Chapter X.]

This volume is mainly composed of my actual letters, unaltered, except by various omissions and some corrections as to matters of fact.

The interest of my visits to the prison and execution ground of Canton, and of my glimpses of Anamese villages, may, I hope, be in some degree communicated to my readers, even though Canton and Saigon are on the beaten track of travelers.

I am quite aware that "Letters" which have not received any literary dress are not altogether satisfactory either to author or reader, for the author sacrifices artistic arrangement and literary merit, and the reader is apt to find himself involved among repetitions, and a multiplicity of minor details, treated in a fashion which he is inclined to term "slipshod;" but, on the whole, I think that descriptions written on the spot, even with their disadvantages, are the best mode of making the reader travel with the traveler, and share his first impressions in their original vividness. With these explanatory remarks I add my little volume to the ever-growing library of the literature of travel.

I. L. B. FEBRUARY, 1883

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

The Aurea Chersonesus - The Conquest of Malacca - The Straits Settlements - The Configuration of the Peninsula - A Terra Incognita - The Monsoons - Products of the Peninsula - The Great Vampire - Beasts and Reptiles - Malignant and Harmless Insects - Land and Water Birds - Traditions of Malay Immigration - Wild and Civilized Races - Kafirs - The Samangs and Orang-outang - Characteristics of the Jakuns - Babas and Sinkehs - The Malay Physiognomy - Language andLiterature - Malay Poetry and Music - Malay Astronomy - Education and Law - Malay Sports - Domestic Habits - Weapons - Slavery and Debt Bondage - Government - "No Information"

Canton and Saigon, and whatever else is comprised in the second half of my title, are on one of the best beaten tracks of travelers, and need no introductory remarks.

But the Golden Chersonese is still somewhat of a terra incognita; there is no point on its mainland at which European steamers call, and the usual conception of it is as a vast and malarious equatorial jungle, sparsely peopled by a race of semi-civilized and treacherous Mohammedans. In fact, it is as little known to most people as it was to myself before I visited it; and as reliable information concerning it exists mainly in valuable volumes now out of print, or scattered through blue books and the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Singapore, I make no apology for prefacing my letters from the Malay Peninsula with as many brief preliminary statements as shall serve to make them intelligible, requesting those of my readers who are familiar with the subject to skip this chapter altogether.

The Aurea Chersonesus of Ptolemy, the "Golden Chersonese" of Milton, the Malay Peninsula of our day, has no legitimate claim to an ancient history. The controversy respecting the identity of its Mount Ophir with the Ophir of Solomon has been "threshed out" without much result, and the supposed allusion to the Malacca Straits by Pliny is too vague to be interesting.

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