Many Of Them Have Become Converts To
Christianity, But This Has Not Led To The Discarding Of Their Queues Or
National Costume.
The Chinese who are born in the Straits are called
Babas.
The immigrant Chinese, who are called Sinkehs, are much despised
by the Babas, who glory specially in being British-born subjects. The
Chinese promise to be in some sort the commercial rulers of the
Straits.
The Malays proper inhabit the Malay Peninsula, and almost all the coast
regions of Borneo and Sumatra. They all speak more or less purely the
Malay language; they are all Mohammedans, and they all write in the
Arabic character. Their color is a lightish, olive-tinted, reddish
brown. Their hair is invariably black, straight, and coarse, and their
faces and bodies are nearly hairless. They have broad and slightly flat
faces, with high cheek bones; wide mouths, with broad and shapely lips,
well formed chins, low foreheads, black eyes, oblique, but not nearly
so much so as those of the Chinese, and smallish noses, with broad and
very open nostrils. They vary little in their height, which is below
that of the average European. Their frames are lithe and robust, their
chests are broad, their hands are small and refined, and their feet are
thick and short. The men are not handsome, and the women are decidedly
ugly. Both sexes look old very early.
The Malays undoubtedly must be numbered among civilized peoples. They
live in houses which are more or less tasteful and secluded.
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