he passed through the Archipelago when they ought to have been at the summit of their power.

On the fate of Padang it is to be noticed that, as the Malays will not pay taxes, so they cannot command good government. Everything has its price, and so has good government, as we well know in New Zealand, where we pay £7 a head per annum for it. So populations paying from half-a-farthing up to six shillings must take the alternative, and submit to intermittent levies on their families, goods, and chattels. On the whole, they will get off the cheaper after all. True, the Malays have no roads, but then they have no road-rates; true they have no sewerage, but then they have no house-rates; true they have no gas, water, or other conveniences into their houses, yet they have no gas and water-rates. Then they have no railways, but two or three hundred of them are not occasionally crushed or burned to death; and then they have no steam vessels, so five or six hundred of them are not drowned like rats, as in the Atlantic traders. Last, not least, they have no coal mines, so we never hear of two or three hundred husbands being smothered to death below the houses in which their wives are living. All they have to bear, even by Abdulla's account, is the occasional squeeze by their own princes in search of provisions, pleasure, or sensuality. So there can be no guarantee against oppression without a settled government, properly supported by taxation. This applies to autocratic and democratic, with all the other shades of systems; but burdens and misfortunes come, whichever way you turn.

Yet Abdulla in his fervour rises to the standard of another Elijah. Tropical governments, no doubt, are sadly weak; strength only comes of chasteness. I could mention instances that have come under my notice, but forbear. I know many of my countrymen think otherwise.

The lance is the usual sign of authority amongst Malays, and is carried by the king's messengers. I see Abdulla questions the divine right of kings notwithstanding.

In a future state he appears to be an implicit believer.

His last sentence explains how readily native governments yield to the Europeans, their justice being known far and wide. There is nothing so assuring as the sight of an English judge sitting with calm consideration of the suits before him.

The death and burial of Sultan Hassain next follows, but is untranslated.

XXXIV.

MR. ALFRED NORTH.

"MOREOVER, in the year of the Hejira 1251, and the 20th day of the month Jamada-l-Ula, i.e. in the year of the Messiah 1835, on the 12th day of the month October; and in the Hindoo year Manmada, and on the 28th day of the month Pertasaia,-on this date I had translated a history from the Hindoo language into Malay. Its origin was also Hindoo, and its name in that language was Panjatandaran, but in Malay Galila dan Demina; of which I made an excellent composition-this by the assistance of a friend well versed in the Hindoo, by name Tomby Matuber Papater, of Malacca.

I took great pains to know the contents of this book, as it had a great fund of stories, sayings, and proverbs, as well as relations and parallels exemplifying knowledge, wit, and acuteness, for the use of readers. It is true that the stories were merely fables, but which we need not mind, in as far as the stories and relations go; so I would not ask you, O readers, to believe them-for do not you know yourselves that they are surely the composition of men, and not intended as true?—but what I would want of you is to select the right and set aside the rubbish.

So I forewarn all such as wish to see and read the above work, that I have placed it in the hands of

Mr. Alfred North, an American-one who bathes and drinks to his heart's content in the sea of the Malay language; for he is an especial disciple of mine, in whom I have the greatest trust in translating English into Malay, according to the correct idiom, and in no way like the same work by the English, who compose Malay in their own idiom-as, for instance, kapada iang mana aku tela perchaia, and deri pada siapa aku tela mendoput, and dingan iang mana iya tela meniatakan baniak orang, and pergi ka passar dan bili ayam; and as I have found in the Gospel of St. Luke thousands of such ungrammatical expressions, as well as in their ordinary compositions. These call themselves clever (!) in Malay; but each say this for themselves only, and such (as above) is their Malay. But Mr. North, after seven or eight years' sinking and rising in the study of Malay, admitted to me that he had not yet mastered it; for the natives of each nation alone could do so in their respective tongues. Thus no foreigner can be a critic in any language but his own."

The work translated by Abdulla I have not seen, but others that I have seen in Tamil abound in excellent maxims. Mr. North was an American Protestant missionary to the heathen, and it sounds somewhat odd to see Abdulla, a Mahomedan, calling him, an especial disciple of his. This shows with what different eyes people see. Over-estimation of self is the commonest of faults. In Mr. North Abdulla had now found a pupil that would really apply himself. On looking back at his story, we see that only three others besides Mr. North gained his respect and admiration, viz. Raffles, Milne, and Newbold; but North appears to have sur

passed all in his competent acquirement of the language of which Abdulla was a teacher. His adverse criticisms of the English translations are well-founded; and now at last he had found a white man that would pay respect due to a native guru.

This appears now a proper time to notice the different missions in the Straits, especially at Singapore, though I touch on dangerous ground by doing so in an unbiassed manner. There were in my time four missions for the conversion of the heathen,-two Protestant and two Roman,*-which discordant arrangement had much the same effect as I have observed it to have in New Zealand, and which eventuated in the setting up of a new religion called Hauhanism. One Protestant mission was from London; the other from (I believe) Boston, in the United States. As I was only a casual observer, I cannot give a full account of their system, but I can safely state that its principal feature was to set up schools for children; beyond this they may be said not to have mixed with the natives. As I traversed the settlements for seventeen years in all directions, I never met a Protestant missionary out of the towns but once, and he was under the protection of the resident official. No doubt their labours would have a limited effect, but this amongst the descendants of Europeans only. When they educated the children of Mahomedan, Hindoo, and Bhuddist parents, the effects were most apparent in the contempt by their scholars for all religion, and the adoption of an ethical superciliousness in lieu thereof. The material on which they had to work was a species of Fetishism, i.e. all unusual objects were supposed to have special spirits attached to them; such as large trees,

*I do not use the word Roman in an offensive light, but as distinct from Anglican, Greek, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Nestorian, Malabaru, and Teutonic.