A visit to some islands off the east coast of Johore and Pahang
H. Goring Dalton’s 1928 travelogue recounts an eleven-day voyage in May 1918 to a chain of islands off the east coasts of Johore and Pahang, undertaken for the purpose of collecting shells, coral, and butterflies. The article serves as both a personal narrative of maritime exploration and a natural history survey of islands that remained largely unknown to mainland residents due to the violence of the north-east monsoon.
Summary
Dalton departed Mersing on 21 May 1918 with a motor-launch, a cargo boat, and a crew of ten Malays, visiting in sequence Pulau Sribuat, Pulau Tiuman, Pulau Pemanggil, Pulau Aur, Pulau Tinggi, and Pulau Babi before returning to Mersing. The narrative is dominated by descriptions of coral reefs, shell beaches, and the physical character of each island—steep jungle-covered hills rising abruptly from the sea, with rocky northern shores built to withstand the monsoon and sandy western beaches supporting coconut plantations. Dalton was severely sunburned for much of the voyage, which confined him to the boats and shaped his observations into a series of anchored vignettes rather than a sustained inland exploration.
The most significant cultural encounter occurred at Pulau Aur, where the party arrived during a festival to propitiate evil spirits—a ceremony Dalton notes takes place only once every eight or nine years. The islanders had constructed a small sago-palm boat decorated with flowers and coconut leaves (Puchok), which was to be set adrift laden with gifts to carry the ghosts of the island away. Dalton and his crew were effectively held as guests of the local Customs Officer, prohibited from collecting shells, killing fish, or going to sea until the ceremony was completed. This episode provides a rare first-hand account of a ritual that was already becoming rare by the 1920s.
The article also records the economic and administrative conditions of the islands: the failed Endau Development Company saw-mill at Penyabong, the dilapidated state of Kuala Endau on the mainland, and the modest but functional infrastructure of the island settlements—Customs houses, a single Chinese shopkeeper serving as middleman to Singapore, and the export of copra, dried fish, edible birds’ nests, and specific shell species.
Key Findings
- The voyage covered approximately 188 miles over 11 days, with the greatest distance from the mainland being about 37 miles; the motor-boat consumed 60 gallons of kerosine and 4 gallons of benzine (p. 95).
- Pulau Aur had approximately 200 inhabitants at the time of visit and possessed four cannon believed to have been taken from a shipwreck; a Dutch silver coin dated 1792 was sold to Dalton by the Penghulu, suggesting the wreck may date to roughly a century prior rather than the 200 years claimed locally (p. 91).
- The ghost-ship festival at Pulau Aur, occurring every 8–9 years, involved the construction of a sago-palm boat with fibrous matting sails, decorated with Puchok (coconut leaves and flowers), and set adrift with gifts to remove the island’s accumulated troubles (p. 89).
- Pulau Tinggi’s Gunong Tinggi rises to 2,000 feet and had a trigonometrical beacon erected the previous year (1917); the island contained about 100 regular residents (p. 92).
- Edible birds’ nests were collected and exported from Pulau Aur, Pulau Tinggi, and Pulau Babi; copra and dried fish formed the main livelihood of island populations, supplemented by exports of Siput Gewang and Siput Lolak shells, Kayu Kemuning (used for kris sheaths), and Kayu Penaga (p. 95).
- The Endau Development Company’s saw-mill at Penyabong, with its galvanised-iron factory building and staff bungalows, had failed and most buildings were dismantled by 1918 (p. 79).
Conclusion
Dalton’s account is primarily a natural history and travel narrative rather than a scholarly argument, but its lasting value lies in documenting the physical and cultural conditions of these islands at a moment when they were still sparsely administered and largely inaccessible. The record of the Pulau Aur festival, the wreck artefacts, and the economic profile of the island communities provides a baseline against which later colonial development and population change can be measured.
Context
- Dalton appears to have been a government official in the Mersing district, as he obtained leave from an administrative post and the islands were described as receiving “occasional visits from Government Officials” (p. 78).
- The article draws on no archival sources; it is a first-hand observational account supplemented by information from local Malays, the Penghulu, and the Customs Officer at Pulau Aur.