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 It did not take long to collect from the neighbouring village of Lambor enough men to fill two boats, and, as that was all the Pénglima wanted for his purpose, the party had started for Batak Rabit (Haji Masah’s village) before the down-stream people had the smallest inkling of their intention. The time was specially well chosen from the fact that the Shabandar was absent in a remote district.

In Japan they say, "If you have not seen Nikko you cannot say gekko,” and if there is anyone who knows the Malay Peninsula and yet has never watched the sun set across the rice-fields, when the ripe grain hangs heavily in the ear, his knowledge of the beauties of Malay scenery is very incomplete.

A wide, flat plain covered by the golden harvest, the rice-stalks standing five or six feet above the ground from which they have sucked all the water which nourished them in the earlier stages of growth. One yellow sea of yellow ears, the green stalks only discernible in the near foreground.

This sea is broken by islands of palms and fruit trees in which nestle the picturesque brown huts of cottagers, houses of wood, built on wooden piles with palm-thatched roofs and mat walls.

The setting sun strikes in great beams of saffron