A 



NEW COLLECTION 



OF 



MALAY PROVERBS, 



^4t|py^ ANY of the following Proverbs have been known to 

 ^&^§Ht me for a considerable period, but though familiar 

 -^fpi|l-Ji with their use in colloquial Malay, I never reduced 

 A^8S§5? them to writing until lately when, travelling in 

 /tf^?V the interior of Pahang, I was driven to do so for 

 ; t the sake of the occupation. At the same time I 



considerably enlarged my original stock of hitherto unpub- 

 lished Proverbs, and, to the best of my belief, the present col- 

 lection contains no Proverb which has already appeared in 

 print. 



The Malay language is one which lends itself to that terse- 

 ness of expression and felicity of diction which is so essential 

 to an aphorism, and which is often the despair of the translator, 

 who attempts to compress the meaning conveyed by a few 

 pithy Malay words, into as many lines of English. The Ma- 

 lay Proverb is also interesting from a philological point of 

 view, because in these old-time sayings many words are found 

 which do not occur in any Malay writings, though such terms 

 are, for the most part, common enough in the colloquial 

 dialects. 



By the Malay, who is conservative to the backbone, and a 

 laudator temporis acti by nature and education, ail the wis- 

 dom of the ancients {per-kata-an orang tua-tua ) whether 

 preserved in Proverb, Charm, or Precept, is accepted with per- 

 iect faith as incontrovertible truth. As a race, too, the Ma- 



