Tide Marks by H.M. Tomlinson — Read

There was Java. Under some mountains so distant and of so delicate a color that they were only a deeper stain of the sky were spread the flat buildings of Tanjong Priok. To my surprise, I discovered the _Savoe_ had a crowd of passengers for Java. Where those Malays had been hiding themselves I forgot to ask in my surprise, for they did not in the least bear themselves like a subject race. I saw at once why the English administrators of Malaya delight in these folk-learn their language and live with them if that luck can be associated with duty, as the bibliography of the Malay Peninsula plainly shows. One group of these people was especially attractive. Its central figure was an elderly man, perhaps an _orang kaya_, or a chief of some kind, in a tartan _sarong_, a tunic, and the little white cap of one who has been to Mecca. From the way he stood he might have been the captain. His was a natural and unaffected dignity which showed that stature is of no consequence. He was a small man. His complexion was a light bronze, and his high cheek ridges and a slightly flattened nose were comely with those proud but gracious eyes set apart in wide intelligence. His women were with him, some attendants, and a school of children. They spread themselves across the upper deck like a rainbow, for the bright scarf over the head of each woman was a different wonder. One girl I thought was an elder daughter.

She seemed on easy terms with her father. Her scarf was blue silk in which gilt crescents were sprinkled. The numerous buttons of her jacket were English sovereigns. Her feet and arms were bare, except for silver bangles, and her pose would have attracted the attention of any lady in musical comedy who was supposed to learn that the tradition of a duchess is different. As with one hand she held a younger child, whose head in a yellow silk scarf peeped out nervously and wonderingly from behind her, this Malay girl would touch her father; I think she must have been amusing him with jokes about the dominant white race that was so active about them.