A Crocodile Hunt
At the foot of Mount Ophir
The little pleasant-faced Malay captain of his Highness’s three-hundred ton yacht Pante called softly, close to my ear, “Tuan—Tuan Consul, Gunong Ladang!” I sprang to my feet, rubbed my eyes, and gazed in the direction indicated by the brown hand.
I saw not five miles off the low jungle-bound coast of the peninsula, and above it a great bank of vaporous clouds, pierced by the molten rays of the early morning sun. As I looked around inquiringly, the captain, bowing, said: “Tuan,” and I raised my eyes. Again I saw the lofty mountain peak surmounting the cushion of clouds, standing out bold and clear against the almost fierce azure of the Malayan sky.
“Mount Ophir!” burst from my lips. The captain smiled and went forward to listen to the linesman’s “two fathoms, sir, two and one half fathoms, sir, two fathoms, sir”; for we were crossing the shallow bar that protects the mouth of the great river Maur from the ocean.
The tide was running out like a mill-race. The Pante was backing from side to side, and then pushing carefully ahead, trying to get into the deep water beyond, before low tide.
Suddenly there was a soft, grating sound and the captain came to me and touched his hat.
“We are on the bar, sir. Will you send a despatch by the steam-cutter to Prince Suliman, asking for the launch? We cannot get off until the night tide.”
The Pante had so swung around that we could plainly see the big red istana, or palace, of Prince Suliman close to the sandy shore, surrounded by a grove of graceful palms. With the aid of our glasses the white and red blur farther up the river resolved itself into the streets and quays of the little city of Bander Maharani, the capital of the province of Maur in dominions of his Highness Abubaker, Sultan of Johore. Above and overshadowing all both in beauty and historical interest was the famous old mountain where King Solomon sent his diminutive ships for “gold, silver, peacocks, and apes.”
By the time the ladies were astir, the mists had vanished and Gunong Ladang, or as it is styled in Holy Writ Mount Ophir, presented to our admiring gaze its massive outlines, set in a frame of green and blue. The dense jungle crept halfway up its sides and at the point where the cloud stratum had rested but an hour before, it merged into a tangled network of vines and shrubs which in their turn gave place to the black, red rock that shone like burnished brass.