Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/174

 come to renew the struggle with weapons which they have wrested from the enemy in the course of the age-long conflict. But in neither instance can the newcomers look for active assistance from the people of the lands they have invaded. The cool, moist fruit groves of Malaya woo men to the lazy enjoyment of their ease during the parching hours of midday, and the native, who long ago has retired from the fight with Nature, and now is quite content to subsist upon her bounty, has caught the spirit of his surroundings, and is very much what environment and circumstances have combined to make him. Those of us who cry shame upon the peoples of the tropics for their inertia would do well to ponder these things, and should realize that energy is to the natives of the heat-belt at once a disturbing and a disgusting quality. It is disturbing because it runs counter to the order of Nature which these people have accepted. It is disgusting because it is opposed to every tenet of their philosophy.

Some five and fifty years ago, when Che' Wan Ahmad—who subsequently was better known as Sultân Ahmad Maätham Shah K. C. M. G.—was collecting his forces in Dungun, preparatory to making his last and successful descent into the Těmběling Valley, whence to overrun and conquer Pahang, the night was closing in at Ranggul. A large house stood at that time in a somewhat isolated position, within a thickly planted compound, at one extremity of the village. In this house seven men and two