Page 14 - Malay sketches

INTRODUCTION

amongst his own forests, by the banks of his well-
loved streams, unseeking and unsought. Whence
he came none know and few care, but this is the
land that has given to, or taken from, him the name
of a Race that has spread over a wider area than
any other Eastern people.
Malaya, land of the pirate and the amok, your
secrets have been well guarded, but the enemy has
at last passed your gate, and soon the irresistible
Juggernaut of Progress will have penetrated to your
remotest fastness, slain your beasts, cut down your
"civilised" clothed them in
forests, your people,
strange garments, and stamped them with the seal
of a higher morality.
That time of regeneration will come rapidly, but
for the moment the Malay of the Peninsula is as he
has been these hundreds of years. Education and
contact with Western people must produce the
inevitable result. Isolated native races whose
numbers are few must disappear or conform to the
views of a stronger will and a higher intelligence.
The Malays of the Peninsula will not disappear,