lS4 ON THE LANGUAGES AND LITERATUHE 



Her eye-brows curved, so fair I could devour her. 



Long has she been chosen to be iny mistress. 



Wearing a ring set with gems of Ceylon, 



Per long nails shining like lightning, 



Transparent as a string of pearls, 



Her waist slender and extremely elegant, 



Her neck turned like a polished statue. 



Eloquent in the enunciation of her words. 



Her parting lips like the crimson red wood 



Not by dress, but by herself adorned ; 



Black are her teeth stained with bt^a powder, 



Graceful, slender, appearing lilce a queen. 



Her locks adorned with the SernJQ, flowers. 



Her features beautiful with no defect of symmetry, 



My soul is often fluttering ready to depart. 



Glancing eagerly forth from my eyes. 



And quite unable to return to its station. 



The character generally used by the MalaySy is a 

 Tnodification of the Arabic; and, in addition to the 

 proper Arabic alphabet, the Malayu uses six letters, 

 of which one is the Persic chi, a second the slurred 

 ^al, of the Hindostani^ two more Correspond in power 

 to the Persic and Hindostani pa and ga, but are writ- 

 ten of a different form, and the remaining two, nga 

 and nya, are peculiar in form, but correspond to the 

 nasals of the hrst and second series of the Deoa-Na- 

 gari alphabet. The Malays o^ Java, however, often 

 use the Javanese character, to express their own lan- 

 guage, as those of Celebes do the Bugis. In the Afo- 

 luccas, the Latin character has obtained some degree 

 of currency, even among the Malays, and is some- 

 times used by them to express the Malayu language. 



The, Malayu language was one of the first cultivated 

 in the east by Eui'opeans. The first attempt to form 

 a grammar or dictionary of it, as far as I know, was 



