crect, the pores of whose skin arc adamant, whose neck is black, whose tongue is fluent, whose spittle is brine. All these he prays to guard his people, and he then cries to thein to fling wide the gates of lust and passion together with the gates of desire and credulity, and the portals of longing "the longing which endureth from dawn unto dawn, which causeth food to ecase to satisfy, which maketh sleep uneasy, which remembering maketli memory eternal, which causeth hearing to hear and sight to see."
Such shameless trafficking with spirits, which should find no place in the demonology of any good Muhammadan, was quite properly regarded as an abomination by the straitlaced Maha Mentri; and not content with prohibiting the performances of the ma'iong, he contrived to make life so singularly unattractive to the actors and aetresses that many of them quitted Kelantan and trooped across the jungle-clad mountains which divide that state from Pahang.
Now, no matter what other faults are to be at- tributed to the people of Pahang, they cannot justly be accused of bigotry or religious fanaticism, so the players were welcomed with open arms, and from end to end of the land the throbbing beat of the ma'iong drums, the clanging of the gongs, the serap- ings of the ungainly Malay fiddles, the demented shricks and wailings of the serunai, which sounds like hagpipes in distress, the nasal chantings of the prima donna, and the roars of laughter which greet each one of the clown's threadbare jests, made merry
