In Court and Kampong / Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula

L'ENVOI

By the green shade of the palm trees,
Where the river flows along
To be wedded to the calm seas,
Dwell the people of my song.
With a languid step they wander
Thro' the forest or the grove,
And with listless eyes they ponder
On the glories poets love.
They have little joy in beauty,
Little joy in virtue high,
Honour, mercy, truth, and duty,
Or the creeds for which men die.
But their lives are calm and peaceful,
And they ask for nothing more
Save some happy, listless, easeful
Years, and peace from strife and war.

[256] Tales I tell of women wailing,
Cruel wrong and bitter strife,
Shrieking souls that pass, and quailing
Hearts that shrink beneath the knife.
Tales I tell of evil passions,
Men that suffer, men that slay,
All the tragedy that fashions
Life and death for such as they.
Yet these things are but as fleeting
Shadows, that more lightly pass
Than the sunlight, which retreating
Leaves no stain upon the grass.
O my friends! I judge ye lightly,
Listen to the tales I tell.
Answer, have I spoken rightly?
Judge me, have I loved ye well?

THE END

Printed by R. R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

"SINCE THE BEGINNING." A Tale of an Eastern Land. Crown 8vo, Cloth. 6s.

The Sun.—"The author deals skilfully with a people still uncivilised, still swayed by primeval passions. His characters are well defined, and the tragedy which underlies the lives of the three principals is poignant and impressive by reason of his simple directness."

St. James's Gazette.—"Mr. Hugh Clifford's knowledge of Malay life and of the Malay land is undoubtedly great, and makes his story 'Since the Beginning' very interesting."

Daily Chronicle.—"Those who read the story will learn a good deal and learn it pleasantly of the Malay Peninsula, its inhabitants, their customs and their manners."

Pall Mall Gazette.—"Altogether a book of quite unusual ability, displaying exceptional powers of observation and description."

Scotsman.—"The story is powerfully told."

Academy.—"A very careful interpretation of Malayan life and character."

STUDIES IN BROWN HUMANITY. Crown 8vo, Cloth. 6s.

Guardian.—"His new book is quite as entertaining and thrilling as his last. Mr. Clifford's Malay friends have in no way lost their interest."

Daily News.—"These vivid and powerful pictures of the wild life of the Malayan Peninsula are of the deepest interest."

Morning Post.—"Mr. Clifford approaches his subject with the sympathy inspired by a country which he 'knows intimately' that is 'very dear to him,' and the scene of the best years of his life. His descriptive powers are considerable, his pictures accurate and full of colour."

The World.—"He draws further upon his memory for sketches of Eastern life, of which the vigour and colour may be compared with those of Mr. Kipling himself ... His pages 'palpitate with actuality,' if we may use a slang phrase of the day; not one of them is dull."'

Pall Mall Gazette.—"Mr. Clifford is a born artist, who scrupulously draws the thing as he sees it."

48 Leicester Square, London, W.C.

Price 33. 6d. net each.
GRANT ALLEN'S HISTORICAL GUIDES.

PARIS. By Grant Allen. Second Edition.

FLORENCE. By Grant Allen. Second Edition.

THE CITIES OF BELGIUM. By Grant Allen. Second Edition.

VENICE. By Grant Allen. Second Edition.

CITIES OF NORTHERN ITALY. By G. C. Williamson, Litt.D.

THE UMBRIAN TOWNS. By J. W. and A. M. Cruickshank.

Times.—"Good work in the way of showing students the right manner of approaching the history of a great city.... These useful little volumes."

Birmingham Gazette.—"Not only admirable, but also, to the intelligent tourist, indispensable.... Mr. Allen has the artistic temperament.... With his origins, his traditions, his art criticism, he goes to the heart of the matter, is outspoken concerning those things he despises, and earnest when describing those in which his soul delights.... Both books are eminently interesting to the ordinary reader whether he has travelled or not."

Scotsman.—"Those who travel for the sake of culture will be well catered for in Mr. Grant Allen's new series of Historical Guides.... There are few more satisfactory books for a student who wishes to dig out the Paris of the past from the immense superincumbent mass of coffee-houses, kiosks, fashionable hotels, and other temples of civilisation beneath which it is now submerged. Florence is more easily dug up, as you have only to go into the picture galleries or into the churches or museums, whither Mr. Allen's Guide accordingly conducts you, and tells you what to look at if you want to understand the art treasures of the city. The books, in a word, explain rather than describe.... Such books are wanted nowadays.... The more sober minded among tourists will be grateful to him for the skill with which the new series promises to minister to their needs."

The Queen.—"No traveller going to Florence with an idea of understanding its art treasures can afford to dispense with Mr. Allen's Guide. He is saturated with information gained by close observation and close study. He is so candid, so sincere, so fearless, so interesting."

Mr. L. F. Austin in the Sketch.—"His 'Paris' is certainly an admirable example of what a purely Æsthetic handbook should be, for it is clearly arranged, and written with that ease and intricacy which are borne of sympathy and knowledge."

48 Leicester Square, London, W.C.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

In the original text Malay words were spelled with diacritics or accents, namely:

breves (e.g. e), indicating short vowels;

circumflexes (e.g. Â) indicating long vowels;

vowels with diaeresis (e.g. Ä) indicating vowels which should be sounded separately;

glottal stops such as in "Dato’".

This file is encoded for the ISO-8851-1 character set. Although some of the diacritics are not found in ISO-8859-1, they can be rendered as html numeric entities. Hence this file does not need unicode and you should be able to display it correctly as long as your browser can handle ISO-8859-1.

Inconsistencies in the hyphenation of words have been preserved. (body-guard, bodyguard; eye-ball, eyeball; eye-lid, eyelid; fire-light, firelight; foot-hills, foothills; sun-down, sundown; sweet-stuff, sweetstuff)

Pg. 3, original text was "become morally week and seedy", "weak" was probably intended instead of "week" and changed accordingly. (become morally weak and seedy)

Pg. 14, in original text "Perak" here was spelled with a circumflex above the "e" in contrast to numerous other instances where a breve above the "e" is used. Changed to match the dominant pattern. (SultÂn of Perak from continuing)

Pg. 30, "whi l" changed to "while". (while the Malays gambled)

Pg. 54, added closing single quote mark to demarcate end of quoted speech. ('Diam! Diam!')

Pg. 86 and 87, in the original text, these pages have two instances of "Itam" spelled without a circumflex above the "I" in contrast to numerous instances from Pg. 90 onwards where a circumflex above the "I" is used. Changed to match the dominant pattern. (Tungku Long, Tungku Îtam)(Tungku Îtam, who had been watching)

Pg. 105, duplicated word "a" removed (cultivation of a pÂdi swamp)

Pg. 116, "RÂja SibÎdi" is also spelled "RÂja Sebidi" in two other instances on the same page. Original text preserved in all cases as it is unclear which the author intended.

Pg. 193, in the original text there was one instance of "Tungku" here spelled without the breve above the "e" in contrast to numerous instances in the text which all carry the breve. Changed to match the dominant pattern. (Tungku Saleh's boat tied up)

Pg. 193, unusual word "sweatmeats". Author probably meant "sweetmeats". Original text preserved. (while the Prince ate some sweatmeats)

Pg. 210, poem at the beginning of the chapter. In the original text, there was the unusual word "scrak", spelled with a c with acute accent. Author might have intended "sÔrak" spelled with a circumflex over the "o". "SÔrak" occurs elsewhere in the text meaning a "war-cry", which is plausible in the context here. However, the original text has been preserved.

Pg. 247, a piece of poetry quoted by the author. The last line appears to be missing some punctuation—a closing single-quote mark at the end and possibly a comma after "whispered". The author's original text has been preserved—the missing punctuation could have been intentional if he had, for example, been quoting verbatim from his source. (And whispered 'Thou thyself art Heaven or Hell.)

Pg. 255-256, poem "L'envoi". In the original text a page break occurred after the first 16 lines of the poem. This break has been presumed to also be a stanza break as it divides the poem into two equal groups of 16 lines and there is a change in tone at this point.

Clyx.com