46 The Gardens of the Sun. [ch. m. 



dwell in the neighbourhood of the Malay population, 

 selling to them the best-looking and strongest of their 

 daughters. It is rare for the ' orang-utan ' to change 

 to Islamism or to adopt the Malay habits of life. In 

 these cases their aboriginal language has yielded to the 

 Malay and become entirely forgotten as if it had never 

 existed. Such are the conclusions arrived at after wan- 

 dering in Jahore, which I traversed from the Straits of 

 Malacca to the China Sea. In the study of these people 

 I felt as if I were commenciag the perusal of an interest- 

 ing old work, of whose semi-effaced pages some were 

 missing." * 



* It is curious to find that in Borneo, and elsewhere in the Malayan 

 islands, the name "orang-utan" (literally "wild man," or, "man of 

 the woods,") is applied not only to the large red monkey, as with us, 

 but also to the aborigiiial inhabitants of the interior. The Muruts are 

 frequently spoken of as " orang-utan," not only by the Malays, but also 

 by the Kadyans, a tribe of aboriginals converted to the Mahomedan 

 faith. 



