STORY OF COELOGYNE SPECIOSA

Orchid stories lack one essential quality of romance. They have little of the ‘female interest,’ and nothing of love. The defect is beyond remedy, I fear—collectors are men of business. It is rumoured, indeed, that personages of vast weight in the City could tell romantic adventures of their own, if they would. So, perhaps, could my heroes. But neither do tell willingly. I have asked in vain. However, among my miscellaneous notes on Orchidology, it is recorded that ‘W. C. Williams found Coelogyne speciosa up the Baram River. Books confine its habitat to Java and Sumatra.’ The Baram is in Borneo. When travelling in that island thirty years ago I heard a story of Williams’ doings, and I think I can recall the outline. But imagination furnishes the details, of course, aided by local knowledge.

It may be worth while to tell briefly how this gentleman came to be wandering in Borneo—in the Sultan’s territory also—at a date when Rajah Brooke had but just begun to establish order in his own little province. Williams’ position or business I never heard. Some Dutch firm sold or entrusted to him a stock of earthenware jars made in Holland, facsimiles of those precious objects cherished by the Dyaks. The speculation was much favoured in that day—it seemed such in easy cut to fortune. But they say that not a solitary Dyak was ever taken in. The failure was attributed, of course, to some minute divergence from the pattern. Manufacturers tried again, still more carefully. They sent jars to be copied in China, whence the originals came, evidently, at an unknown period. But it was no use; the Dyaks only looked somewhat more respectfully at these forgeries before rejecting them. For many years the attempt was made occasionally. Rich Chinamen tried their skill. But at length everybody got to understand, though no one is able to explain, that those savages possess some means of distinguishing a jar of their own from a copy absolutely identical in our eyes.

Mr. Williams had tried elsewhere without success, I fancy, before visiting Brunei, the capital. But he had good reason to feel confidence there. The Malay nobles would buy his jars without question, and compel their Dyak subjects to accept them at their own price; such was the established means of collecting subsidies. In fact, the nobles were overjoyed. But the Sultan heard what was afoot. He possesses several of these mystic objects, and he makes no inconsiderable portion of his revenue by selling water drawn from them to sprinkle over the crops, to take as medicine, and so forth. For his are the finest and holiest of all—beyond price. One speaks upon occasion, giving him warning when grave troubles impend. Sir Spencer St. John says he asked the Sultan a few years afterwards ‘whether he would take £2000 for it; he answered he did not think any offer in the world would tempt him.’

The Brunei monarch was shrewd enough to see that passing off false jars could not be to his interest. The Pangarans argued in vain. There’s no telling where it would end, he said, if the idolaters once began to feel suspicious. ‘Let your Englishman take his wares among the Kayan dogs. He may swindle them to his heart’s content.’ The Kayans were not only independent but ruthless and conquering foes of Brunei.

There was no other hope of selling the confounded jars. After assuring himself that the enterprise was not too hazardous, Williams sought a merchant familiar with the Kayan trade. He chose Nakodah Rahim, a sanctimonious and unprepossessing individual, but one whose riches made a guarantee of good faith. This man contracted to transport him and his goods to Langusan, the nearest town of the Kayans on the Baram, and to bring him back.

Williams was the first European perhaps to reach that secluded but charming settlement. The Nakodah prudently anchored in mid-stream and landed by himself to call on the head chief. When the news spread that a white man was aboard the craft, swarms of delighted Kayans tumbled pell-mell into their canoes and raced towards it, yelling, laughing, splashing one another in joyous excitement. But the great chief Tamawan put a stop to this unseemly demonstration. Rushing from the Council Hall, where he and his peers were giving audience to the Nakodah, he commanded the people to return, each to his own dwelling. Stentor had not a grander voice. It overpowered even that prodigious din. The mob obeyed. They swarmed back, and, landing, shinned up the forty-foot poles which are their stairs, like ants; reappearing a moment afterwards on the verandah, among the tree-tops. These vast ‘houses,’ containing perhaps a thousand inmates, lined each bank of the river, and every soul pressed to the front, mostly shouting—a wild but pleasant tumult.

The chiefs sent an assurance of hearty welcome. Williams paid his respects; they returned his call on board, and Tamawan invited him to a feast. Next day another potentate entertained him and then another. Drink of all sorts, including ‘best French brandy,’ flowed without intermission. Williams began to be ill. But there was no talk of business. His goods had been landed at the Council Hall, as is usual, but not unpacked. The Nakodah assured him all was right. He himself had a quantity of merchandise waiting under the same conditions.

So a week passed; etiquette was satisfied, and Tamawan invited him to open his bales. The chiefs squatted in a semi-circle, all the population behind, in delicious expectancy. The jars were brought forth—first a Gusi, the costliest species, worth £300 to £1000 in ‘produce,’ among the Dyaks, had it only been genuine. This Williams presented, with an air, to Tamawan. The chief glanced at it, observed with Kayan frankness that for his own part he liked brighter colours, and, so to speak, called for the next article. Williams grasped the fatal truth when he saw how carelessly his precious Gusi was regarded, not by Tamawan alone but by all. Hoping against hope, however, he brought forth a Naga—a Rusa. The chiefs became impatient. ‘Show your good trade, Tuan,’ they said. Perhaps it was lucky that he had some miscellaneous ‘notions’; but there was only enough to make the needful presents.

Utter collapse! The foolish fellow had not thought of asking whether Kayans valued these unlovely jars. Perhaps the Brunei nobles could not have told him, but Nakodah Rahim must have been perfectly well aware. By keeping silence he had transported a cargo of his own goods to Langusan at Williams’ expense—without freight or charges! The victim could not quite restrain his anger, but it would have been madness to quarrel. He had indeed several Malays, perhaps trusty. But the crew outnumbered them, and the Kayans doubtless would back the Nakodah. There was nothing to be done but wait, with as much good temper as he could summon, until that worthy had sold out. During this time Williams hunted, explored the woods, and collected a variety of plants, some of which we do not recognise from the description. But among those he brought to Singapore was Coelogyne speciosa.

Meantime sickness attacked the crew, whilst Williams’ servants escaped it. The Nakodah hurried his sales, but when he was ready to start, it became necessary to engage some of the latter, with their master’s consent, for navigating the vessel; but for this mischance there would have been no need to ask the white man’s co-operation in a little stroke of business.

At each of the festivities Williams had remarked a very pretty girl always in attendance on the chief Kum Palan. Charming faces are common among those people, and graceful figures a matter of course. Kayan maidens do not pull out their eyebrows, nor blacken their teeth, nor shave the top of the head, nor, in fact, practise any of the disfigurements which spoil Dyak beauty; for their tattooing, though elaborate, is all below the waist. Most of them even do not chew betel before marriage, and you hardly find one of these whose teeth are not a faultless row of pearls. Cool scrutiny reveals that their noses are too flat and their mouths unsymmetrical. But the girl would have a mane of lustrous hair decked with flowers, restrained by a snowy fillet over the brow, streaming loose down her back. Her skin would be pale golden bronze and her eyes worthy of the tenderest epithets. Even a chief’s daughter wears little clothing beyond armlets and waist-belt of gold, white shell, and antique beads, as mysterious and as costly in proportion as the Dyak jars. Only a silken kerchief, clasping one thigh in studied folds, gathered and tucked in over the other, would represent what we call dress; but the tattooing from waist to knee is so close that feminine limbs seem to be enveloped in black tights.

Williams learned that this beauty was daughter to Kum Palan. Parent and child must be warmly attached, he thought, for she was always near him. Other chiefs had pretty daughters, but they received no such attention. The girl looked sad, but that is frequent with Kayan and Dyak maidens, when, in truth, their souls are dancing with fun and devilment—a mere expression of the features.

Nakodah Rahim’s secret concerned this damsel—Kilian by name. She was in love with a youth, Nikput, popular and distinguished—he had taken heads already—but not yet in the position which Kum Palan’s son-in-law ought to occupy. Other suitors did not come forward, however, for the eldest son of Tamawan, the Great Chief, entertained for the youth one of those romantic friendships common among warriors in Borneo. Tamawan could not interfere, but there was a general impression that he would not feel kindly towards the man who robbed Nikput of his bride. Kum Palan resented this state of things. He feared an elopement, and with good reason, for that was the little stroke of business which the Nakodah proposed. Nikput offered fair terms. All was arranged. On the morrow early the prau was to start, dropping down stream. It would anchor for the night, as usual, at a certain spot, and there the lovers would come on board, having taken such steps as should lead the pursuing parent in another direction. Nikput had a friend among the Milanaus lower down. When the disaster was beyond remedy, Tamawan would compel his subordinate to be reconciled. Would the Tuan object to this little speculation?

That the villain intended from the first to murder Nikput and kidnap his bride is certain. He declared at his trial that Williams had been his accomplice, and on this account Sir Spencer St. John held an inquiry. There was no shadow of evidence; the charge is grotesque. But it may possibly be that Williams exacted a share of the gold which Nikput agreed to pay.

All went well. At the time and place appointed, in pitch darkness, a canoe grated softly against the vessel’s side—a few whispers passed—and Kilian climbed aboard. But, as it turned out, she was not wearing only a few ornaments and a kerchief. All the family jewels, so to speak, hung about her pretty figure. She was swathed in silk, garment over garment. And Nikput handed up several baskets that must have been a very heavy load even for his stalwart frame. They had looted the paternal treasure at the Nakodah’s suggestion.

Next day passed without alarm; there are only farmhouses and villages, where a trader need not stop, between Langusan and the Brunei frontier. The fugitives remained below in the tiny cabin, amidst such heat and such surroundings that those who know may shudder to think of their situation. After dark, however, they came up, and, until he fell asleep, doubtless, Williams heard their murmuring and low happy laughter. On the morrow they would be safe.

A terrible cry awoke him—screams and trampling on the palm-leaf deck; then a great splash. Dawn was breaking, but the mists are so dense at that hour that the Malays call it white darkness. The sounds of struggle and the girl’s wild shrieks directed him; but at the first movement he was borne backwards and overthrown by a press of men stumbling through the fog, with Kilian writhing and screaming in their midst. They tossed her down into the hold and threw themselves upon him, his own servants foremost. Perhaps these saved him from the fate of poor Nikput. What could he do?—he had no arms. They swore him to silence. But in that bloody realm of Brunei to whom should a wise man complain?

All that day and the next Kilian’s shrieks never ceased. ‘She will go mad,’ Williams cried passionately; the Nakodah smiled. When her raving clamour was interrupted—died down to silence—they brought her on deck, a piteous spectacle. I have not to pain myself and my readers by imagining the contrast with the bright and lovely girl we saw a week ago.

They reached the capital, and Williams fled; of his after life I know only that he sold some orchids in Singapore. Happily the tale does not end here.

The crime would have passed unknown or unnoticed, like others innumerable of its sort in Brunei, had not Kilian avenged her own wrongs. She was raving mad for a while, but such a prize was worth nursing. Gradually she recovered her beauty and so much of her wits that the Nakodah sold her for a great sum to one of the richest nobles. A few days after, perhaps the same day, she stabbed this man and threw him from a window into the river—possibly with some distracted recollection of her lover’s fate. The Nakodah was seized and others. All the horrid story came out. They were executed, and the Sultan restored their victim—quite mad now—to her father. But on the way she leapt overboard.

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CATTLEYA LABIATA. var. MEASURESIANA.
Painted from nature also Chromo by Macfarlane F.R.H.S.
Printed in London