88 .MALAY PROVERBS. 



lays delight in obscure hints and darksome metaphors. An 

 educated Malay will ask for his neighbour's daughter in mar- 

 riage to his son in a letter which is simply a string of doubles 

 entendres, and in familiar colloquial discourse a native will 

 quote the first line of a verse (which in its entirety contains 

 four lines, the first two of which are wholly irrelevant and are 

 only introduced for the sake of rhyming with the two last 

 lines), leaving his bewildered hearer to infer his meaning 

 from a knowledge of the lines which form the rest of the 

 verse, the first line of which has been given. In discussions 

 among Malays, too, it is the man who can quote, and not he 

 who can reason, that bears away the palm. I need hardly add 

 that a Proverb which is both ancient and obscurely metaphori- 

 cal, is immensely popular with all classes of Malays. 



In preparing these Proverbs for the press, I have endea- 

 voured to combine, as far as possible, an absolutely literal 

 translation with a correct rendering into English of the Ma- 

 lay meaning. 



The Proverbs are arranged in order according to the se- 

 quence of the Malay alphabet. 



HUGH CLIFFORD, 



