A perfect transliteration, or one that will suit everybody, is, however, an unattainable ideal, and the most that can be done in that direction is necessarily a compromise. In the system adopted in the body of the work, the vowels are to be sounded (roughly speaking) as in Italian, except e (which resembles the French e in que, le, and the like), and the consonants as in English (but ng as in singer, not finger; g as in go; ny as ni in onion; ch as in church; final k and initial h almost inaudible). The symbol ` represents the Arabic `ain, and the symbol ' is used (1) between consonants, to indicate the presence of an almost inaudible vowel, the shortest form of e, and elsewhere (2) for the hamzah, and (3) for the apostrophe, i.e. to denote the suppression of a letter or syllable. Both the `ain and the hamzah may be neglected in pronunciation, as indeed they are very generally disregarded by the Malays themselves. In this and other respects, Arabic scholars into whose hands this book may fall must not be surprised to find that Arabic words and phrases suffer some corruptions in a Malay context. These have not, as a rule, been interfered with or corrected, although it has not been thought worth while to preserve obvious blunders of spelling in well-known Arabic formulæ. It should be added that in Malay the accent or stress, which is less marked than in English, falls almost invariably on the penultimate syllable of the word. Exceptions to this rule hardly ever occur except in the few cases where the penultimate is an open syllable with a short vowel, as indicated by the sign [breve]. The illustrations are reproduced from photographs of models and original objects made by Malays; most of these models and other objects are now in the Cambridge Archæological and Ethnological Museum, to which they were presented by the author. The Index, for the compilation of which I am indebted to my wife, who has also given me much assistance in the revision of the proof-sheets, will, it is believed, add greatly to the usefulness of the work as a book of reference. C. O. BLAGDEN. Woking, 28th August 1899. CONTENTS CHAPTER I Nature, pp. 1-15 PAGE (a) Creation of the World 1 (b) Natural Phenomena 5 CHAPTER II Man and His Place in the Universe, pp. 16-55 (a) Creation of Man 16 (b) Sanctity of the Body 23 (c) The Soul 47 (d) Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral Souls 52 CHAPTER III Relations with the Supernatural World, pp. 56-82 (a) The Magician 56 (b) High Places 61 (c) Nature of Rites 71