passage required, while for others many and minute references are tiresome.
The arrangement or ground-plan of this work was suggested to me originally by Mr. R. J. Wilkinson, C.M.G., who has also read most of it in manuscript. I am greatly indebted to Mr. C. O. Blagden, member of the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society, for ungrudging and invaluable assistance extended over many months: if he will allow me to say so, his research work in Talaing is (directly) a loss to Malay scholarship. Above all, I must thank Dr. Fokker of Amsterdam, who read this book for my publishers with meticulous care, pointed out many inaccuracies, and suggested many improvements; I can only wish it were better worth the trouble he lavished upon it so generously.
Mr. Blagden and my brother Mr. E. O. Winstedt have seen the book through the press.
