klang,
way guides through
disembarked and made its with
the to Kuala There
jungle Lumpor. they stockaded
themselves on a hill above the town and did
valiantly
in its defence. But the was invested
place by the
enemy, supplies were cut off, and while the force
was harassed the fire from the
daily by enemy's
works, provisions ran short and the men were
threatened at once with starvation and the
probability
of surrounded and cut off from their
being entirely
base at Klang, twenty-five miles distant by a jungle
track.
Under these circumstances, and probably moved
by the growing discontent of their men, Van Hagen
and Cavaliero determined, ere it should be too
late,
to endeavour to make their way back to the port.
They were all strangers in the country, and they
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