2 HIKAYAT SERI RAMA. 
to the forefathers of his present audience. A small reward, 
a hearty welcome, and a good meal await the Malay rhapsodist 
wherever he goes, and he wanders among Malay villages as 
Homer did among the Greek cities. 
Being in Perak as Assistant Resident some years ago, I 
was a witness on one occasion of the talents of one Mir 
Hassan, a native of Kampar in the south-east of that State, 
and brought him down to Larut with the intention of having 
his stock of legendary lore committed to writing. Official 
occupations interrupted this work, and it is only in this year 
(1886) that I have been able to have it completed, Mir Hassan 
having, through the influence of my friend Raja Idris* of Perak, 
been induced to visit me in Singapore. I now offer to the 
Society the Malay text of a romance called Séri Rama. Like 
the well known Malay hikayat of that name, it is founded upon 
the adventures of some of the heroes of the Ramayana, but an 
oral legend current among the people has, of course, many 
points of interest, which are wanting in a written version, 
compiled by a seribe who may have knowingly borrowed from 
foreign sources. It may not, perhaps, be easy to trace much 
of the action of the great Hindu Epic in the somewhat childish 
narrative of the Malay village-singer, but of the profound 
influence which the Ramayana and Mahabharata have had in 
the Farther Kast—the India ertra Gangem and the islands 
beyond—there can be no doubt. There is not a village-stage 
in Siam, Malaya or Java, the dramas of which are not directly 
referable to these sources, while the wrongs of Sita Dewi, the 
might of the gaint Rawana, and the prowess of the monkey- 
king Hanuman are household words everywhere. 
Mir Hassan’s story was taken down verbatim from his 
lips by native writers, and I have gone carefully over it, getting 
from him explanations of obscure passages. Here and there— 
the style is diversified by metrical passages in a peculiar rhythm 
not unlike specimens of Dayak blank-verse. The following 
sketch to the story, where passages of particular interest occur, 
*Now H. H. Sultan Idris, G.c.M.G. 
Jour. Straits Branch 
