PREFACE.

A great part of this book deals with the Victorian era. So perhaps one may be pardoned for recalling how Huxley once said that tragedy for Herbert Spencer was a deduction killed by a fact. So chimerical have been the theories of historians that the modern student demands the evidence before he will accept the finding. Meticulous, even tiresome detail must precede generalisation. There is hardly a deduction in this book: it is a plain unvarnished record of facts. Certainly the scaffolding of history consists of facts and this book pretends no more than to provide scaffolding for a definitive history of Malaya.

Most of the Malay material for this work was collected by us in Perak a quarter of a century ago. Since that time many Portuguese, Dutch and English records have been made accessible. His Highness Sri Sultan Iskandar, G.C.M.G., K.C.V.O. has graciously provided several illustrations. Doctors Bosch and van Stein Callenfels of the Archaeological Department of Netherlands India have been good enough to confirm my surmise that the dish figured in Plates VI—VIII is of Majapahit style. A note on the Sanskrit Coronation Address, has been obtained by the good offices of Dr. C. O. Blagden. Mr. H. D. Noone of the Perak Museum has supplied the latest scientific views on the Sakais, and Mr. T. D. Hughes, a Portuguese scholar in the Malayan Civil Service, has rendered assistance for the chapter on the Portuguese Period.

Chapters VII and VIII and part of X and Appendices (a) and (f) and much of (d) in their original form were the work of Mr. R. J. Wilkinson and have been printed in slightly different form elsewhere. For other chapters he is not responsible.

R. O. WINSTEDT, C.M.G., M,A., D.LITT. (Oxon.)