intentions." The intentions will, no doubt, count for something, though,
of course, every nation's conquests are paved with good intentions; or it
may be that the Recording Angel, looking compassionately at the strife of
hearts, may disdain to enter into the Eternal Book the facts of a
struggle which has the reward of its righteousness even on this earth--in
victory and lasting greatness, or in defeat and humiliation.

And, also, love will count for much. If the opinion of a looker-on from
afar is worth anything, Mr. Hugh Clifford's anxiety about his country's
record is needless. To the Malays whom he governs, instructs, and guides
he is the embodiment of the intentions, of the conscience and might of
his race. And of all the nations conquering distant territories in the
name of the most excellent intentions, England alone sends out men who,
with such a transparent sincerity of feeling, can speak, as Mr. Hugh
Clifford does, of the place of toil and exile as "the land which is very
dear to me, where the best years of my life have been spent"--and where
(I would stake my right hand on it) his name is pronounced with respect
and affection by those brown men about whom he writes.

All these studies are on a high level of interest, though not all on the
same level. The descriptive chapters, results of personal observation,
seem to me the most interesting. And, indeed, in a book of this kind it
is the author's personality which awakens the greatest interest; it
shapes itself before one in the ring of sentences, it is seen between the
lines--like the progress of a traveller in the jungle that may be traced
by the sound of the _parang_ chopping the swaying creepers, while the man
himself is glimpsed, now and then, indistinct and passing between the
trees. Thus in his very vagueness of appearance, the writer seen through
the leaves of his book becomes a fascinating companion in a land of
fascination.