THE LANG MEN O’ LARUT
[Footnote: Copyright, 1891, by MACMILLAN & CO.]
The Chief Engineer’s sleeping suit was of yellow
striped with blue, and his speech was the speech of
Aberdeen. They sluiced the deck under him, and
he hopped on to the ornamental capstan, a black pipe
between his teeth, though the hour was not seven of
the morn.
‘Did you ever hear o’ the Lang Men o’
Larut?’ he asked when the Man from Orizava had
finished a story of an aboriginal giant discovered
in the wilds of Brazil. There was never story
yet passed the lips of teller, but the Man from Orizava
could cap it.
‘No, we never did,’ we responded with
one voice. The Man from Orizava watched the Chief
keenly, as a possible rival.
‘I’m not telling the story for the sake
of talking merely,’ said the Chief, ’but
as a warning against betting, unless you bet on a perrfect
certainty. The Lang Men o’ Larut were just
a certainty. I have had talk wi’ them.
Now Larut, you will understand, is a dependency, or
it may be an outlying possession, o’ the island
o’ Penang, and there they will get you tin and
manganese, an’ it mayhap mica, and all manner
o’ meenerals. Larut is a great place.’
‘But what about the population?’ said
the Man from Orizava.
‘The population,’ said the Chief slowly,
’were few but enorrmous. You must understand
that, exceptin’ the tin-mines, there is no special
inducement to Europeans to reside in Larut. The
climate is warm and remarkably like the climate o’
Calcutta; and in regard to Calcutta, it cannot have
escaped your obsairvation that—’
‘Calcutta isn’t Larut; and we’ve
only just come from it,’ protested the Man from
Orizava. ’There’s a meteorological
department in Calcutta, too.’
’Ay, but there’s no meteorological department
in Larut. Each man is a law to himself.
Some drink whisky, and some drink brandipanee, and
some drink cocktails—vara bad for the coats
o’ the stomach is a cocktail— and
some drink sangaree, so I have been credibly informed;
but one and all they sweat like the packing of piston-head
on a fourrteen-days’ voyage with the screw racing
half her time. But, as I was saying, the population
o’ Larut was five all told of English—that
is to say, Scotch—an’ I’m Scotch,
ye know,’ said the Chief.
The Man from Orizava lit another cigarette, and waited
patiently. It was hopeless to hurry the Chief
Engineer.
‘I am not pretending to account for the population
o’ Larut being laid down according to such fabulous
dimensions. O’ the five white men engaged
upon the extraction o’ tin ore and mercantile
pursuits, there were three o’ the sons o’
Anak. Wait while I remember. Lammitter was
the first by two inches—a giant in the
land, an’ a terreefic man to cross in his ways.
From heel to head he was six feet nine inches, and
proportionately built across and through the thickness
