PEEFACE. 



This record of a time spent among the less well- 

 known portions of Malaysia may be interesting to those 

 whom the goddess of travel has wooed m vain, as per- 

 chance to some of those " birds of passage " to whom 

 the islands and continents of the world. are as well 

 known as the chnrch-spires and mile-stones of their own 

 land. In the islands of the Malay archipelago — the 

 Gardens of the Sun — Nature is ever beautiful, and man, 

 although often strikingly primitive, is hospitable to the 

 stranger, and not often vile. 



A voyage of a few weeks brings us to these beauty- 

 spots of the Eastern Seas — to an " always-afternoon " 

 kind of climate — since they are blessed with the heat 

 and glory of eternal summer — to a place where winter 

 is unknown — monsoon-swept islands oasis-like basking 

 in a warm and shallow desert of sea. Warmed by 

 perpetual sunshine, deluged by copious rains, and 

 thrilled by electricity, they are really enormous con- 

 servatories of beautiful vegetation — great Zoological 

 Gardens inhabited by rare birds and curious animals. 

 In these sunny garden scenes man is the Adam of a 



