Page 123 - Malay sketches

VAN HAGEN AND CAVALIERO

and the other side, having raised some
scarcity,
money, would in their turn gain an advantage.
Thus the tide of battle ebbed and flowed for
months and years, and the only plain and evident
result was that the population of Selangor was
rapidly diminishing, the ground in the immediate
neighbourhood of Kuala Lumpor town being thickly
planted with corpses, for there the battle was always
the hottest, both because of the Capitan China's
special method and because of the value of the
mines. The survivors on both sides were not only
being reduced to penury, but their leaders were
the com-
becoming involved in debts which only
success of one side followed
plete by lasting
and order could enable the victors to
peace pay
from the revenues derived from the tin-mines. The
debts of the defeated would naturally be irrecover-
able,
While the State was distracted by all this trouble
the Sultan still secured a comparative tranquillity by
his diplomatic sympathy with the combatants, and
whichever side held the Klang custom-house sup-
plied him with funds. That was the price of his
qualified approval.
It was at this time that the Viceroy's party, being
in funds, conceived the plan of raising a force in
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