Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/369

 discord in the villages. The gates of all the least desirable passions were flung unwontedly wide on this occasion, for hitherto the coming of a ma'iong had been a very unusual event in the interior, and a series of deplorable incidents were presently reported to me from many localities in the wide Pahang Valley. While the ma'iong was playing, and it played morn- ing, afternoon, and evening, no one had any care for the crops; the women left their babies and their cooking-pots, and the elders of the people were as stage-struck as the boys and maidens. When the strolling players broke up their panggong and moved forward upon their way, having squeezed a village dry of its last copper coins, many of the peasants followed in their train, cadging for food and lodging from the people at the next halting-place, enduring every sort of discomfort, but unable to tear them- selves away from the fascination of the players and the contemplation of the actresses. Many lawful wives found themselves deserted by their men, and the husbands and fathers in the villages had to keep a sharp eye upon the doings of their wives and daughters while the ma'iong folk were in the neighbour- hood; for when once the drab monotony of their lives is accidentally disturbed, the morality of the Malay villagers, which ordinarily is far better than that of the townsfolk. goes incontinently to pieces like a stranded ship in the trough of an angry sea.

Of all the actor-managers who were then roaming up and down Pahang, none was so successful both with the playgoers and with the women, as Saleh or