t.
The great Mother chants her "Song of Songs" throughout the myriad
changes of Time, in terms so similar to the imagery of the Divine
Epithalamium that, from a human standpoint, it seems swept by the
spice-laden breezes of the Malayan Lotus-land, rather than by the
fainter fragrance wafted from the orchards and gardens of Palestine or
Egypt. Possibly the Syrian fleet, in search of ivory and peacocks,
touched at the enchanted shores where "all trees of frankincense"
perfumed the air, and produced those aromatic "powders of the
merchant," regarded as priceless treasures both in primitive and
mediaeval days. The story might well capture the fancy of the royal
poet, and enrich the music of his verse with the luscious fragrance of
a more luxuriant land than even his own pastoral Canaan, flowing with
milk and honey. The hyperbole of Eastern thought often rests on a solid
foundation of fact, and the Hebrew love-song weaves tropical Nature's
lavish wealth of flower, fruit, and fragrance into a symbolic garland,
flung in passionate rapture at the feet of the beloved one. The
spiritual significance of the sacred lyric only transposes the mystic
melody into a higher key, and heaps the thurible of the sanctuary with
the frankincense of praise, to celebrate the typical bridal of Earth
and Heaven.

The diadem of palms on the last outlying islet of the Malay
Archipelago, stands out in dark relief against the golden haze of the
afterglow, which floods the sky, and changes the purple waters into a
sea of fire. The pageant of sunset lingers for a moment, and then
vanishes beneath of the pall of the swiftly-falling night. The
fairyland of eternal summer sinks below the horizon, and realities melt
into the shadows of that mental subconsciousness which holds the
wraiths of departed joys. Memories of the golden hours spent in
threading the flowery maze of the vast Archipelago, seem a mere handful
of shells gathered on the surf-beaten shores, but if even the empty
shell can hold the sound of the waves, this brief record of a cruise in
sunny seas may also convey faint whispers of that syren voice which
echoed through the ages of the past, and still allures the spellbound
listener to the swaying palms and spice-scented bowers of Malaya's
Island Paradise.

Transcriber's Notes:

The preference has been to retain inconsistencies and idiosyncracies in
spelling, especially of proper nouns, except in the case of obvious
typographical er