Penang is populated chiefly by Malays but numerous other races are represented there, especially Chinese and Indians. Without much trouble I succeeded in engaging the services of five porters: a Malay, an Indian, a Chinese, a Siamese and a Sam-Sam, quite a lad. Together they formed a little Babel which I congratulated myself would prove of great help in making overtures with the Sakais.
All my followers, with the exception of the Sam-Sam, had faces which would have graced the gallows and I am sure that Lombroso[2] would have classified them without hesitation as born-criminals. But their forbidding countenances did not alarm me as it is well known that the basest villain becomes timid and servile when confronted by unexpected danger, and I was well aware that the dread of tigers, snakes, traps and poisoned arrows, the thousand mysteries of Death which the wonderful forest encloses amidst its countless trees, amongst the confusion of its thick interlaced creepers and under its soft moss and long grass would have converted these ugly-faced, crooked-souled individuals into docile lambs. I knew that once they had entered a land, to them not known, they would not forsake me, for the Oriental has faith in the European and will follow whither the latter leads, attributing to him rare qualities of courage and energy as well as a marvellous ability in overcoming obstacles and getting out of difficult positions.
We left Penang on a coasting steamer and after going up the River Perak for about 60 miles we reached the little town of Telok Anson where we landed.
It was too early in the morning, when, we arrived for me to present myself to the British Authority and as the local officials did not in the slightest way interfere with my free passage nor subject me to any sort of inquisitorial interrogations (which in other colonies and under other Protectorates I had been obliged to undergo) I gave orders for our immediate departure as I was anxious to commence our march as soon as possible.
Having divided our load of provisions in equal parts we crossed the Perak on a pontoon and with a "slamat gialat" (pleasant journey) from the man on board we found ourselves upon the shores where my adventures had to begin.
I was there, then, with my face turned towards a new land, and a thrill of joyous emotion pervaded me. What surprises were reserved for me up on the wooded mountains towards which we were bending our steps? What things, what habits would be revealed to me when I reached my goal?
I was leaving behind me civilized company. I was isolating myself from educated society but I was not perturbed at the thought of the hardship, the sufferings, the dangers that lay before me. Vague and pleasant hopes smiled upon me from the Future. Of what nature were they? I could not tell.
"Forward!" I said to myself and my carriers. And the march began.