Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 103, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1918 — BAR WAY TO EVIL SPIRITS [ARTICLE]

BAR WAY TO EVIL SPIRITS

Malaysians Believe Mountains Were Placed to Shut Out Strange Race of Yajuj. In the dak bungalow at Kwala Kubu (in Malayasia) the Chinaloy chowkidar. queue in pocket, shod In shoes of silent felt, served my breakfast. I was at last on the threshold of a strange expedition in a land to which no letter ever-canie correctly addressed, so unknown was it to the outside world. At this moment the strangest thing in sight was my breakfast. It consisted chiefly of tins of tiny Mongolian finches —-humming birds in size, squabs in taste —eanned a dozen in a tin. As I devoured the pitiful little birds, and all, I looked up at the great Malay mountain range, the backbone of the finger peninsula which stretches southward from Siam to within sight of the bund of Singapore itself. Mountains, so the Malays say, are the wall of the world, shutting out great winds and beasts of prey. And they believe that a strange race —the Yajuj—are forever striving to bore through, and when they succeed, then will come the end of all things. The great limestone caves scattered throughout the mountains are places where the Yajuj have attempted and failed. There is nothing impossible or unbelievable in all this, when one comes to know Malay mountains in all their weirdness. —William Beebe, ip the Atlantic Monthly.