PREFACE.
This record of a time spent among the less well-
known portions of Malaysia may be interesting to those
whom the goddess of travel has wooed in vain, as perchance
to some of those “ birds of passage ” to whom
the islands and continents of the world are as well
known as the church-spires and mile-stones of their own
land. In the islands of the Malay archipelago—the
Gardens of the Sun—Nature is ever beautiful, and man,
although often strikingly primitive, is hospitable to the
stranger, and not often vile.
A voyage of a few weeks brings ns to these beauty-
spots of the Eastern Seas—to an “ always-afternoon ”
kind of climate—since they are blessed with the heat
and glory of eternal summer—to a place where winter
is unknown—monsoon-swept islands oasis-like basking
in a warm and shallow desert of sea. Warmed by
perpetual sunshine, deluged by copious rains, and
thrilled by electricity, they are really enormous conservatories
of beautiful vegetation—great Zoological
Gardens inhabited by rare birds and curious animals.
In these sunny garden scenes man is the Adam of a