LA,TAH. 145 



And now as to latah itself, derivation and origin apart. 



The Malay acceptation of the word is very wide. It includes all 

 persons of a peculiarly nervous organization, ranging from those 

 who, from their mental constitution, seem absolutely subservient to 

 another's will ; down to those who appear merely of a markedly 

 excitable temperament. 



A pathologist would of course — and I trust I may now say will — 

 differentiate and classify the different degrees of this mental pecu- 

 liarity. Asa non-scientist, I am content to treat the subject in 

 the broad light in which it is presented to the Malay mind by their 

 own unscientific and comprehensive word latah. 



I suppose I am not taking too much for granted when I assume 

 that, by this time, the general character of the Malay is more or 

 less understood by the civilised world. He has recently been 

 called " the Irishman of the East/' with more happiness than 

 generally marks the definitions of "Our Special Correspondent." 



The only point of resemblance between "this and that," upon 

 which I would lay stress here, is the intense impressionability of 

 the Malay. 



Externally impassive the Malays are, as a race, but no one can 

 long have had intimate dealings with them without being struck 

 by their extraordinary susceptibility and peculiar sensitiveness to 

 the influence of what we should call the accidents of every-day- 

 life. 



No man, pace all Irishmen, is more " touchy " than a Malay. 



It is this nervous impressionability which leads to those myste- 

 rious vendettas and unaccountable amoks, which so often place 

 the European completely at fault in dealing with this otherwise 

 charming andloveable people. And it is this intensified nervous 

 s ensibility which is, I am convinced, at the base of the peculiarity of 

 which I have to speak. I think it will best serve the purpose — • 

 the admittedly humble purpose — I have in view, if I begin at what 

 appears to me to be the bottom of the whole of the phenomena I 

 have to notice, and to work up to the top, noting the divisions into 



