Betel-Nut Island. By John T. Beighton. (Religious Tract Society.) —Betel-Nut
Island is the English equivalent of Pub o Penang; in official language, Prince of Wales's Island ; in common parlance, Penang. This is the place which Mr. Beighton, who has known it and its inhabitants from boyhood, describes. He has mach that is in- teresting to tell us about both. One of his earliest friends was a young Baltak, the &Maks being a cannibal tribe of the interior of Sumatra. Mr. Beighton tells us how Christianity, Mahommedanism, and Buddhism contended for the young proselyte. The first triumphed, and it seems that "Thomas John Ince," for so he called himself, was the first-fruit of an important and successful mission. The people were ferocious cannibals, and all efforts had been abandoned, till in 1862 the Rhenish Society began operations among them, operations which can now show eleven thousand baptised Christians, and several self- supporting churches. Mr. Beighton has many things to tell us, as about the Chinese, about the natural history of the island, the various faiths which divide the people among them, etc. His concluding chapter describes "British Courts of Justice in India."
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