The Real Malay. By Sir Frank Athelstane Swettenham, K.C.M.G. (J.
Lane. 6s.)—Some little time ago we noticed an earlier work of Sir F. Swettenham's about Malaya and the Malays. The volume with which he now follows it up is not less attractive, nor less convincing in the impression of reality which it leaves upon the reader. The representatives of British authority in Malay States have no easy task. The ways of the people are very different from our ways, but it is not well to meet them with too direct an opposition. What to see and what not to see, where to follow the laissez-faire policy and where to inter- vene, are things not learnt in a day or a year. Besides the highly picturesque sketches of men and manners, we get now and then pictures of Nature, and Nature nowhere is more marvellous. Nor is there wanting the element of the mysterious. One could not wish to have anything more weird than the spirit-presence of Tolf Mogany, as described in the chapter entitled " After the Impressionists." Our author gives us a particularly interesting account of the curious phenomenon known as Amok,—Anglia?, "running amuck." This is now rare, for the simple reason that lunacy is better diagnosed than it used to be, and those affected by it are put under timely restraint.
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