142 MALAY PASSION FOR FLOWERS. 



tion in their features, are the great natural bars to 

 their successful rivalry ; while their totally uncultivated 

 minds, and the absurd practice of blacking their 

 teeth, to heighten, as they imagine, their beauty, 

 renders them disgusting to intelligent Europeans : 

 should the Malays themselves become more improved, 

 it is probable that these women, who at present are 

 in so ignorant and debased a state, will also rise in 

 the scale of civilization ; but unless they can be per- 

 suaded to relinquish the religion of Mahomet, it is 

 much to be feared that neither of these desirable results 

 can take place. 



The women adorn their hair with beautiful and fra- 

 grant flowers, of which they are passionately fond. The 

 sweet unopened buds of the bufiga melur (Jasminum 

 sambac), and the bufiga gambir, both of them species of 

 jessamine, are the favourites for this purpose ; the buds, 

 being gathered in the morning, are strung in wreaths by 

 the girls, who afterwards weave them into their hair, also 

 concealing amongst the folds some flowers of the bunga 

 kananga (Uvaria), and of the delightful golden cham- 

 puka, both of which trees they cultivate for this purpose. 

 The strong but ravishing perfume of the flower called 

 sundal malam, or harlot of the night, the tuberose of 

 European gardens, is also esteemed by them, as is the 

 ganda suli, a species of Hedychium, and the Gardenia 

 florida, a variety of the Cape jessamine : these, with 

 many other flowers, are usually planted by the women, 

 or their slaves, near to their houses. As the Malays 

 of Sarawak do not make gardens, the flowers are often 



