11 MAY 1901, Page 15

POEMS OF THE MALAY PENINSULA. [To TUE EDITOR OF THE

" SPECTATOR."' SIR,—While gratefully acknowledging the insight and care- fulness of your reviewer's treatment of "Poems of the Malay Peninsula," might I point out that though in " Menjelma " the barest outline of the story was furnished orally from native sources, there is no Malay original for the verses, and such details as the mention of upas-trees are, roughly speaking, what the Greeks called stairs, or probabilities strongly

warranted by circumstances P—I am, Sir, &c.,