INAUGURAL ADDRESS 



" duty and destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thing 

 c f for him, and creatively, determines all the rest. That is, 

 " his religion ; and I say, if yon tell me what that is, you tell 

 " me to a very great extent what the man is, what the kind 

 " of things he will do is." 



Then there is a great want of a good account of Malayan 

 Literature. Andhi order that ' that "maybe given, it will' be 

 necessary to make a good collection of Mala}* writings. Great 

 help may be rendered in this matter by persons possessing 

 Malay manuscripts sending them in to the Library which this 

 Society proposes to form, either as gifts, or as loans to be copied. 

 I suppose there is no really good collection of Malay books in 

 existence. We all know how the large one which Sir Stamford 

 Raffles made was unfortunately burnt at sea on the way home. 

 I know of none out here. I thought it likely that there might 

 be such a thing in the British Museum ; and when I was in 

 Eugland the year before last I went to see. They told me that 

 there were Malay books but they were undescribed, and their 

 contents and value were unknown. However the Librarain 

 kindly gave me every facility for examining them myself. I 

 found that the whole collection amounted so some thirty 

 volumes most of them purchased from Air. Crawford in 184&. 

 I hope that the Museum did not pay a very large price for them. 

 The manuscripts were chiefly S&air aud Hikagat, poems and 

 romances, many of them incomplete, some bearing evident 

 marks of having been copied for European readiug, and more or 

 less adapted to European ideas. There were several exam- 

 ples of the Sual Jaioab, or Religions Catechism, and some printed 

 books in the inferior style of typography, which may be seen 

 any day by the curious in the book-shops in Kampong Glam. 

 One cannot call this a good collection, but I rather doubt if 

 there is a much better one to be found. If one is ever to be 

 made it should be done at once. For Malay manuscripts are 

 becomiug more and more difficult to obtain. The introduction 

 of printed books has not at present tended to preserve the 

 older literature. The Educational works which have been pub- 

 lished for the use of schools, and the weekly newspapers, will 

 probably, for some time to come satisfy a not too keen appetite 

 for reading ; and the manuscripts ( never very numerous ) are 

 likely to be less prized, and more rarely copied ; and many will 

 no doubt be lost for ever, unless an effort is made to discover 

 and preserve them. 



About the non-Malayan aboriginal races I will only say that, 

 though much has been written about them, there remains much 



