28 
PAPERS ON MALAY SUBJECTS. 
of tbeir own. They wash for tin in tlie mountain 
streams, sell tlie fi'uit of old abandoned orchards in their 
forests, and collect Jungle pi-oduco foi- barter with tlie 
Malays. A few have found employment on rubber- 
estates; some, indeed, have come nnder the infliionce 
of Roman Catholic missions and been converted to 
Christianity. Here we have nothing of the shyness 
or sn^spicion that makes the Central Rakai hold them* 
selves aloof fi'om the onter world and limit all intercourse 
with it to a single tribal emissary, the kf^pala nong. 
Indeed, the Besisi seem to prefer dependence on others : 
they are a parasitic race with few tnbal crafts and 
industries. But like all races that are patient nnder 
sorrow and tribulation they do not die out. For 
four centuries and a half, from the days of Mudzafar 
'Shah of Malacca down to the present time, history tells 
us that these Besisi have been an exploited and 
persecuted people. Throughout this jieriod they must 
have been absorbed by hundreds into the general Malay 
popidation through conversion and intermarriage, besides 
having lost hundreds more of their number through 
violence and murder, yet they seem to be as numerous 
as they ever were, even if they have failed to act up 
to the saying that ** the meek shall inherit the earth." 
In time doubtless they will lose their language and 
become indistinguishable from the Malays. But they 
will not die out: and tliis rncial vitality of the Besisi is 
one of the very features that differentiate the tribe from 
other aboriginal races like the Semang, who retreat 
slowly before the advance of civilisation and perish 
miserably when the opening-up of the country robs them 
of theii' old hunting-grounds and drives them further back 
into the inhospitable mountain ranges of the interior. 
