MALAY PROVERBS. 49 



Both Malay and Hindustani furnish equivalents for a 

 well-known French proverb, Dans h royaume des aveur/les 

 les borgnes sont rois. The Malays say Ditiinvpat tiada lang 

 kata hilalang aku-lah lang, "Where there are no kites the 

 grasshopper says I pan a kite." The Hindustani version 

 is shorter and neater, Jahan darakJit nahin wahan rand bhi 

 darakht, u Where there are no trees even the castor-oil' plant 

 is a tree." 



Malays who quote the sajung, Barang siapa menggali lo- 

 bangiya juga terprosok hadalamnia "Whosoever digs a pit, 

 he shall fall into it himself" (Hikay at Abdullah, p. 165), are 

 innocent no doubt of any intention to borrow from Solomon 

 or from the Arabs. Yet there can be no doubt of course of 

 the Semitic origin of the phrase and the Malay veision 

 must be simply a translation. Is it a translation of Pro- 

 verbs XXVJ, 27, " Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein," or 

 lias it reached the Malays from Mohameclan sources? The 

 latter supposition seems the more likely ; and yet the first 

 is not impossible, for it is well-known that Abdullah 

 bin Abdul Kadir, from whose Autobiography I take the 

 Malay passage, assisted some English missionaries in tran- 

 slating the Bible into Malay. Those interested in Moha- 

 medan legends will find a story connected with the phrase 

 thus related by Burton ( Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and 

 Meccah, II, 265): — "At about half a mile from the city 

 " [Meccah) we passed on the left a huge heap of stones, 

 " where my companions stood and cursed. This grim-looking 

 " cairn is popularly believed to note the place of the well 

 " where Abu Lahab laid an ambuscade for the Prophet. 

 • "'This wicked uncle stationed there a slave, with orders to 

 " throw headlong into the pit the first person who approach- 

 " ed him, and privily persuaded his nephew to visit the 

 " spot at night : after a time, anxiously hoping to hear that 

 "the deed had been done, Abu Lahab incautiously drew 

 " ni^h, and was precipitated by his own bravo into the place 

 " of destruction. Hence the well-known saying in Islam, "Whoso 

 " diggeth a well for his brother shall fall into it himself." 



Sometimes Malay ideas may perhaps be traced to Buddhist 

 and not to Mohamedan sources. v In the Prataya Sataka a 

 collection of moral sentences in Singhalese the following passage 

 occurs : 



" Though a man were to make an immense heap of sugar 

 "and plant in the midst of it a seed of the Kosamba tree and 



