Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/13

 to reside at the Sultan's court as the Agent in question.

This meant that I was privileged to live for nearly two years in complete isolation among the Malays in a native state which was annually cut off from the outside world from October to March by the fury of the northeast monsoon; that this befell me at perhaps the most impressionable period of my life; that having already acquired considerable familiarity with the people, their ideas and their language, I was afforded an unusual opportunity of completing and perfecting my knowledge; and that circumstances compelled me to live in a native hut, on native food, and in native fashion, in the company of a couple of dozen Malays—friends of mine, from the western side of the Peninsula, who had elected to follow my fortunes. Rarely seeing a white face or speaking a word of my own tongue, it thus fell to my lot to be admitted to les coulisses of life in a native state, as it was before the influence of Europeans had tampered with its eccentricities.

Pahang, when I entered it in 1887, presented an almost exact counterpart to the feudal kingdoms of medieval Europe. I saw it pass under the "protection" of Great Britain, which in this case was barely distinguishable from "annexation." I subsequently spent a year or so fighting in dense forests to make that protection a permanency, for some of the chiefs resented our encroachment upon their prerogatives; and when I quitted the land a decade and a half later, it was as safe and