Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/208

 Chance willed that the conflict should begin at the identical conjuncture when the whole of Acheh was subjected to the influence of "the Habib", The adat-chiefs had at that moment once more received a severe lesson from the teungkus and their adherents. The absence of Habib Abdurrahman at the time of the first hostile movements of the Dutch against Acheh rendered the organisation of the Achehnese still more defective than it might otherwise have been. Yet not even he, had he been present, would have succeeded in maintaining the necessary harmony and (what was most important of all) the necessary discipline. It is questionable whether a capacity for generalship lurked among his numerous talents; but in reviewing his career we must always recollect that this man, elevated in so many respects above the common standard of the Achehnese, was never influenced by a belief in the power of Acheh for continued resistance.

Be this as it may, he was absent at the outbreak of hostilities. The contest between the Achehnese and the Gōmpeuni was from the very first a national war. This followed as a matter of course from the state of popular feeling which we have just described, coupled with their universal skill in the use of arms. But it was an Achehnese national war, that is to say one in which unity of conduct and fixity of plan were entirely wanting.

Many there were who sought the coveted death of martyrs to their creed, selling their lives as dearly as they could. Sometimes they fought in separate bands and sometimes they joined the standards of those adat-chiefs who took the most zealous part in the defence of the capital, such as the Imeum of Luëng Bata.

This Imeum [he died in the year 1901 during the military operations in Samalanga| was a rare phenomenon among the dealing with men. Like most of his fellows he sought to be foremost at fights of animals, gambling parties and sanguinary internal forays. At the same time he possessed those qualities whereby an Achehnese may rise to be an ulèëbalang though not entitled to such a position by his birth. Continually surrounded by boys, he complied with their demands for the repair of their kites and toys as generously as with those of his followers when they begged him to put the requisite fine edge or polish on their weapons. In battle and arduous toil he always encouraged the others by his own example, and at the sharing of profit or spoil he forgot no one. Dissolute though his life was when viewed from a religious