ge. Afrid, a genie, met the princes,
and, after having a row, they were all thrown away." The row was
peculiar. Afrid took them on one by one. The combatants walked round one
another, back to back, making feints in the air. Then the Prince got a
blow in, which Afrid pretended to feel. But suddenly, with a hoarse
laugh, he rushed again upon the foe, seized him by the throat or the
arm, and (I cannot improve on the phrase) "threw him away." After all
four princes were thus disposed of I left, being assured of a happy
ending by the account of the concluding scene: "The Prince then took the
Moon Princess to his father's kingdom, where he was married to her
amidst great rejoicings."

Comment perhaps is superfluous. But as I went home in my rickshaw my
mind went back to those evenings in India when I had seen Indian boys
perform to Indian music dances and plays in honour of Krishna, and to
the Bengal village where the assembled inhabitants had sung us hymns
composed by their native saint. And I remembered that everywhere, in
Egypt, in India, in Java, in Sumatra, in Japan, the gramophone
harmonium is displacing the native instruments; and that the
bioscope--that great instrument of education--is familiarising the
peasants of the East with all that is most vulgar and most shoddy in the
humour and sentiment of the West.

The Westernising of the East must come, no doubt, and ought to come. But
in the process what by-products of waste, or worse! Once, surely, there
must have been a genuine "Malay theatre." This is what Europe has made
of it.

PART II

CHINA

I

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF CHINA

Some recent travellers have expressed disappointment or even disgust
with what they saw or learned or guessed of China. My own first
impression is quite contrary. The climate, it is true, for the moment,
inclines one to gloomy views. An icy wind, a black sky, a cold drizzle.
March in England could hardly do worse. But in Canton one almost forgets
all that. Imagine a maze of narrow streets, more confused and confusing
than Venice; high houses (except in the old city); and hanging parallel
to these, in long, vertical lines, flags and wooden signs inscribed with
huge Chinese characters, gold on black, gold on red, red or blue on
white, a blaze of colour; and under it, pouring in a ceaseless stream,
yellow faces, black heads, blue jackets and trousers, all on foot or
borne on chairs, not a cart or carriage, rarely a pony, nobo