Tae Malay Poninsala, which occupies so large a space in our Shanghai hori. zon, and which seems destined by its unique geographical position and its agricultural and mineral wealth to take an important place in the new industrial development of the Far East, has been fortunate enough to attract the notice of two Indy writers, It requires a wound to describe a country, Men can only analyse and tabulate. So many people of this race, so runny of that, 80 many miles of railroad, 80 many steam-fuetories, such and such products, a chapter on the Fauna, another on the Flora, others on the Revenue and the Expenditure, the administration of justice and the religions creeds, Sach is the ordinary summary of a mau's book—all useful knowledge, no doubt, but somehow the breath of life has porated from this statist which has no human interest except for fortune-seekers or dry-as-date, But let a woman take op the pen and we become aware of a shaking among the dry-bones, and life fused into the picture, We recently heard a com. parison drawn between the admirable volumes of Archdeacon Gray who spent 8 life-time over the study of Canton, and the vivid word-painting of Miss Bird who the Ci y of Rams in a few days. Asa reservoir of information of course the Venerable Arch. deacon's work will be quoted with gratitude by students for generations to come. But read? Hardly. The lady's glowing fancy, on the other hand, takes the reader by storm and leaves on his mind an indelible if inaccurate im-
The same gifted lady las taken the Malay Peninaula under her patronage and has given to the world under the uow well-known title of the "Golden Chersonese" such a gorgeous revelation of the country and the people that to see Perak and die must be the one wish-of those who have read ber book. Being endowed with the faculty of cing things with the eye of the post, "in a fixe frenzy rolling," she re in the splendour of the tropic gles, sees no vileness in Malay or Chinese, and adores the mon. keys like a Benares devotee; avd to crown all she possesses degree the power of transferring these strong impressions of hers to paper. The render, however, who is ever likely to gravitate to those parts would do well to be on his guard aguinst over-much enthusiasm, for every one is not gifted with the second sight, or poetical sense, or whatever power it be which lifts Miss Bird so high above the common earth and enables ber to tive in an ideal paradise in the midst of physical discomforts which drive ordinary mortals to suicide, It is always well to bear in mind that there ate two sides to the shield—but here we shall be safest under the guidance of the other lady.
In the May number of "London Society " is an' unpretending but well written paper which shows that all is not gold that glitters in the " Golden Chorsonese." The writer, who thinly veils her identity under the pseudonym of Mrs Rose, gives, under the title of "Teo days at the Soaside," a graphic account of ber own murder at @ place called Pangkor, which, as we gather from her narrative, is one of the unite in that wonderfal scheme of residential administration by which the various Malay States are loosely held together under the suzerainty of Sir Frederick Weld. Mes, Rose saw Malaysia through a very different medium from Miss Bird, and indeed may be considered as the antithesis and antidote to that distinguished lady. What, for example, could offer a sharper contrast to Mi Bird's beatific visions than Mrs, Rose' description of her home in Perak "Our first sight of Darian Sabatang filled us with dismay, The Resideuoy, or Government bungalow, in which were expected to liv an ancient ahed made of palm-leaves propped up on about fifty tottering lege made of the stems of palms. The shed was in 80 dilapidated a condition that no respectable English farmer would put a cow into it, There was a ladder at the back and another at the front by which the shed could be entered.
There were twelve permanent leaks in the roof, and every uow and then the wind would lift up a large piece of thatch bodily, while the rain poured down as if from buckets through the temporary openings thus made, There were no ceilings to the rooms," eto., eto. Nor does the living appear to have 10 good as it is in Shanghai We lived almost entirely on tinned meats which were always mach damaged by the climate before they reached us. We got so sick of them at Inst that often we let them go away from the table untouched, and preferred starve. These had, most probably, been for many months in the Singapore shops, and n Singapore shopkeeper, unless he is greatly belied, looks on an order from a jungle. of getting rid of his unsaleable goods." The tragal, industrious, docile, Chinese whom we have been accustomed to hear of a8 the life and son! of the Malay country, the pioneers of progress and the mainstay of civilised government, are according to this matter-of-fact writer—
"Hideous nine-tenths naked coolies, almost all with- repulsive akin-di avd all, without exception, owning the most villninons coautenances.... A large proportion of the Chinese population was generally in prison for some crime or other, and gangs of them
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.