Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/70

56 LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE again, drank, and was intoxicated. The prince rose and danced. The Bandaliara took a cup from the attendants, filled it, danced, and present- ed it to the prince. The prince took the cup, saying, * My relation, alas, I am already drunk.* " And the chiefs became one and all intoxi- cated. Some were just able to reach their own houses — some dropped down and fell asleep on the way — some were carried home by their slaves — and more slept scattered here and there in the stalls of the market-place." Malayan romances, whatever be their origin, are singularly destitute of spirit. To point a mo- ral is never attempted ; and the gratification of a puerile and credulous fancy seems the sole object. All prose composition is remarkably monotonous. This arises, perhaps, in a good measure, from the singularly inartificial grammatical form of the lan- guage, which admits of no order but the natural order of ideas, and renders it almost impossible to extend a sentence beyond a single clause. This quality of the language, assisted, probably, by that unskilfulness in composition which is natural to the rude period of written language, unaided by metre, gives rise to the practice of marking the be- ginning of each sentence by a particle or particles, almost exclusively appropriated to this use, such as 7ioxvy and, then, moreover, &c. The perpetu^