CO882-(2-3) — Page 551

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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TITTIC.O. 882

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

Bandar

Flang

Qualla Lampor.

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A range of hills, a mile from the tin mines in a south-westerly direction, are covered on one side with camphor trees, hitherto undisturbed, as no one knows how to work them. The trees are very large, from 8 feet to 12 feet in circumference.

The Port of Kanching is a place called Bandar, 5 miles off on the Salangore side. There is a first rate unmetalled road between these places, and the Bandar, or as it is called, Kanching river, falls into the Balangore river thirty to thirty-five miles from Qualla Salangore. The road from Bandar to Kanching has been made within the last four months by the Captain China of Qualla Lumpor. Formerly there were gardens on both sides of it, but they were abandoned in the late disturbances, and are just being taken up again. In Bandar there are a number of good shops, built on purpose for the excellent accommodation of traders who hire them during their stay.

The low hills and flat ground on both sides of the Salangore river appear for the cultivation of tobacco, gambier, coffee, pepper, and sugar, and I think there is no reason why tea should not be grown here as well as on the Alma Fatate in Province Wellesley.

Qualla Salangore is famed for the numbers and excellence of its fish, and large quantities are cured, 'as at Bernam, for export.

Twenty-five miles in a southerly direction from Qualla Salangore is Qualla Klang, in the Klang Straits, and ten miles up the river is the town of Klang, or as the natives know it, Pencallen Batu.

It is here that all the taxes are collected on the imports and exports of Klang, and here also resides Tunku dia Oodin, Viceroy of the Sultan of Salangore.

On both sides of the river is high ground, the land here being in a series of low hills, but the town is situated on the left bank of the river only.

Klang itself is merely the port and seat of Government; it has about 800 inhabi- tants. There are numbers of good cocoanut plantations up the river as far as Daman- Bara, and from this place there is a path to Qualla Lumpor, the mining town of the interior.

The soil of Klang would seem equally good for cultivation as that of Salangore, and a launch could go a considerable way up the river. A steamer runs between Malacca and Pencallen Batu once a week. The revenue is raised on import duties on opium, rice, tobacco, oil, &c., and export duties on tin and gutta.

Qualla Lumpor, which is from two to three days by boat from Pencallen Batu, may be reached from Damansara in a day's walk. If a good road were cut from Damansara to Qualla Lumpor, it would only be about sixteen miles long. The cost would be about 12,000 dollars, and it would be well worth that outlay to have a good road connecting such an important place as Qualla Lumpor with Pencallen Batu.

Qualla Lampor, the depot for all the mines in Klang, is perhaps the best built village, and has the most flourishing appearance of any in the Peninsula. The town is well laid out, with a market and a gambling booth, and is situated on the left bank of the Klang river. There are numbers of good shops, both Chinese and Malay, and quantities of boats. There are about 1,000 Chinese and 700 Malays resident in the town, and the authorities are a Captain China and a Toh Dagang. In and around Qualla Lumpor, that is to say, including the mines, there are about 7,000 Malays and Chinese. 1,500 Chinese are said to have come into Kiang since their new year. The last time the steam-ship "Telegraph" came into Klang, on the 5th instant, she left nearly 200 would-be passengers, Chinese, at Malacca, for want of space. The Captain China has a capital house at Qualla Lumpor; probably no other Chinaman in the native States has such a good one, and all the other houses are roomy and substantial.

There are no mines actually at Qualla Lumpor, they are at Sungie Putih, Ulu Ampang, and Ulu Klang; Sungie Putih and Ulu Ampang eight miles (in different direc- tions) from Qualla Lumpor, along first-rate bullock-cart roads, and Ulu Klang further still. At Pateling, about two miles lower down the Klang river, there are also mines close by the river. Tobacco has been introduced here, grown by Minangkabow Malays, and is doing exceedingly well.

The Captain China has made all the roads, and he is now making one to Pateling, and cutting the jungle for the road to Damansara. The Captain China told me almost the whole of the present town of Qualla Lumpor had been built within the last year, that is to say, since the Settlement of Perak affairs by his Excellency Sir Andrew Clarke, and the engagement made at Pulo Pangkor in January 1874; for the measures then taken had such a wide-spread influence that from that date Salangore, as well as Perak, seems to have forgotten her old struggles, and to have given her energy to improving the peace He told me he had seen hitherto almost unknown to her. The greatest credit is due to the Captain China for what he has done, unaided almost, against great difficulties-

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Qualla Lumpor destroyed three times, and had three times rebult it; certainly the Qualla Lumpor of to-day is a very great improvement on the town of four years ago.

Langat. Some fort to forty-five miles from Pencallen Batu, by the Klang and Langat. Langat Rivers, or a shorter distance if you go through the Klang Straits and up the Jugra River, lies the town of Langat, known as Bandar Termasa, situated at the junction of the Langat and Jugra Rivers. From Langat to the sea by the Jugra River is about Beven miles.

Some twenty years ago it seems this river did not exist, that is to say, it only came as far as the foot of the Jugra or Parcelar hill. Then, it is said, there was a ditch which you could stride over, where now there is a river 40 yards wide and four or five fathoms deep. Up this ditch the water gradually forced its way, until it met the Langat River, and then, by degrees, the ditch became a canal, through which the ebb and flood tides rushed with a violence which made the present river, and which even now monthly carries away large quantities of the bank with houses and cocoanut trees. Ever since I came here, yards of bank have been washed into the river, and the Sultan's house at Langat cannot last long.

The distance from Langat to the sea by the Langat River is about thirty-five miles, by the Jugra River seven miles, and this causes a very curious run of the tides. Thus, the tide will still be flowing in the Langat Rriver when it is ebbing in the Jugra River, and again, if it be ebbing in both rivers, the tide ebbs so much faster in the Jugra River, that the waters of the Langat River for a mile below the junction will run into the Jugra River; thus you come up the Langat River against the tide, then you have it with you for a mile, and then against you far up above Langat.

The Sultan takes the greatest interest in Langat, and more especially the Parcelar Hill, which is so close as to be almost a part of it; but he has such confidence in the friendship of the British Government that he is anxious to put the entire management of his country into its hands, and so far back as September of last year made written overtures to that effect.

Personally, I have met with unvaring politeness and respect from the Langat people of every grade, and no instance has occurred of the slightest dispute or bad-feeling between the Langat people and my own. Of the Sultan, I can only repeat that he has I have been most kind and considerate, not only to myself but to all those with me. been to every town and village in the Sultan's country, whether in the "Ula" or "Hilir," except one, the Ulu Bernam; and from Salangore men or foreigners, whether Malay or Chinese, I have heard node but favourable opinions expressed when speaking of His Highness.

In Langat and on the Parcelar Hill there are about 700 people, and amongst them, numbers of Rajas of both sexes. There are a considerable number of shops kept both by Malays and Chinese,

It is difficult to keep good roads and houses in Langat, owing to the lowness of its situation, and the tides constantly washing way houses and trees, but much has been done lately to improve the place, many new houses have been built at a safe distance from the river, and the Sultan has brought a number of Javanese from Malacca, to improve the old and make new roads.

As a rule the Langat people are poor, but too proud to work, and only do so when they have actually no other resource to gain a livelihood. No doubt they find it much harder, and much less their taste, to earn their bread honestly than by the incans they have hitherto used, but they have accepted the altered state of things apparently with pleasure, and there is probably more outcry now about the loss of a dollar than ever there was before about the loss of a life. They cannot, however, be changed in a day from pirates into peaceful husbandmen and traders, but one thing in certain, that whereas murders were of an almost weeekly occurrence in Langat alone, to say nothing of its rivers and the interior, from August 1874 till the coming of the refugees from Sungiee Ujong, no crime of any sort was committed here, though since that there have been several thefts, most of which have been traced, proved, and punished.

Salangore's ancient fame as a country of pirates with Langat for its chief stronghold, would seem to have departed for ever.

The swift justice meted out to the Jugra pirates in February, 1874, has had such an effect on the Langat people, by far the greater part of whom had some time or other made piracy their trade or their amusement, that they still speak with awe of that trial and the executions. What probably had the greatest effect on them was, that the pirates were tried and condemned by a Court of their own people. The good effects of His Excellency's Policy on this occasion, both as regards Langat itself and the native trade, hitherto the constant prey of Langat pirates, cannot be over-estimated.

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