In The Court Of Johore
by
The Crowning of a Malayan Prince.
Tunku Ibrahim was just past seventeen when his father, the Sultan Abubaker, chose to recognize him as his heir and Crown Prince of Johore.
From the day when the little prince had been deemed old enough to leave his mother and the women’s palace until the day he had entered the native artillery as a lieutenant, he had been schooled and trained by the English missionaries and the Tuan Kadi, or Mohammedan high priest, as becomes a son of so illustrious a father.
Tunku Ibrahim had made one trip to England when he was fifteen years old, and with his little cousin, the Tunku, or Prince, Othman, had dined with the Queen at Windsor.
So, when the Sultan returned from a long stay at Carlsbad and found that the Sultana was dead and that Ibrahim had shot up into a man, he said:–
“I am getting to be an old man and may die at any time. I will call all my nobles and people to the palace, and they shall see me place the crown on Ibrahim’s head. Then if I die, he will rule, and the British will not take his country from him as long as he is wise and kingly.”
Whereupon his Highness sent out invitations to the Governor and all the foreign consuls in Singapore to be his guests and witness the crowning of his son.
We started in quaint little box-like carriages, called gharries, long before the fierce Malayan sun had risen above the palms, accomplishing the fourteen miles across the beautiful island in little over an hour.
The diminutive Deli ponies, not larger than Newfoundland dogs, broke into a run the moment we closed the lattice doors, and it was all their half-naked drivers could do to keep their perches on the swaying shafts.
When we arrived at the little half-Malay, half-Chinese village of Kranji, on the shores of the famous old Straits of Malacca, our ponies were panting with heat, and the sun beat down on our white cork helmets with a quivering, naked intensity.
Close up to the shore we found a long, keel boat manned by a dozen Malays in canary-colored suits. An aide-de-camp in a gorgeous uniform of gold and blue came forward and touched his forehead with the back of his brown palm and said in good English:–
“His Highness awaits your excellencies.”
We stepped into the boat. The men lightly dipped their spear-shaped paddles in the tepid water, the rattan oarlocks squeaked shrilly, and the light prow shot out into the strait. We could see the istana, or palace, close down to the opposite shore, with the royal standard of white, with black star and crescent in centre, floating above it.
For a moment I felt as though I had invaded some dreamland of my childhood.
As our boat drew up to the iron pier that extended from the broad palace steps out into the straits, the guns from the little fort on the hill above the town boomed out a welcome and the flags of our several countries were run to the tops of the poles. A squad of native soldiers presented arms, and we were conducted up the stone steps, to the cool, dim corridors of the reception or waiting room. Malays in red fezzes and silken sarongs that hung about their legs like skirts conducted us along a marble hall to our rooms in a wing of the palace. Crowds were already gathering outside on the palace grounds, and we could look down from our windows and watch them as we bathed, dressed, and drank tea.
The Chinese in their holiday pantaloons and shirts of pink, lavender, and blue silk: outnumbered all the other races; for, strange as it may seem, this Malay Sultan numbers among his 250,000 or 300,000 subjects 175,000 Chinamen. They are as loyal and a great deal more industrious than the Malays, and many of them, styled Baboos, do not even know their native tongue.