1NAUGUBAL ADDRESS / 



exploration of those parts of this region, which, being far from 

 the coast, have been seldom or never visited by any European. 

 And if we look at the question from the utilitarian side, the 

 strong opinion which has been recently arrived at by practical 

 agriculturists, that the slopes of hills in this Peninsula are 

 admirably adapted to the growth of both tea and coffee, added 

 to the actual successes of the Dutch and other planters of to- 

 bacco on the other side of the Straits, gives one a very high idea 

 of what might be done by capital and enterprise in so vast an 

 extent of country, which has hitherto been profitless, for want 

 of human inhabitants possessed of those resources by which 

 alone the tyranny ol nature can be overcome. 



And this brings us to another set of subjects upon which ac- 

 curate knowledge is very much needed. I mean the present 

 human inhabitants of Malaya, their history, their manners and 

 customs, their religion, and their language and literature. I 

 shall however treat the whole subject very generally. 



I think no one who has lived among them can be satisfied 

 with what is generally said in books about the character and 

 habits of the Malays. For instance, they are constantly spoken 

 of as if, throughout the length and breadth of the countries 

 where they are to be found, they were, in character and dis- 

 position, and in their ways of living and thinking, one and the 

 same. But we know that this is very far from being the case. 

 The Malay of the coast, who is best known to travellers, is quite 

 a different being, in a hundred respects, from the Malay of the 

 interior. And again, the inhabitants of one island, both the 

 dwellers on the sea board, and the peasants inland, differ from 

 those in another island, or in a distant part of the same island. 

 Take as an example a case in which most of us can make 

 the comparison from our own experience, and appreciate the 

 points of difference. Contrast a peasant of Malacca or Johor 

 with one of the Boyans, who enter our service in various capa- 

 cities in Singapore; they are both Malays, but they are almost 

 as unlike one another as a Hindoo and a Chinaman. The one is 

 lively, courteous, and communicative ; the other is dull, boorish, 

 and shy. The one is idle and fond of sport, tho other is plod- 

 ding and methodical ; the one is very fond of talking, and little 

 given to reading ; the other has not much to say even to his 

 own people, but keeps his master awake at night by reading or 

 reciting, in a loud monotonous voice, long poems or stories, or 

 chanting chapters of the Koran, which as a child he learned to 

 read, but of which he does not understand a word. If it is said 

 that we only see the Boyan out of his natural sphere, as an 



