was up, an armed party of neighbours came to the house to
see if ought could be done. But they found the place a shambles, the
bodies hardly to be recognised, the floor-laths dripping blood, and Mat
lying face downward on the shelf, with his reason tottering in the
balance. The bodies, though they had been horribly mutilated, had not
been eaten, the tiger having contented himself with drinking the blood
of his victims, and playing his ghastly game with them till the dawn
broke.

This is, I believe, the only recorded instance in the Peninsula of a
tiger having dared to attack men within their closed houses; and the
circumstances are so remarkable in every way, that I, for one, cannot
find it in me to greatly blame the Malays for attributing the
fearlessness of mankind, and the lust for blood displayed by Him of the
Hairy Face, to the fact that he owed his existence to magic agencies,
and was in reality no mere wild beast, but a member of the race upon
which he so cruelly preyed.

IN THE DAYS WHEN THE LAND WAS FREE

Alas, the shifting years have sped,
Since we were hale and strong,
Who oft have seen the hot blood shed,
Nor held the deed a wrong;
When the flames leap'd bright, thro' the frightened night,
When the _scrak_ rang thro' the lea,
When a man might fight, and when might was right,
In the Days when the Land was Free.

_The Song of the Fettered Folk._

In 1873 the people of Pahang who, then as now, were ever ready to go
upon the war-path, poured over the cool summits of the range that forms
at once the backbone of the Peninsula and the boundary between Pahang
and Selangor. They went, at the invitation of the British Government, to
bring to a final conclusion the protracted struggles, in which Malay
_Rajas_, foreign mercenaries, and Chinese miners had alike been engaged
for years, distracting the State of Selangor, and breaking the peace of
the Peninsula. A few months later, the Pahang Army, albeit sadly reduced
by cholera, poured back again across the mountains, the survivors
slapping their chests and their _kris_-hilts, and boasting loudly of
their deeds, as befitted victorious warriors in a Malay land. The same
stories are still told 'with circumstance and much embroidery,' by those
who took part in the campaign, throughout the length and breadth of
Pahang even unto this day.

Among the great Chiefs who led their p