There is also a sacred tiger possessed by the fairy as her sole guardian of the mountain. It always sits half-way down the mountain. As most of the uneducated are superstitious, they believe that there is also a kind of plant grown near the house of the fairy, and any one who gets a leaf from that plant and eats it, besides being always young and beautiful, will never die. Many of the ancient people of Malacca attempted to get some of the leaves, and many lost their lives in the attempts because of their absurdity.
This story was first told by a Malay who accidentally reached the top of the mountain. One day while cutting wood with some of his companions be was accidentally separated from them and was left alone in the forests. What was his alarm when he saw a tiger; and being unable to get rid of the wild beast, he fell on the ground and fainted. He was carried to the fairy, and being a worshipper, as people were in those days, he was well treated. He stayed there for several hours, and was told to pick some of the largest lumps of saffron and take them home. While he was walking the bag became heavier, and he then threw some of the lumps away. When he reached home he found that the saffron turned into gold. This is the story which the Malays as well as the Straits Chinese believe about Mt. Ophir or Gunong Leydang."
Golden Flowers.
There was living in Singapore not many years ago a Chinaman in very poor circumstances, who possessed, however, a small garden, in which grew a plant of the Pandan Wangi (Pandanus laevis), a tree which is often cultivated for its scented leaves used for flavouring rice and for making a kind of pot pourri used at weddings. He supplied the tree liberally with manure, and one moonlight night be was surprised to see it bearing a red flower. Going to examine it next day, no flower was to be seen, but next night it was there again, and he climbed up and got it, and put it on a table in his house. On the
