d your feet!

To us the hardest lot you bear,
Ere you pass Home again,
Were free and happy, bright and fair,
If scaled against _our_ pain.
We toil while others reap the fruit,
We suffer nameless ills;
Our lives are withered to the root,
By cruelty that kills.

Our very homes are not our own;
Our children and our wives
Are riven from us, while we moan
And labour out our lives.
They prison us in filthy sties
Would shame your Christian Hell;
No ear there is to heed our cries,
No tongue our pains to tell.

_The Very Bitter Cry of the Unprotected._

I have said that the Malays, taken by and large, have no bowels. The
story I am about to tell, illustrates this somewhat forcibly. The
incident related happened on the East Coast, and I know it to be a
fact. It is not a pleasant story, and any one who has a proud stomach,
would do well not to read it, as it is calculated to make the gorge rise
rebelliously.

In one of the States on the East Coast, there lived a _Raja_, who,
though he was not the ruler of the country, was a man of standing, and
was possessed of considerable power. This man owned much land, many
cattle, several wives, and a number of slave-debtors, and his reputation
for kindness and good-nature stood high among the people. It must be
remembered, however, that the standard by which he was judged differs
considerably from our own, otherwise, the things I am about to tell,
would appear to accord but ill with the character he bore.

Upon a certain day a _kris_ was stolen from him, and suspicion fastened
upon one of his slave-debtors named Talib. The man was innocent of the
theft, but his protestations were not believed, and he was forthwith
consigned to the _Pen-jara_ or local gaol. The tedious formality of a
trial was dispensed with, and nothing in the nature of the sifting of
evidence was considered necessary. The stolen _kris_ was the property of
a Prince. That was enough; and Talib went to gaol forthwith, the Raja
issuing an order--a sort of _lettre de cachet_--for his admittance. To
European ears this does not sound very terrible. Miscarriages of
justice, even in civilised lands, are not unknown, and in semi-barbarous
countries they are, of course, all in the day's march. Unfortunately,
however, an inspection of the gaols of Europe and of the Protected
Native States, does not enable one to form a picture