and the infrequency of any harsh combination of mute consonants. These
qualities render it well adapted to poetry, which the Malays are
passionately addicted to.

SONGS.

They amuse all their leisure hours, including the greater portion of
their lives, with the repetition of songs which are, for the most part,
proverbs illustrated, or figures of speech applied to the occurrences of
life. Some that they rehearse, in a kind of recitative, at their bimbangs
or feasts, are historical love tales like our old English ballads, and
are often extemporaneous productions. An example of the former species is
as follows:

Apa guna passang palita,
Kallo tidah dangan sumbu'nia?
Apa guna bermine matta,
Kalla tidah dangan sunggu'nia?

What signifies attempting to light a lamp,
If the wick be wanting?
What signifies playing with the eyes,
If nothing in earnest be intended?

It must be observed however that it often proves a very difficult matter
to trace the connexion between the figurative and the literal sense of
the stanza. The essentials in the composition of the pantun, for such
these little pieces are called, the longer being called dendang, are the
rhythmus and the figure, particularly the latter, which they consider as
the life and spirit of the poetry. I had a proof of this in an attempt
which I made to impose a pantun of my own composing on the natives as a
work of their countrymen. The subject was a dialogue between a lover and
a rich coy mistress: the expressions were proper to the occasion, and in
some degree characteristic. It passed with several, but an old lady who
was a more discerning critic than the others remarked that it was "katta
katta saja"--mere conversation; meaning that it was destitute of the
quaint and figurative expressions which adorn their own poetry. Their
language in common speaking is proverbial and sententious. If a young
woman prove with child before marriage they observe it is daulu buah,
kadian bunga--the fruit before the flower. Hearing of a person's death
they say, nen matti, matti; nen idup, bekraja: kallo sampi janji'nia, apa
buli buat?--Those who are dead, are dead; those who survive must work: if
his allotted time was expired, what resource is there? The latter phrase
they always make use of to express their sense of inevitability, and has
more force than any translation of it I can employ.

ARABIC CHARACTER USED BY MALAYS.

Their writing is in the Arabic character, with modificati