Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstra85861922roya).pdf/455

 The old Kedah-Patani Trade-route.

A glance at the map will shew that the whole length of the boundary between Kedah and Siam from the Perak border to the Perlis frontier consists of irregular masses and chains of hills. rising in places to a height of more than 3,000 feet.

The actual boundary is an imaginary line between certain fixed points on the crests of these hills following the watersheds so that all streams flowing westwards are within Kedah territory and these flowing to the east within the dominions of Siam.

The whole of this frontier region is covered with a thick forest growth which renders it almost impassable except in certain naturally favoured regions to the passage of human beings.

In the course of time man in his journeyings has discovered the easiest passages through this chain of hills and has gradually confined himself to certain definite tracks which usually follow the beds of streams until some suitable vantage point is reached for crossing the divide.

From very early times it must have been known that the easiest and most direct trade route between the thriving Malay States of Patani and Kedah was through the defile known as Gĕnting Pahat. The chiselled-out pass (Boundary Stone No. 34), and until the completion of the railway from Patani to Senggora and its continuation thence to Kedah this route was still in vogue for the droving of cattle and the passage of Patani field labourers to Kedab territory for the rice harvest.

As this route in its latter stages has seldom been traversed by Europeans and as the rapid development of road communication in Kedah may at any time bring it into prominence again a short description of the route as it was in June of this year may not be without interest.

Leaving Alor Star in a motor ear a short hour's run along a new and good road brings the traveller to Kuala Nĕrang twenty miles distant where the road ends on a bluff a hundred feet above the river and some two hundred vards below the confluence of the Padang Tĕrap and Pĕdu streams. Kuala Nerang is a growing village and the headquarters of the whole district of Padang Tĕrap which stretches as far as the Siamese frontier.