Page 85 - Malay sketches

LATAH

thatch roof, and no doors. Outside it was a high
watch-tower of the same materials, but the ladder
to it had fallen down. Of roads there were none,
but a mud path ran through the stockade from
river bank to village, distant some 300 yards. My
own accommodation was a cot borrowed from the
Hart and slung between two posts, while the men
on the walls of the stockade.
slept
The place had drawbacks other than mosquitoes,
for the public path ran through it, the tide at high
water completely covered the floor, and the log
walls were full of snakes. The state of the sur-
roundings will best be understood when I say that
during the many months I lived there I did not
wear boots outside the stockade, because there was
nothing to walk upon but deep mud, and that the
only water fit to use was contained in a well or
pond a quarter of a mile off, to which I walked
every day to bathe.
With the second batch of police had come an
European inspector, and he and I were the only
white men in the country.
Amongst the twenty-five police were two men of
the name of Kasim they were both natives of
;
Amboina, but very different in disposition, and they
were known among their comrades as Kasim BZsar
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