SPROULE J. The facts of this case are that plaintiff, who appears to me to be seventy years old or more, is grand-daughter of Wan Lah bin Aris. Wan Lah in 1864 received a grant of land, subject only to a cultivation clause, and free of rent. The land was estimated to contain 10 acres 29 poles and is now Lot 793, Mukim I, in the Northern District of Province Wellesley. The region goes by the significant name of Bakau Tuah - old mangrove - and lies in the remote and nearly trackless country, accessible only by water situate between the Permatang-Bindahari Ferry and the mouth of the Muda River, in the north-western corner of the Province.

Plaintiff lived on the land with her grandfather and has remained there, until very recently, ever since his death some thirty or forty years ago. She says that Wan Lah in his lifetime agreed to convey the land to her for value given by her, and gave her a document to that effect, together with his original grant.

The agreement was never carried into conveyance. The old grant was lost or destroyed by insects, she says, and the agreement was recently handed by her to Mahomed Salleh Maheran, of whom more hereafter is to be said.

The land has coconuts on it, indicating perhaps that Wan Lah duly performed his covenant for cultivation. But its chief value appears to lie in the nipah palm growing thickly there. Its froads are used to make atap thatch. The land is not worth more than $500 or $600. The coconuts and nipah have been leased for many years to Haji Sahid, though not by deed. Mr. Capel has his document of lease, but it is not admissible in evidence. Haji Sahid says that he regularly employs twenty hands or so in making ataps for the Penang market.

Plaintiff never applied for administration to her grand-father's estate nor attempted to get the land transferred into her own name either as his sole next of kin or as equitable purchaser for value. She was too remote from the world to know or trouble about such things, and was content to rely upon her possession and the informal document her grandfather had given her. The remoteness of the land and the fact that no quit-rent was payable, resulted, I suppose, in the case being overlooked by the District Officer, who would ordinarily have called upon her to apply for administration. Latterly, however, plaintiff found the land too lonely to live on, and so moved to a neighbouring lot, and contemplated selling. It appears to have been in this way that she came into contact with Mahomed Salleh Maheran. He was a Chetty's tout. He took her agreement for sale already referred to, and appears to have told her that her title was faulty and to have offered to put it right, and to find a purchaser. It seems to have been only after Maheran's death that, looking again for a purchaser, she or her legal advisers discovered the fraud which has resulted in the present suit.

It was an easy fraud for Maheran to engineer. The land was remote and inaccessible, and the plaintiff of very primitive ignorance and helplessness.

The first step in the swindle was to get from the Senior District Officer at Butterworth a certified copy of the old Indenture. This was done on 17th December, 1924. Then some time in 1925, a very old Malay, who gave his name as Wah Lah, began to frequent the very respectable office of Messrs. Presgrave & Matthews, always accompanied by Ahamad bin Jusoh, the present first defendant. Their excuse was to inquire about land in this very region of Bakau Tuah, belonging to Mr. Capel, the solicitor, which a mortgagee was supposed to be desirous of seeling.

Next, in January or February, 1926, Ahamad and the personator of Wan Lah (who in fact had been dead some forty years, though the solicitors were not to know that) instructed Mr. Wilson to prepare a conveyance of the land now in dispute. Mr. Wilson made inquiry and search. He discovered that the Indenture was dated in 1864 and that the Register contained not a single entry of any dealing o