practice is rather contrary to the theory than in accordance with it.
The States undoubtedly have fallen, in many ways, into evil case; the
privileged few, consisting of rajahs and their numerous kindred and
children, oppressing the unprivileged many, living in idleness on what
is wrung from their toil. The Malay sovereigns in most cases have come
to be little more than the feudal heads of bodies of insubordinate
chiefs, while even the headmen of the villages take upon themselves to
levy taxes and administer a sort of justice. Nomadic cultivation,
dislike of systematic labor, and general insecurity as to the
boundaries and tenure of land, have further impoverished the common
people, while Islamism exercises its usual freezing and retarding
influence, producing the fatal isolation which to weak peoples is slow
decay.

When Sir A. Clarke was appointed Governor of the Straits Settlements in
1873 he went to the Curator of the Geographical Society's library in
quest of maps and information of any kind about the country to which he
was going, but was told by that courteous functionary that there was
absolutely no information of the slightest value in their archives.
Since then the protectorate which we have acquired over three of the
native States and the war in Perak have mended matters somewhat; but
Mr. Daly, on appearing in May last before the same Society with the map
which is the result of his partial survey, regrets that we have of half
of the Peninsula "only the position of the coast-line!" Of the States
washed by the China Sea scarcely anything is known, and the eastern and
central interior offer a wide field for the explorer.

The letters which follow those written from China and Saigon relate to
the British settlements in the Straits of Malacca, and to the native
States of Perak, Selangor, and Sungei Ujong, which, since 1874, have