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free enjoyment of the lands which God had given to him.

We of this latter age know how much, in the fulness of time, the rule of the white man had served to ease the burden of the peoples of the Malay Peninsula at least; but none the less there is something infinitely pathetic in the contemplation of this rude breaking in of the strangers from the West, the hard and restless workers, upon the indolent peace of these ease-loving peoples; the thought of the storm-torn ships from distant Portugal sailing in- solently into this quiet haven while the dusky men of the East stood gazing at them fearfully from the shore, see- ing in their coming a sure presage of what the future held for them and for their children.

Upon the arrival of Dalboquerque there followed negotiations of the usual wolf-and-lamb character. The Sultan of Malacca made haste to send a messenger to the Portuguese viceroy, asking why he had come with so great an armament, declaring that he had, poor soul, no keener desire than to live on terms of amity with the King of Portugal, "and giving him to know that the Bendará (Bĕndăhâra) had been put to death on account of his complicity in the rising which had taken place against the Portuguese captain (Diogo Lopez de Siqueira) who had come to that port, and had resulted in the murder of the Christians who were there in the land, but this was no fault of his." The author of the Commentaries char- acterises this pathetic attempt to delay the inevitable as an artful apology," and tells us that the great Alfonso