Mala

“ The rain had cleared now and I rose to go. "Mr Tarn," I said, "before I leave you I think it my duty as a doctor to tell you something."
"About Mala?" he asked eagerly.
"About yourself." He laughed contemptuously. "If you go on with your present manner of life I will not answer for the consequences. I think you are playing, and have been playing, a very dangerous game; the case of your own friend warns you how dangerous it is. This prolonged solitude is bad for you and bad for your wife. ”

“ Malaga, madame, is dexterity personified; her little wrist or her little foot can rid her of three or four men. She is the goddess of gymnastics."
"She must be stupid—"
"Oh, no," said Paz, "I find her as amusing as the heroine of 'Peveril of the Peak.' Thoughtless as a Bohemian, she says everything that comes into her head; she thinks no more about the future than you do of the sous you fling to the poor. She says grand things sometimes. You couldn't make her believe that an old diplomatist was a handsome young man, not if you offered her a million of francs. ”

“ Malignant malaria, mistress of men who court thee under tropic skies, and who, like me, are turned from thee bodily shattered and whimpering like a child, how much, how very much hast thou laid up for thyself in Hades! ”

“ The Malay, without the least flinch of feature or pose, as if he had been an inanimate object called suddenly into life by some hidden magic of the words, spun the wheel rapidly, letting the spokes pass through his hands ”

“ None of the subdivisions intermarry or eat in each others' houses. Málas eat beef and are consequently almost at the bottom of the social scale. They are not allowed to enter the Hindu temples; no other caste (not even excluding the Mádigas) will eat in their houses; and they pollute all Súdra castes by touching them or entering their houses, and a Bráhman by even approaching him. Even the Mádigas pretend to be polluted if a Mála enters their houses; but the Málas return the compliment. The ordinary barbers will not work for Málas and they either shave each othei- or have their own barbers. ”

“ At the present day, if a Malay feels faint, he will describe his condition by saying that his ‘spirit of life’ is weak or is ‘flying’ from his body; he sometimes appeals to it to return: ‘Hither, hither, bird of my soul.’ Or again, if a Malay lover wishes to influence the mind of a girl, he may seek to obtain control of her sĕmangat, for he believes that this spirit of active and vigorous life must quit the body when the body sleeps and so be liable to capture by the use of magic arts. ”

“ But in imagination she pictured to herself the usual life of a Malay girl—the usual succession of heavy work and fierce love, of intrigues, gold ornaments, of domestic drudgery, and of that great but occult influence which is one of the few rights of half-savage womankind. ”

“ It never occurred to her to ask herself if it was not possible that the years which had given her half a dozen grey hairs, had brought about quite as great a change in her lover. It never occurred to her to think that there was a possibility that the years spent among savages—wandering through the forests where malaria lurked—starving at times and in peril of beasts and reptiles and lightning and sunstroke every day of his life, had changed him in some measure—even in as great a measure as the years of watching and waiting had altered her. ”

“ When the morning came, the boy was aroused by a full chorus of singing-birds that fairly made the air vibrate with their melody. In and out through the branches ran their wild minstrelsy, till the sunshine laughing through the greenness, giving warmth and pleasant light to the music. William sat up, rubbing his eyes, and wondering at the strange noises. Then he remembered where he was, called aloud for Malaeska. ”

“ It will take many days to reach Manhattan—take something to eat, or you will starve on the way," said Martha, compassionately.
"Malaeska has her bow and arrow, and she can use them; but she thanks the white maiden. A piece of bread for the boy—he has cried to his mother many times for food; but her bosom was full of tears, and she had none to give him." ”

“ Once, however, made King of Malaya, the modern Malwa, a province of Western Upper India, he so distinguished himself that the Hindu fabulists, with their usual brave kind of speaking, have made him “bring the whole earth under the shadow of one umbrella.” ”

“ Lying basking in the sun, or crawling at the heads of crawling oxen very like hairless buffaloes, or leaning over the bridge looking at nothing, the Malays spend their time when they come into the town, their very movements making the lack of movement more perceptible. ”

“ Finally on the outskirts of the crowd I caught a glimpse of three Moro women, and forced my way to them, shaking hands and smiling as affably as possible. They shook hands in return, rather awkwardly, but answered smile with smile, talking excitedly in their native tongue, and seeming surprised that I could speak only a word or two of Malay, without doubt a more agreeable language than that harsh and unintelligible one in which the white officers were bargaining for barongs and krises. ”

“ There's Martha Fellows, if you can find enough of your darnationed queer English to tell her what you want."
As he spoke, the rough, but kind-hearted old man entered the hut, pushing the wretched Malaeska and her child before him.
"Martha! why what in the name of nature makes you look so white about the mouth? You needn't be afraid of this little varmint, no how. She's as harmless as a garter-snake. Come, see if you can find out what she wants of you. She can talk the drollest you ever heard. But I've scared away her senses, and she only stares at me like a shot deer." ”

“ They ate their supper under a huge white pine, that absorbed the firelight in its dusky branches, and made every thing gloomy around. As the darkness closed over them William grew silent, and by the heaviness of his features Malaeska saw that he was oppressed by thoughts of home. ”

“ The woods were full of game, and wild fruits were abundant; so that it was a long, long time before Malaeska's residence in the neighborhood was known. She shrank from approaching a people who had treated her so cruelly, and so kept in utter loneliness so long as solitude was possible. ”

“ For, as I dare say you know, the Malays are sometimes liable to have the spirit of amok on them, which leads them to care for and fear nothin’, and to go in for a fight-to-death, from which we get our sayin’—run amuck. ”

“ To any one who thinks about it, this long and lingering death is infinitely more cruel than one caused by a blow from an axe, but the Malays do not trouble to consider such a detail, and would care little if they did. ”

“ See also Madagascar
Malanau tribes of Borneo, their use of a special language in searching for camphor, iii. 406 sq.;
their belief in the transmigration of human souls into animals, viii. 294
Malas, the, of Southern India, their treatment of the placenta, i. 194;
their custom in drought, i. 284 n.;
their rain-charm by means of frogs, i. 294;
talismans of Mala women at childbirth, iii. 235;
their communionwith a goddess by eating her edible image, viii. 93 sq.
Malassi, a fetish in West Africa, xi. 256
Malay charms by means of magical images, i. ”

“ Why aren't you in Rome, and is there room for me on that peaceful seat?"
"There is always room for Golden Locks beside the Big Bear--and now, Lady Maud, why should I be in Rome at this season of the year?"
"Because, being an artist, you should not mind malaria. Besides, what is malaria to this insufferable heat and crush? Doesn't it strike you that our hostess thinks getting into society, and getting society into her rooms, are synonymous terms? ”

“ Nina, held back by her mother, heard a soft voice reply with a calm evenness of intonation peculiar to the better class Malays—
“Who would doubt a white Tuan’s words? A man seeks his friends where his heart tells him. ”

“ Malays, who have experienced this, tell me that it is very trying, and I can well believe it, the more so, since it is a point of honour for the man to try to catch an occasional glimpse of his fiancée out of the corner of his eyes, without turning his head a hair's breadth, and without appearing to move an eyelash. ”

“ Anger, nevertheless, appears to be utterly foreign to its character, for among the Malays the name of the Eastern species is a synonym for gentle affection, and every writer, from Buffon to our time, bears evidence to its sociability and remarkable absence of fear of men. But, alas for the manatee! ”

“ As to the other side of the picture—the companionship for life of a Malay girl, that legacy of a boatful of pirates—there was only within him a confused consciousness of shame that he a white man——— Still, a convent education of four years—and then she may mercifully die. He was always lucky, and money is powerful! Go through it. Why not? He had a vague idea of shutting her up somewhere, anywhere, out of his gorgeous future. Easy enough to dispose of a Malay woman, a slave, after all, to his Eastern mind, convent or no convent, ceremony or no ceremony. ”

“ This is an interesting fact, in its way, as it tends to prove that it is not only the unhappy Malay of Malacca who feels that he is born possessing some rights in the soil from which he springs, and on which he lives, moves, and has his being. ”

“ When all is eaten and drank, they set fire to the thatched roof, and the idol is forgotten, until the chief, having discovered another one, commands a new ceremony.”
It has been already noticed in these pages, that the Malagaseys are utterly without religion. Their future state is a matter that never troubles them; indeed, they have no thought or hope beyond the grave, and are content to rely on that absurd thing “sikidy” for happiness on this side of it. ”

“ The Semang pygmy people, afraid to approach the Malays even for purposes of barter, "learnt to work upon the superstition of the Malays by presenting them with medicines which they pretended to derive from particular shrubs and trees in the woods." ”

“ The belief in the power of malignant spirits to cause misfortune, sickness, and death is still strong among the Malays, whose pawangs or medicine-men claim to be able to propitiate demons by spells, prayers, and offerings. These men frequently invoke benevolent spirits by the names of Rama, Vishnu, and other Hindu deities, in complete ignorance that they are Hindu,36 to counteract the evil influences of malevolent demons. ”

“ I was not able to walk straight even to the cathedral, or from the cathedral to the castle of Gibralfaro, or to the other places, nor could I form an idea of the beauties of Malaga without seeing them double and unsteadily, as some spiteful person might suppose.
On our walk my friend talked to me about the famous Republican people of Malaga, who are every moment doing something on their own account. They are a very fiery people, but fickle and yet tractable, like all people who feel much and think little; and they act upon the impulse of passion rather than the strength of conviction. ”

“ This life seems strange to us Northerners, self-constituted prisoners of roofs and walls. But we have only to look at a Malay, and the intuitive conviction flashes on us, that it is eminently right and proper for him to live in this manner. He is a creature of the field. ”

“ The Malays conceive the human soul as a little man, mostly invisible and of the bigness of a thumb, who corresponds exactly in shape, proportion, and even in complexion to the man in whose body he resides. This mannikin is of a thin, unsubstantial nature, though not so impalpable but that it may cause displacement on entering a physical object, and it can flit quickly from place to place; it is temporarily absent from the body in sleep, trance, and disease, and permanently absent after death. ”

“ The next class of medicinal ceremonies consists of rites intended to effect the expulsion from the patient’s body of all kinds of evil influences or principles, such as may have entered into a man who has unguardedly touched a dead animal or bird from which the badi has not yet been expelled, or who has met with the Wild Huntsman in the forest.133
Badi is the name given to the evil principle which, according to the view of Malay medicine-men, attends (like an evil angel) everything that has life. ”

“ All these alien heathens and picturesque unbelievers, these pagans and idolaters, Buddhists, Brahmans, Jews, Turks, sun- and fire-worshipers, devil-dancers, and what not, have come with the white man to toil for him under the equatorial sun, since the Malays are the great leisure class of the world, and will not work. ”

“ In character the Malays are energetic, quick of perception, genial in demeanor, but unscrupulous, cruel and revengeful. Veracity is unknown, and the love of gain is far stronger than any other passion or affection. ”

“ A man who as regards the world was honourable, as regards God devout, came to Malachy and complained to him concerning the barrenness of his soul,698 praying that he would obtain for him from Almighty God the grace of tears. ”

“ Tales of the marvellous and the supernatural excite interest and fear in a Malay audience, but they occasion no surprise. Malays [65] know that strange things have happened in the past, and are daily occurring to them and to their fellows. Some are struck by lightning, while others go unscathed; and similarly some have strange experiences, which are not wholly of this world, while others live and die untouched by the supernatural. The two cases, to the Malay mind, are completely parallel ”

“ The Malay has on his list of uncanny things the names of several spirits. Disease is everywhere a great dread of men, and often looked upon as an infliction of the supernatural powers. There are several spirits of sickness recognized among the Malays, but they reserve their greatest horror for the influences of the Hantu Katumbohan, or spirit of smallpox. But other spirits abound; there are some that inhabit the sources of streams, and many that dwell in forests. ”