The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

XII.] LOMBOCK: HOW THE KAJAH TOOK THE CENSUS. 137they would quickly understand what it was foi', and the censuswould be sure to agree exactly with the quantity of rice he gotlast year. It was evident therefore that to answer his purposeno one must suspect why the census was taken ; and to makesure of this, no one must know that there was any censustaken at all. This was a very hard problem ; and the Rajahthought and tliouglit, as hard as a Malay Eajah can be expectedto think, but could not soh'e it ; and so he was xevy unhappy,and did nothing but smoke and chew betel with liis favouritewife, and eat scarcely anything ; and even when he went to thecock-fight did not seem to care wliether his best birds won orlost. For several days he remained in this sad state, and all thecourt were afraid some evil eye had bewitched the Eajah ; andan unfortunate Irish captain who had come in for a cargo ofrice and who squinted dreadfully, was very nearly being krissed,but being first brought to the royal presence was graciouslyordered to go on board and remain there while his shiiD stayedin the port.One morning however, after about a week's continuance ofthis unaccountable melancholy, a welcome change took place,for the Eajah sent to call together all the chiefs and priests andprinces who were then in Mataram, his capital city ;and whenthey were all assembled in anxious expectation, he thusaddressed them :" For many days my heart has been very sick and I knew notwhy, but now the trouble is cleared away, for I have had adream. Last night the spirit of the Gunong Agong '—the'great fire mountain—appeared to me, and told me that I mustgo up to the top of the mountain. All of you may come withme to near the top, but then I must go up alone, and the greatspirit will again appear to me and will tell me what is of greatimportance to me and to you and to all the people of the island.Now go all of you and make this known through the island, andlet every village furnish men to make clear a road for us to gothrough the forest and up the great mountain."So the news was spread over the whole island that the Eajahmust go to meet the great spirit on the top of the mountain ;and every village sent foi'th its men, and they cleared awaythe jungle and made bridges over the mountain streams andsmoothed the rough places for the Eajah's passage. And whenthey came to the steep and craggy rocks of the mountain, theysought out the best paths, sometimes along the bed of a torrent,sometimes along narrow ledges of the black rocks ; in one placecutting doNvn a tall tree so as to bridge aci'oss a chasm, inanother constructing ladders to mount the smooth face of aprecipice. The chiefs who superintended the work fixed upon thelength of each day's journey beforehand according to the natureof the road, and chose pleasant places by the banks of clearstreams and in the neighbourhood of shady trees, where theybuilt sheds and huts of bamboo well thatched with the leaves of