Page:Malay Sketches.pdf/16

 amongst his own forests, by the banks of his well-loved streams, unseeking and unsought. Whence he came none know and few care, but this is the land that has given to, or taken from, him the nameof a Race that has spread over a wider area than any other Eastern people.

Malâya, land of the pirate and the âmok, your secrets have been well guarded, but the enemy has at last passed your gate, and soon the irresistible Juggernaut of Progress will have penetrated to your remotest fastness, slain your beasts, cut down your forests, "civilised" your people, clothed them in strange garments, and stamped them with the seal of a higher morality.

That time of regeneration will come rapidly, but for the moment the Malay of the Peninsula is as he has been these hundreds of years. Education and contact with Western people must produce the inevitable result. Isolated native races whose numbers are few must disappear or conform to the views of a stronger will and a higher intelligence. The Malays of the Peninsula will not disappear,