eally is, that they
cannot get completely rid of the notion that the world is peopled by
educated Europeans like themselves, and by a few other unimportant
persons, who do not matter. They know that, numerically, they are as but
a drop in the ocean of mankind, but it is possible to know a thing very
thoroughly and to realise it not at all. Thus they come by their false
opinion; for, in truth, the Age of Superstition lives as lustily to-day,
as when, in past years, witches blazed at Smithfield, or died with
rending gulps and bursting lungs, lashed fast to an English ducking
stool.

In the remote portions of the Malay Peninsula we live in the Middle
Ages, with all the appropriate accessories of the dark centuries. Magic
and evil spirits, witchcraft and sorcery, spells and love-potions,
charms and incantations are, to the mind of the native, as real and as
much a matter of everyday life as are the miracle of the growing rice,
and the mysteries of the reproduction of species. This must be not only
known but realised, not only accepted as a theory, but acknowledged as a
fact, if the native view of life is to be understood and appreciated.
Tales of the marvellous and the supernatural excite interest and fear in
a Malay audience, but they occasion no surprise. Malays 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;
and though both furnish matter for discussion, and excite fear and awe,
neither are unheard of phenomena calculated to awaken wonder and
surprise.

Thus the existence of the Malayan Loup Garou to the native mind is a
fact and not a mere belief. The Malay _knows_ that it is true. Evidence,
if it be needed, may be had in plenty; the evidence, too, of
sober-minded men, whose words, in a Court of Justice, would bring
conviction to the mind of the most obstinate jurymen, and be more than
sufficient to hang the most innocent of prisoners. The Malays know well
how Haji Abdallah, the native of the little state of Korinchi in
Sumatra, was caught naked in a tiger trap, and thereafter purchased his
liberty at the price of the buffaloes he had slain, while he marauded in
the likeness of a beast. They know of the countles