[*Such A Scheme Is Now Under Consideration.

See Appendix C.]

Slavery and polygamy, the usual accompaniments of Islamism, go far to account for the decay of these States.

I wish it were possible to know to what extent the Malays are a "religious" people as Moslems. That they are bigots and have successfully resisted all attempts to convert them to Christianity there is no doubt, as well as that they are ignorant and grossly superstitious. Their prayers, so far as I can hear anything about them, consist mainly of reiterated confessions of belief in the Divine unity, and of simple appeals for mercy now and at the last day.

The pilgrimage to Mecca is made not only once, but twice and thrice by those who can afford it, and at much cost earthen jars containing water from the holy well of Zem-zem, the well said to have been shown to Hagar in the wilderness, are brought home by the pilgrims for themselves and their friends for use in the hour of death, when Eblis, the devil, is supposed to stand by offering a bowl of the purest water with which to tempt the soul to abjure its faith in the unity of God. One of the declarations most commonly used is, "There is no God but God alone, whose covenant is truth and whose servant is victorious. There is no God but God without a partner. His is the kingdom, to Him be praise, and He over all things is Almighty." There is a grand ring of Old Testament truth about these words, though of a melancholy half truth only.

The men who make the Mecca pilgrimage are not regarded by the English who know them as a "holy lot"; in fact, they are said to lead idle lives, and to "live like leeches on the toil of their fellow-men," inciting the people "to revolt or to make amok." Doubtless it adds to a man's consequence for life to be privileged to wear the Arab costume and to be styled Tuan hadji. Yet they may have been stirred to devotion and contrition at the time as they circled the Kaabeh reciting such special prayers as, "O God, I extend my hands to Thee, great is my longing towards Thee. Oh accept Thou my supplications, remove my hindrances, pity my humiliation, and mercifully grant me Thy pardon;" and "O my God, verily I take refuge with Thee from idolatry, and disobedience, and every hypocrisy, and from evil conversation, and evil thoughts concerning property, and children, and family;" or, "O God, I beg of Thee that faith which shall not fall away, and that certainty which shall not perish, and the good aid of Thy prophet Mohammed - may God bless and preserve him! O God, shade me with Thy shadow in that day when there is no shade but Thy shadow, and cause me to drink from the cup of Thy apostle Mohammed - may God bless him and preserve him! that pleasant draught after which is no thirst to all eternity. O Lord of honor and glory."* [*I have preferred to give, instead of the translation of these prayers which I obtained in Malacca, one introduced by Canon Tristram into a delightful paper on Mecca in the _Sunday at Home_ for February, 1883.]

As I write, I look down upon Taipeng on "a people wholly given to idolatry." This is emphatically "The dark Peninsula," though both Protestants and Romanists have made attempts to win the Malays to Christianity. It may be that the relentless crusade waged by the Portuguese against Islamism has made the opposition to the Cross more sullen and bigoted than it would otherwise have been. Christian missionary effort is now chiefly among the Chinese, and by means of admirable girls' schools in Singapore, Malacca, and Pinang.

In Taipeng five dialects of Chinese are spoken, and Chinamen constantly communicate with each other in Malay, because they can't understand each other's Chinese. They must spend large sums on opium, for the right to sell it has been let for 4,000 pounds a year!

Mr. Maxwell tells me that the Malay proverbs are remarkably numerous and interesting. To me the interest of them lies chiefly in their resemblance to the ideas gathered up in the proverbs of ourselves and the Japanese.* [*Mr. Maxwell has since published a paper on Malay proverbs in the Transactions of the Straits branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. I have not been able to obtain it, but I understand that it contains a very copious and valuable collection of Malay proverbial philosophy.]

Thus, "Out of the frying-pan into the fire" is, "Freed from the mouth of the alligator to fall into the tiger's jaws." "It's an ill wind that blows nobody good," is, "When the junk is wrecked the shark gets his fill." "The creel tells the basket it is coarsely plaited" is equivalent to "The kettle calling the pot black." "For dread of the ghost to clasp the corpse," has a grim irony about it that I like.

Certain Scriptural proverbial phrases have their Malay counterparts. Thus, the impossibility of the Ethiopian changing his skin or the leopard his spots is represented by "Though you may feed a jungle-fowl off a gold plate, it will make for the jungle all the same." "Casting pearls before swine" by "What is the use of the peacock strutting in the jungle?" "Can these stones become bread?" by "Can the earth become grain?" "Neither can salt water yield sweet," by a very elaborate axiom, "You may plant the bitter cucumber in a bed of sago, manure it with honey, water it with molasses, and train it over sugar cane, but it will be the bitter cucumber still," and "Clear water cannot be drawn from a muddy fountain."

Some of their sayings are characteristic. In allusion to the sport of cock-fighting, a coward is called "a duck with spurs." A treacherous person is said to "sit like a cat, but leap like a tiger;" and of a chatterer it is said, "The tortoise produces a myriad eggs and no one knows it; the hen lays one and tells the whole word." "Grinding pepper for a bird on the wing" is regarded as equivalent to "First catch you hare before you cook it." "To plant sugar-cane on the lips" is to be "All things to all men." Fatalism is expressed by a saying, "Even the fish which inhabit the seventh depth of the sea sooner or later enter the net." "Now it is wet, now it is fine," is a common way of saying that a day of revenge is not far off.

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