Page 249 - Malay sketches

JAMES WHEELER WOODFORD BIRCH
with the and it is who are
upper classes, they only
concerned in political movements ; the common
people do not fast as a rule, and leave the plotting
to the chiefs, whose business they think it is to
scheme and to direct, theirs to obey.
In Lower Perak during this particular month of
Ramthan, an unusual amount of discussion had
been carried on between Sultan Abdullah and his
and determined not that the
chiefs, they only
British Resident should be got rid of, but one
of them, entitled the Maharaja Lela, undertook to
do the business the next time Mr. Birch visited
him.
This man, the Maharaja Lela, was a chief of con-
siderable rank, after the Sultan he was the seventh
in the State. He lived at Pasir Salak, on the right
bank of the Perak River, about thirty miles above
the residence of Sultan Abdullah, and about forty
below that of ex-Sultan Ismail. He avoided Mr.
Birch whenever it was possible (though living only
five miles from and to friends
him), managed keep
with both Sultans.
During the month, Sultan Abdullah, who was
then with his boats at Pasir a couple of
Panjang,
miles below the Maharaja Lela's house, summoned
his chiefs and informed them that he had given over
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