Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/180

 of the sagis that made war on one another. The lesser ulèëbalangs, who each controlled 12 gampōngs (Teuku Kali and Panglima Meuseugit Raya) did the same, though their territories marched with the Dalam, and they might more than other chiefs have been supposed to be creatures of the sultanate. Even the sultan's own followers took part in these conflicts, espousing different sides.

Had a sultan or a scion of the royal house, endowed with exceptional strength of will and clearness of judgment, placed himself at the head of the struggle à outrance which took place when the Dutch came to Acheh, and inspired the Achehnese people by precept and example, such a prince would without doubt have been for the invaders anything but a negligable quantity. Such an one could more easily than any other have succeeded in uniting much divided Acheh into a whole entirely hostile to the foreign foe. As it is, an ulama who preaches holy war is able to deprive an Achehnese ulèëbalang of the allegiance of a considerable portion of his subjects; how much more could have been accomplished by a raja who was the ulamas' equal in sacred authority, and over and above this was clothed with the legendary traditions of the past greatness of Acheh!

Such a supposition, however, is not warranted by the actual state of things. Political foresight is, in these days at least, foreign to the nature of all Achehnese. A raja of Acheh in particular, who plunged into the fray with persevering self-sacrifice in the interests of the people or their religion would be a phenomenon that the Achehnese themselves would be unable to explain except as a revelation of the boundless miraculous power of God.

To this we may add that nowhere could worse material be found for organizing a stout resistance to foreign invasion than in the lowland districts of Acheh in the immediate neighbourhood of the Dalam. There the people were "banda" or worldly-wise, and not duson, "ignorant and countrified" like the highlanders. They would indeed have preferred the continuance of the old regime without foreign interference, for they were inclined by their own past history haughtily to rebel against all ideas of foreign supremacy. Yet they were disposed to moderate views through abundant contact with non-Mohammedan as well as Mohammedan strangers, and were far removed from the frank belief in the invincibility of Moslim weapons in general and of those of theAchehnese in particular, which inspired the semi-savage highlanders.