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.
