golden sheen of ripened
ears, invest the "gift of the gods" with unearthly radiance. The
Eastern mind has ever responded to Nature's touch, for the great Mother
whispers her closest secrets to simple hearts, and science now realises
that civilisation has broken many of the subtle links which in earlier
days were mystic bonds of union between man and the universe.

Malay idiosyncracy evidences the survival of many primal influences
forgotten or denied by races of higher type and deeper culture. Very
little is known concerning the Malayan people who mingled with almost
every Oriental stock. Amphibious tastes suggest picturesque traditions
of prolonged voyaging in search of fresh fishing grounds to supply the
needs of a rapidly multiplying population. A strong Malay element
exists even in far-off Japan, and the wide ramifications of the nomadic
stock can be traced to broad rivers encountered on the southward
journey, and luring stragglers from the main body by the mysterious
glamour of winding water-ways piercing the tangled forests, and
pointing to unknown realms of hope or promise. The Malay retains many
of the hereditary gifts bestowed on the untaught children of Nature,
and, in spreading his language and customs far over the vast Pacific,
adopted few extraneous ideas from the world through which he wandered.
His primeval instincts still sway his life under other conditions.
Marvellous skill in hunting, fishing, boat-building, and navigation in
tornado-swept waters, remains to him. The deft weaving of palm-leaf hut
and wall of defence creates a village or destroys it at lightning
speed. Even now his basket-work home is never built on dry land, if
water can be found wherein to plant the supporting poles of the fragile
dwellings, suggesting the impermanence of a nomadic race. The Malay
never travels on foot to any place which can possibly be reached by
water, his native element; winds and tides have imbued him with
something of their own unstable and changing character, and the sea
which nurtured him is still the supreme factor in his life. Feet vie
with fingers in marvellous capacity, and to see a native cocoanut
gatherer run up the polished stem of a swaying palm, with greater ease
and swiftness than anyone shows in mounting a ladder, transports
thought to the distant past, when the ancestral stock, disembarking
from the rude canoes at nightfall, sought an evening meal on the edge
of the palm-forest, bowed beneath the w