Produced by Sue Asscher





(PLATE 16. A MALAY BOY, NATIVE OF BENCOOLEN.
T. Heaphy delt. A. Cardon fecit.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)


THE HISTORY OF SUMATRA,

CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF

THE GOVERNMENT, LAWS, CUSTOMS, AND MANNERS

OF

THE NATIVE INHABITANTS,

WITH

A DESCRIPTION OF THE NATURAL PRODUCTIONS,

AND A RELATION OF THE

ANCIENT POLITICAL STATE OF THAT ISLAND.

BY

WILLIAM MARSDEN, F.R.S.

THE THIRD EDITION, WITH CORRECTIONS, ADDITIONS, AND PLATES.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR,
BY J. M'CREERY, BLACK-HORSE-COURT,
AND SOLD BY
LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1811.

...


THE HISTORY OF SUMATRA.


CONTENTS.


PREFACE.


CHAPTER 1.

SITUATION.
NAME.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY, ITS MOUNTAINS, LAKES, AND RIVERS.
AIR AND METEORS.
MONSOONS, AND LAND AND SEA-BREEZES.
MINERALS AND FOSSILS.
VOLCANOES.
EARTHQUAKES.
SURFS AND TIDES.


CHAPTER 2.

DISTINCTION OF INHABITANTS.
REJANGS CHOSEN FOR GENERAL DESCRIPTION.
PERSONS AND COMPLEXION.
CLOTHING AND ORNAMENTS.


CHAPTER 3.

VILLAGES.
BUILDINGS.
DOMESTIC UTENSILS.
FOOD.


CHAPTER 4.

AGRICULTURE.
RICE, ITS CULTIVATION, ETC.
PLANTATIONS OF COCONUT, BETEL-NUT, AND OTHER VEGETABLES FOR DOMESTIC USE.
DYE STUFFS.


CHAPTER 5.

FRUITS, FLOWERS, MEDICINAL SHRUBS AND HERBS.


CHAPTER 6.

BEASTS.
REPTILES.
FISH.
BIRDS.
INSECTS.


CHAPTER 7.

VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS OF THE ISLAND CONSIDERED AS ARTICLES OF COMMERCE.
PEPPER.
CULTIVATION OF PEPPER.
CAMPHOR.
BENZOIN.
CASSIA, ETC.


CHAPTER 8.

GOLD, TIN, AND OTHER METALS.
BEESWAX.
IVORY.
BIRDS-NEST, ETC.
IMPORT-TRADE.


CHAPTER 9.

ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.
ART OF MEDICINE.
SCIENCES.
ARITHMETIC.
GEOGRAPHY.
ASTRONOMY.
MUSIC, ETC.


CHAPTER 10.

LANGUAGES.
MALAYAN.
ARABIC CHARACTER USED.
LANGUAGES OF THE INTERIOR PEOPLE.
PECULIAR CHARACTERS.
SPECIMENS OF LANGUAGES AND OF ALPHABETS.


CHAPTER 11.

COMPARATIVE STATE OF THE SUMATRANS IN CIVIL SOCIETY.
DIFFERENCE OF CHARACTER BETWEEN THE MALAYS AND OTHER INHABITANTS.
GOVERNMENT.
TITLES AND POWER OF THE CHIEFS AMONG THE REJANGS.
INFLUENCE OF THE EUROPEANS.
GOVERNMENT IN PASSUMMAH.


CHAPTER 12.

LAWS AND CUSTOMS.
MODE OF DECIDING CAUSES.
CODE OF LAWS.


CHAPTER 13.

REMARKS ON, AND ELUCIDATION OF, THE VARIOUS LAWS AND CUSTOMS.
MODES OF PLEADING.
NATURE OF EVIDENCE.
OATHS.
INHERITANCE.
OUTLAWRY.
THEFT, MURDER, AND COMPENSATION FOR IT.
ACCOUNT OF A FEUD.
DEBTS.
SLAVERY.


CHAPTER 14.

MODES OF MARRIAGE, AND CUSTOMS RELATIVE THERETO.
POLYGAMY.
FESTIVALS.
GAMES.
COCK-FIGHTING.
USE AND EFFECTS OF OPIUM.


CHAPTER 15.

CUSTOM OF CHEWING BETEL.
EMBLEMATIC PRESENTS.
ORATORY.
CHILDREN.
NAMES.
CIRCUMCISION.
FUNERALS.
RELIGION.


CHAPTER 16.

THE COUNTRY OF LAMPONG AND ITS INHABITANTS.
LANGUAGE.
GOVERNMENT.
WARS.
PECULIAR CUSTOMS.
RELIGION.


CHAPTER 17.

ACCOUNT OF THE INLAND COUNTRY OF KORINCHI.
EXPEDITION TO THE SERAMPEI AND SUNGEI-TENANG COUNTRIES.


CHAPTER 18.

MALAYAN STATES.
ANCIENT EMPIRE OF MENANGKABAU.
ORIGIN OF THE MALAYS AND GENERAL ACCEPTATION OF NAME.
EVIDENCES OF THEIR MIGRATION FROM SUMATRA.
SUCCESSION OF MALAYAN PRINCES.
PRESENT STATE OF THE EMPIRE.
TITLES OF THE SULTAN.
CEREMONIES.
CONVERSION TO MAHOMETAN RELIGION.
LITERATURE.
ARTS.
WARFARE.
GOVERNMENT.


CHAPTER 19.

KINGDOMS OF INDRAPURA, ANAK-SUNGEI, PASSAMMAN, SIAK.


CHAPTER 20.

THE COUNTRY OF THE BATTAS.
TAPPANULI-BAY.
JOURNEY INTO THE INTERIOR.
CASSIA-TREES.
GOVERNMENTS.
ARMS.
WARFARE.
TRADE.
FAIRS.
FOOD.
MANNERS.
LANGUAGE.
WRITING.
RELIGION.
FUNERALS.
CRIMES.
EXTRAORDINARY CUSTOM.


CHAPTER 21.

KINGDOM OF ACHIN.
ITS CAPITAL.
AIR.
INHABITANTS.
COMMERCE.
MANUFACTURES.
NAVIGATION.
COIN.
GOVERNMENT.
REVENUES.
PUNISHMENTS.


CHAPTER 22.

HISTORY OF THE KINGDOM OF ACHIN, FROM THE PERIOD OF ITS BEING VISITED BY
EUROPEANS.


CHAPTER 23.

BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE ISLANDS LYING OFF THE WESTERN COAST OF SUMATRA.


LIST OF PLATES.

PLATE 1. THE PEPPER-PLANT, Piper nigrum.
E.W. Marsden delt. Engraved by J. Swaine, Queen Street, Golden Square.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 2. THE DAMMAR, A SPECIES OF PINUS.
Sinensis delt. Swaine Sc.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 3. THE MANGUSTIN FRUIT, Garcinia mangostana.
Engraved by J. Swaine.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 4. THE RAMBUTAN, Nephelium lappaceum.
L. Wilkins delt. Engraved by J. Swaine.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 5. THE LANSEH FRUIT, Lansium domesticum.
L. Wilkins delt. Hooker Sc.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 6. THE RAMBEH FRUIT, A SPECIES OF LANSEH.
Maria Wilkins delt. Engraved by J. Swaine.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 7. THE KAMILING OR BUAH KRAS, Juglans camirium.
L. Wilkins delt. Engraved by J. Swaine.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 8. Marsdenia tinctoria, OR BROAD-LEAFED INDIGO.
E.W. Marsden delt. Swaine fct.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 9. A SPECIES OF Lemur volans, SUSPENDED FROM THE RAMBEH-TREE.
Sinensis delt. N. Cardon fct.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 9a. THE MUSANG, A SPECIES OF VIVERRA.
W. Bell delt. A. Cardon fc.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 10. THE TANGGILING OR PENG-GOLING-SISIK, A SPECIES OF MANIS.
W. Bell delt. A. Cardon fct.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 11. n.1. THE ANJING-AYER, Mustela lutra.
W. Bell delt. A. Cardon fc.

PLATE 11a. n.2.
1. SKULL OF THE KAMBING-UTAN.
2. SKULL OF THE KIJANG.
W. Bell delt. A. Cardon sc.

PLATE 12. n.1. THE PALANDOK, A DIMINUTIVE SPECIES OF MOSCHUS.
Sinensis delt. A. Cardon fc.

PLATE 12a. n.2. THE KIJANG OR ROE, Cervus muntjak.
W. Bell delt. A. Cardon sc.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 13. n.1. THE LANDAK, Hystrix longicauda.
Sinensis delt. A. Cardon fc.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 13a. n.2. THE ANJING-AYER.
Sinensis delt. A. Cardon fc.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 14. n.1. THE KAMBING-UTAN, OR WILD-GOAT.
W. Bell delt.

PLATE 14a. n.2. THE KUBIN, Draco volans.
Sinensis delt. A. Cardon sc.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 15. BEAKS OF THE BUCEROS OR HORN-BILL.
M. de Jonville delt. Swaine sc.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 16. A MALAY BOY, NATIVE OF BENCOOLEN.
T. Heaphy delt. A. Cardon fecit.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 17. SUMATRAN WEAPONS.
A. A Malay Gadoobang.
B. A Batta Weapon.
C. A Malay Creese.
One-third of the size of the Originals.
W. Williams del. and sculpt.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 17a. SUMATRAN WEAPONS.
D. A Malay Creese.
E. An Achenese Creese.
F. A Malay Sewar.
One-third of the size of the Originals.
W. Williams del. and sculpt.

PLATE 18. ENTRANCE OF PADANG RIVER.
With Buffaloes.

PLATE 18A. VIEW OF PADANG HILL.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 19. A VILLAGE HOUSE IN SUMATRA.
W. Bell delt. J.G. Stadler sculpt.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.

PLATE 19a. A PLANTATION HOUSE IN SUMATRA.
W. Bell delt. J.G. Stadler sculpt.


INDEX.

...



PREFACE.

The island of Sumatra, which, in point of situation and extent, holds a
conspicuous rank on the terraqueous globe, and is surpassed by few in the
bountiful indulgences of nature, has in all ages been unaccountably
neglected by writers insomuch that it is at this day less known, as to
the interior parts more especially, than the remotest island of modern
discovery; although it has been constantly resorted to by Europeans for
some centuries, and the English have had a regular establishment there
for the last hundred years. It is true that the commercial importance of
Sumatra has much declined. It is no longer the Emporium of Eastern riches
whither the traders of the West resorted with their cargoes to exchange
them for the precious merchandise of the Indian Archipelago: nor does it
boast now the political consequence it acquired when the rapid progress
of the Portuguese successes there first received a check. That
enterprising people, who caused so many kingdoms to shrink from the
terror of their arms, met with nothing but disgrace in their attempts
against Achin, whose monarchs made them tremble in their turn. Yet still
the importance of this island in the eye of the natural historian has
continued undiminished, and has equally at all periods laid claim to an
attention that does not appear, at any, to have been paid to it.

The Portuguese being better warriors than philosophers, and more eager to
conquer nations than to explore their manners or antiquities, it is not
surprising that they should have been unable to furnish the world with
any particular and just description of a country which they must have
regarded with an evil eye. The Dutch were the next people from whom we
had a right to expect information. They had an early intercourse with the
island, and have at different times formed settlements in almost every
part of it; yet they are almost silent with respect to its history.* But
to what cause are we to ascribe the remissness of our own countrymen,
whose opportunities have been equal to those of their predecessors or
contemporaries? It seems difficult to account for it; but the fact is
that, excepting a short sketch of the manners prevailing in a particular
district of the island, published in the Philosophical Transactions of
the year 1778, not one page of information respecting the inhabitants of
Sumatra has been communicated to the public by any Englishman who has
resided there.

(*Footnote. At the period when this remark was written, I was not aware
that an account of the Dutch settlements and commerce in Sumatra by M.
Adolph Eschels-kroon had in the preceding year been published at
Hamburgh, in the German language; nor had the transactions of a literary
society established at Batavia, whose first volume appeared there in
1779, yet reached this country. The work, indeed, of Valentyn, containing
a general history of the European possessions in the East Indies, should
have exempted a nation to which oriental learning is largely indebted
from what I now consider as an unmerited reflection.)

To form a general and tolerably accurate account of this country and its
inhabitants is a work attended with great and peculiar difficulties. The
necessary information is not to be procured from the people themselves,
whose knowledge and inquiries are to the last degree confined, scarcely
extending beyond the bounds of the district where they first drew breath;
and but very rarely have the almost impervious woods of Sumatra been
penetrated to any considerable distance from the sea coast by Europeans,
whose observations have been then imperfect, trusted perhaps to memory
only, or, if committed to paper, lost to the world by their deaths. Other
difficulties arise from the extraordinary diversity of national
distinctions, which, under a great variety of independent governments,
divide this island in many directions; and yet not from their number
merely, nor from the dissimilarity in their languages or manners, does
the embarrassment entirely proceed: the local divisions are perplexed and
uncertain; the extent of jurisdiction of the various princes is
inaccurately defined; settlers from different countries and at different
periods have introduced an irregular though powerful influence that
supersedes in some places the authority of the established governments,
and imposes a real dominion on the natives where a nominal one is not
assumed. This, in a course of years, is productive of innovations that
destroy the originality and genuineness of their customs and manners,
obliterate ancient distinctions, and render confused the path of an
investigator.

These objections, which seem to have hitherto proved unsurmountable with
such as might have been inclined to attempt the history of Sumatra, would
also have deterred me from an undertaking apparently so arduous, had I
not reflected that those circumstances in which consisted the principal
difficulty were in fact the least interesting to the public, and of the
least utility in themselves. It is of but small importance to determine
with precision whether a few villages on this or that particular river
belong to one petty chief or to another; whether such a nation is divided
into a greater or lesser number of tribes; or which of two neighbouring
powers originally did homage to the other for its title. History is only
to be prized as it tends to improve our knowledge of mankind, to which
such investigations contribute in a very small degree. I have therefore
attempted rather to give a comprehensive than a circumstantial
description of the divisions of the country into its various governments;
aiming at a more particular detail in what respects the customs,
opinions, arts, and industry of the original inhabitants in their most
genuine state. The interests of the European powers who have established
themselves on the island; the history of their settlements, and of the
revolutions of their commerce I have not considered as forming a part of
my plan; but these subjects, as connected with the accounts of the native
inhabitants and the history of their governments, are occasionally
introduced.

I was principally encouraged to this undertaking by the promises of
assistance I received from some ingenious and very highly esteemed
friends who resided with me in Sumatra. It has also been urged to me here
in England that, as the subject is altogether new, it is a duty incumbent
on me to lay the information I am in possession of, however defective,
before the public, who will not object to its being circumscribed whilst
its authenticity remains unimpeachable. This last quality is that which I
can with the most confidence take upon me to vouch for. The greatest
portion of what I have described has fallen within the scope of my own
immediate observation; the remainder is either matter of common notoriety
to every person residing in the island, or received upon the concurring
authority of gentlemen whose situation in the East India Company's
service, long acquaintance with the natives, extensive knowledge of their
language, ideas, and manners, and respectability of character, render
them worthy of the most implicit faith that can be given to human
testimony.

I have been the more scrupulously exact in this particular because my
view was not, ultimately, to write an entertaining book to which the
marvellous might be thought not a little to contribute, but sincerely and
conscientiously to add the small portion in my power to the general
knowledge of the age; to throw some glimmering light on the path of the
naturalist; and more especially to furnish those philosophers whose
labours have been directed to the investigation of the history of Man
with facts to serve as data in their reasonings, which are too often
rendered nugatory, and not seldom ridiculous, by assuming as truths the
misconceptions or wilful impositions of travellers. The study of their
own species is doubtless the most interesting and important that can
claim the attention of mankind; and this science, like all others, it is
impossible to improve by abstract speculation merely. A regular series of
authenticated facts is what alone can enable us to rise towards a perfect
knowledge in it. To have added one new and firm step in this arduous
ascent is a merit of which I should be proud to boast.

...

Of this third edition it is necessary to observe that, the former two
having made their appearance so early as the years 1783 and 1784, it
would long since have been prepared for the public eye had not the duties
of an official situation occupied for many years the whole of my
attention. During that period, however, I received from my friends abroad
various useful, and, to me at least, interesting communications which
have enabled me to correct some inaccuracies, to supply deficiencies, and
to augment the general mass of information on the subject of an island
still but imperfectly explored. To incorporate these new materials
requiring that many liberties should be taken with the original
contexture of the work, I became the less scrupulous of making further
alterations wherever I thought they could be introduced with advantage.
The branch of natural history in particular I trust will be found to have
received much improvement, and I feel happy to have had it in my power to
illustrate several of the more interesting productions of the vegetable
and animal kingdoms by engravings executed from time to time as the
drawings were procured, and which are intended to accompany the volume in
a separate atlas.

...



THE HISTORY OF SUMATRA.


CHAPTER 1.

SITUATION.
NAME.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY, ITS MOUNTAINS, LAKES, AND RIVERS.
AIR AND METEORS.
MONSOONS, AND LAND AND SEA-BREEZES.
MINERALS AND FOSSILS.
VOLCANOES.
EARTHQUAKES.
SURFS AND TIDES.

If antiquity holds up to us some models, in different arts and sciences,
which have been found inimitable, the moderns, on the other hand, have
carried their inventions and improvements, in a variety of instances, to
an extent and a degree of perfection of which the former could entertain
no ideas. Among those discoveries in which we have stepped so far beyond
our masters there is none more striking, or more eminently useful, than
the means which the ingenuity of some, and the experience of others, have
taught mankind, of determining with certainty and precision the relative
situation of the various countries of the earth. What was formerly the
subject of mere conjecture, or at best of vague and arbitrary
computation, is now the clear result of settled rule, founded upon
principles demonstratively just. It only remains for the liberality of
princes and states, and the persevering industry of navigators and
travellers, to effect the application of these means to their proper end,
by continuing to ascertain the unknown and uncertain positions of all the
parts of the world, which the barriers of nature will allow the skill and
industry of man to approach.

SITUATION OF THE ISLAND.

Sumatra, the subject of the present work, is an extensive island in the
East Indies, the most western of those which may be termed the Malayan
Archipelago, and constituting its boundary on that side.

LATITUDE.

The equator divides it obliquely, its general direction being north-west
and south-east, into almost equal parts; the one extremity lying in five
degrees thirty-three minutes north, and the other in five degrees
fifty-six minutes south latitude. In respect to relative position its
northern point stretches into the Bay of Bengal; its south-west coast is
exposed to the great Indian Ocean; towards the south it is separated by
the Straits of Sunda from the island of Java; on the east by the
commencement of the Eastern and China Seas from Borneo and other islands;
and on the north-east by the Straits of Malacca from the peninsula of
Malayo, to which, according to a tradition noticed by the Portuguese
historians, it is supposed to have been anciently united.

LONGITUDE.

The only point of the island whose longitude has been settled by actual
observation is Fort Marlborough, near Bencoolen, the principal English
settlement, standing in three degrees forty-six minutes of south
latitude. From eclipses of Jupiter's satellites observed in June 1769,
preparatory to an observation of the transit of the planet Venus over the
sun's disc, Mr. Robert Nairne calculated its longitude to be 101 degrees
42 minutes 45 seconds; which was afterwards corrected by the Astronomer
Royal to 102 degrees east of Greenwich. The situation of Achin Head is
pretty accurately fixed by computation at 95 degrees 34 minutes; and
longitudes of places in the Straits of Sunda are well ascertained by the
short runs from Batavia, which city has the advantage of an observatory.

MAP.

By the general use of chronometers in latter times the means have been
afforded of determining the positions of many prominent points both on
the eastern and western coasts, by which the map of the island has been
considerably improved: but particular surveys, such as those of the bays
and islets from Batang-kapas to Padang, made with great ability by
Captain (now Lieutenant-Colonel) John Macdonald; of the coast from
Priaman to the islands off Achin by Captain George Robertson; and of Siak
River by Mr. Francis Lynch, are much wanted; and the interior of the
country is still very imperfectly known. From sketches of the routes of
Mr. Charles Campbell and of Lieutenant Hastings Dare I have been enabled
to delineate the principal features of the Sarampei, Sungei Tenang and
Korinchi countries, inland of Ipu, Moco-moco, and Indrapura; and
advantage has been taken of all other information that could be procured.
For the general materials from which the map is constructed I am chiefly
indebted to the kindness of my friend, the late Mr. Alexander Dalrymple,
whose indefatigable labours during a long life have contributed more than
those of any other person to the improvement of Indian Hydrography. It
may be proper to observe that the map of Sumatra to be found in the fifth
volume of Valentyn's great work is so extremely incorrect, even in regard
to those parts immediately subject to the Dutch government, as to be
quite useless.

UNKNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS. TAPROBANE.

Notwithstanding the obvious situation of this island in the direct track
from the ports of India to the Spice Islands and to China, it seems to
have been unknown to the Greek and Roman geographers, whose information
or conjectures carried them no farther than Selan-dib or Ceylon, which
has claims to be considered as their Taprobane; although during the
middle ages that celebrated name was almost uniformly applied to Sumatra.
The single circumstance indeed of the latter being intersected by the
equator (as Taprobane was said to be) is sufficient to justify the doubts
of those who were disinclined to apply it to the former; and whether in
fact the obscure and contradictory descriptions given by Strabo,
Pomponius Mela, Pliny, and Ptolemy, belonged to any actual place, however
imperfectly known; or whether, observing that a number of rare and
valuable commodities were brought from an island or islands in the
supposed extremity of the East, they might have been led to give place in
their charts to one of vast extent, which should stand as the
representative of the whole, is a question not to be hastily decided.

OPHIR.

The idea of Sumatra being the country of Ophir, whither Solomon sent his
fleets for cargoes of gold and ivory, rather than to the coast of Sofala,
or other part of Africa, is too vague, and the subject wrapped in a veil
of too remote antiquity, to allow of satisfactory discussion; and I shall
only observe that no inference can be drawn from the name of Ophir found
in maps as belonging to a mountain in this island and to another in the
peninsula; these having been applied to them by European navigators, and
the word being unknown to the natives.

Until the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope the
identity of this island as described or alluded to by writers is often
equivocal, or to be inferred only from corresponding circumstances.

ARABIAN TRAVELLERS.

The first of the two Arabian travellers of the ninth century, the account
of whose voyages to India and China was translated by Renaudot from a
manuscript written about the year 1173, speaks of a large island called
Ramni, in the track between Sarandib and Sin (or China), that from the
similarity of productions has been generally supposed to mean Sumatra;
and this probability is strengthened by a circumstance I believe not
hitherto noticed by commentators. It is said to divide the Sea of
Herkend, or Indian Ocean, from the Sea of Shelahet) Salahet in Edrisi),
and Salat being the Malayan term both for a strait in general, and for
the well-known passage within the island of Singapura in particular, this
may be fairly presumed to refer to the Straits of Malacca.

EDRISI.

Edrisi, improperly called the Nubian geographer, who dedicated his work
to Roger, King of Sicily, in the middle of the twelfth century, describes
the same island, in the first climate, by the name of Al-Rami; but the
particulars so nearly correspond with those given by the Arabian
traveller as to show that the one account was borrowed from the other. He
very erroneously however makes the distance between Sarandib and that
island to be no more than three days' sail instead of fifteen. The island
of Soborma, which he places in the same climate, is evidently Borneo, and
the two passages leading to it are the Straits of Malacca and of Sunda.
What is mentioned of Sumandar, in the second climate, has no relation
whatever to Sumatra, although from the name we are led to expect it.

MARCO POLO.

Marco Polo, the celebrated Venetian traveller of the thirteenth century,
is the first European who speaks of this island, but under the
appellation of Java minor, which he gave to it by a sort of analogy,
having forgotten, or not having learned from the natives, its appropriate
name. His relation, though for a long time undervalued, and by many
considered as a romantic tale, and liable as it is to the charge of
errors and omissions, with some improbabilities, possesses,
notwithstanding, strong internal evidence of genuineness and good faith.
Containing few dates, the exact period of his visit to Sumatra cannot be
ascertained, but as he returned to Venice in 1295, and possibly five
years might have elapsed in his subsequent tedious voyages and journeys
by Ceylon, the Karnatick, Malabar, Guzerat, Persia, the shores of the
Caspian and Euxine, to Genoa (in a prison at which place he is said to
have dictated his narrative), we may venture to refer it to the year
1290.

Taking his departure, with a considerable equipment, from a southern port
of China, which he (or his transcriber) named Zaitum, they proceeded to
Ziamba (Tsiampa or Champa, adjoining to the southern part of
Cochin-China) which he had previously visited in 1280, being then in the
service of the emperor Kublai Khan. From thence, he says, to the island
of Java major is a course of fifteen hundred miles, but it is evident
that he speaks of it only from the information of others, and not as an
eyewitness; nor is it probable that the expedition should have deviated
so far from its proper route. He states truly that it is a mart for
spices and much frequented by traders from the southern provinces of
China. He then mentions in succession the small uninhabited islands of
Sondur and Condur (perhaps Pulo Condore); the province of Boeach
otherwise Lochac (apparently Camboja, near to which Condore is situated);
the island of Petan (either Patani or Pahang in the peninsula) the
passage to which, from Boeach, is across a gulf (that of Siam); and the
kingdom called Malaiur in the Italian, and Maletur in the Latin version,
which we can scarcely doubt to be the Malayan kingdom of Singa-Pura, at
the extremity of the peninsula, or Malacca, then beginning to flourish.
It is not however asserted that he touched at all these places, nor does
he seem to speak from personal knowledge until his arrival at Java minor
(as he calls it) or Sumatra. This island, lying in a south-eastern
direction from Petan (if he does not rather mean from Malaiur, the place
last mentioned) he expressly says he visited, and describes it as being
in circumference two thousand miles (not very wide of the truth in a
matter so vague), extending to the southward so far as to render the
Polar Star invisible, and divided into eight kingdoms, two of which he
did not see, and the six others he enumerates as follows: Ferlech, which
I apprehend to be Parlak, at the eastern extremity of the northern coast,
where they were likely to have first made the land. Here he says the
people in general were idolaters; but the Saracen merchants who
frequented the place had converted to the faith of Mahomet the
inhabitants of the towns, whilst those of the mountains lived like
beasts, and were in the practice of eating human flesh. Basma or Basman:
this nearly approaches in sound to Pasaman on the western coast, but I
should be more inclined to refer it to Pase (by the Portuguese written
Pacem) on the northern. The manners of the people here, as in the other
kingdoms, are represented as savage; and such they might well appear to
one who had long resided in China. Wild elephants are mentioned, and the
rhinoceros is well described. Samara: this I suppose to be Samar-langa,
likewise on the northern coast, and noted for its bay. Here, he says, the
expedition, consisting of two thousand persons, was constrained to remain
five months, waiting the change of the monsoon; and, being apprehensive
of injury from the barbarous natives, they secured themselves, by means
of a deep ditch, on the land side, with its extremities embracing the
port, and strengthened by bulwarks of timber. With provisions they were
supplied in abundance, particularly the finest fish. There is no wheat,
and the people live on rice. They are without vines, but extract an
excellent liquor from trees of the palm kind by cutting off a branch and
applying to it a vessel which is filled in the course of a day and night.
A description is then given of the Indian or coconut. Dragoian, a name
bearing some though not much resemblance to Indragiri on the eastern
coast; but I doubt his having proceeded so far to the southward as that
river. The customs of the natives are painted as still more atrocious in
this district. When any of them are afflicted with disorders pronounced
by their magicians to be incurable their relations cause them to be
suffocated, and then dress and eat their flesh; justifying the practice
by this argument, that if it were suffered to corrupt and breed worms,
these must presently perish, and by their deaths subject the soul of the
deceased to great torments. They also kill and devour such strangers
caught amongst them as cannot pay a ransom. Lambri might be presumed a
corruption of Jambi, but the circumstances related do not justify the
analogy. It is said to produce camphor, which is not found to the
southward of the equinoctial line; and also verzino, or red-wood (though
I suspect benzuin to be the word intended), together with a plant which
he names birci, supposed to be the bakam of the Arabs, or sappan wood of
the eastern islands, the seeds of which he carried with him to Venice. In
the mountainous parts were men with tails a palm long; also the
rhinoceros, and other wild animals. Lastly, Fanfur or Fansur, which
corresponds better to Campar than to the island of Panchur, which some
have supposed it. Here the finest camphor was produced, equal in value to
its weight in gold. The inhabitants live on rice and draw liquor from
certain trees in the manner before described. There are likewise trees
that yield a species of meal. They are of a large size, have a thin bark,
under which is a hard wood about three inches in thickness, and within
this the pith, from which, by means of steeping and straining it, the
meal (or sago) is procured, of which he had often eaten with
satisfaction. Each of these kingdoms is said to have had its peculiar
language. Departing from Lambri, and steering northward from Java minor
one hundred and fifty miles, they reached a small island named Necuram or
Norcueran (probably Nancowry, one of the Nicobars), and afterwards an
island named Angaman (Andaman), from whence, steering to the southward of
west a thousand miles, they arrived at that of Zeilan or Seilam, one of
the most considerable in the world. The editions consulted are chiefly
the Italian of Ramusio, 1583, Latin of Muller, 1671, and French of
Bergeron, 1735, varying much from each other in the orthography of proper
names.

ODORICUS.

Odoricus, a friar, who commenced his travels in 1318 and died at Padua in
1331, had visited many parts of the East. From the southern part of the
coast of Coromandel he proceeded by a navigation of twenty days to a
country named Lamori (perhaps a corruption of the Arabian Al-rami), to
the southward of which is another kingdom named Sumoltra, and not far
from thence a large island named Java. His account, which was delivered
orally to the person by whom it was written down, is extremely meagre and
unsatisfactory.

MANDEVILLE.

Mandeville, who travelled in the fourteenth century, seems to have
adopted the account of Odoricus when he says, "Beside the isle of Lemery
is another that is clept Sumobor; and fast beside a great isle clept
Java."

NICOLO DI CONTI.

Nicolo di Conti, of Venice, returned from his oriental travels in 1449
and communicated to the secretary of Pope Eugenius IV a much more
consistent and satisfactory account of what he had seen than any of his
predecessors. After giving a description of the cinnamon and other
productions of Zeilam he says he sailed to a great island named Sumatra,
called by the ancients Taprobana, where he was detained one year. His
account of the pepper-plant, of the durian fruit, and of the
extraordinary customs, now well ascertained, of the Batech or Batta
people, prove him to have been an intelligent observer.

ITINERARIUM PORTUGALLENSIUM.

A small work entitled Itinerarium Portugallensium, printed at Milan in
1508, after speaking of the island of Sayla, says that to the eastward of
this there is another called Samotra, which we name Taprobane, distant
from the city of Calechut about three months' voyage. The information
appears to have been obtained from an Indian of Cranganore, on the coast
of Malabar, who visited Lisbon in 1501.

LUDOVICO BARTHEMA.

Ludovico Barthema (Vartoma) of Bologna, began his travels in 1503, and in
1505, after visiting Malacca, which he describes as being the resort of a
greater quantity of shipping than any other port in the world, passed
over to Pedir in Sumatra, which he concludes to be Taprobane. The
productions of the island, he says, were chiefly exported to Catai or
China. From Sumatra he proceeded to Banda and the Moluccas, from thence
returned by Java and Malacca to the west of India, and arrived at Lisbon
in 1508.

ODOARDUS BARBOSA.

Odoardus Barbosa, of Lisbon, who concluded the journal of his voyage in
1516, speaks with much precision of Sumatra. He enumerates many places,
both upon the coast and inland, by the names they now bear, among which
he considers Pedir as the principal, distinguishes between the Mahometan
inhabitants of the coast and the Pagans of the inland country; and
mentions the extensive trade carried on by the former with Cambaia in the
west of India.

ANTONIO PIGAFETTA.

In the account given by Antonio Pigafetta, the companion of Ferdinand
Magellan, of the famous circumnavigatory voyage performed by the
Spaniards in the years 1519 to 1522, it is stated that, from their
apprehension of falling in with Portuguese ships, they pursued their
westerly route from the island of Timor, by the Laut Kidol, or southern
ocean, leaving on their right hand the island of Zamatra (written in
another part of the journal, Somatra) or Taprobana of the ancients.
Mention is also made of a native of that island being on board, who
served them usefully as an interpreter in many of the places they
visited; and we are here furnished with the earliest specimen of the
Malayan language.

PORTUGUESE EXPEDITIONS.

Previously however to this Spanish navigation of the Indian seas, by the
way of South America, the expeditions of the Portuguese round the Cape of
Good Hope had rendered the island well known, both in regard to its local
circumstances and the manners of its inhabitants.

EMANUEL KING OF PORTUGAL.

In a letter from Emanuel King of Portugal to Pope Leo the Tenth, dated in
1513, he speaks of the discovery of Zamatra by his subjects; and the
writings of Juan de Barros, Castaneda, Osorius, and Maffaeus, detail the
operations of Diogo Lopez de Sequeira at Pedir and Pase in 1509, and
those of the great Alfonso de Alboquerque at the same places, in 1511,
immediately before his attack upon Malacca. Debarros also enumerates the
names of twenty of the principal places of the island with considerable
precision, and observes that the peninsula or chersonesus had the epithet
of aurea given to it on account of the abundance of gold carried thither
from Monancabo and Barros, countries in the island of C(cedilla)amatra.

Having thus noticed what has been written by persons who actually visited
this part of India at an early period, or published from their oral
communication by contemporaries, it will not be thought necessary to
multiply authorities by quoting the works of subsequent commentators and
geographers, who must have formed their judgments from the same original
materials.

NAME OF SUMATRA.

With respect to the name of Sumatra, we perceive that it was unknown both
to the Arabian travellers and to Marco Polo, who indeed was not likely to
acquire it from the savage natives with whom he had intercourse. The
appellation of Java minor which he gives to the island seems to have been
quite arbitrary, and not grounded upon any authority, European or
Oriental, unless we can suppose that he had determined it to be the
I'azadith nesos of Ptolemy; but from the other parts of his relation it
does not appear that he was acquainted with the work of that great
geographer, nor could he have used it with any practical advantage. At
all events it could not have led him to the distinction of a greater and
a lesser Java; and we may rather conclude that, having visited (or heard
of) the great island properly so called, and not being able to learn the
real name of another, which from its situation and size might well be
regarded as a sister island, he applied the same to both, with the
relative epithets of major and minor. That Ptolemy's Jaba-dib or dio was
intended, however vaguely, for the island of Java, cannot be doubted. It
must have been known to the Arabian merchants, and he was indefatigable
in his inquiries; but at the same time that they communicated the name
they might be ill qualified to describe its geographical position.

In the rude narrative of Odoricus we perceive the first approach to the
modern name in the word Sumoltra. Those who immediately followed him
write it with a slight, and often inconsistent, variation in the
orthography, Sumotra, Samotra, Zamatra, and Sumatra. But none of these
travellers inform us from whom they learned it; whether from the natives
or from persons who had been in the habits of frequenting it from the
continent of India; which latter I think the more probable. Reland, an
able oriental scholar, who directed his attention to the languages of the
islands, says it obtains its appellation from a certain high land called
Samadra, which he supposes to signify in the language of the country a
large ant; but in fact there is not any spot so named; and although there
is some resemblance between semut, the word for an ant, and the name in
question, the etymology is quite fanciful. Others have imagined that they
find an easy derivation in the word samatra, to be met with in some
Spanish or Portuguese dictionaries, as signifying a sudden storm of wind
and rain, and from whence our seamen may have borrowed the expression;
but it is evident that the order of derivation is here reversed, and that
the phrase is taken from the name of the land in the neighbourhood of
which such squalls prevail. In a Persian work of the year 1611 the name
of Shamatrah occurs as one of those places where the Portuguese had
established themselves; and in some very modern Malayan correspondence I
find the word Samantara employed (along with another more usual, which
will be hereafter mentioned) to designate this island.

PROBABLY DERIVED FROM THE SANSKRIT.

These, it is true, are not entirely free from the suspicion of having
found their way to the Persians and Malays through the medium of European
intercourse; but to a person who is conversant with the languages of the
continent of India it must be obvious that the name, however written,
bears a strong resemblance to words in the Sanskrit language: nor should
this appear extraordinary when we consider (what is now fully admitted)
that a large proportion of the Malayan is derived from that source, and
that the names of many places in this and the neighbouring countries
(such as Indrapura and Indragiri in Sumatra, Singapura at the extremity
of the peninsula, and Sukapura and the mountain of Maha-meru in Java) are
indisputably of Hindu origin. It is not my intention however to assign a
precise etymology; but in order to show the general analogy to known
Sanskrit terms it may be allowed to instance Samuder, the ancient name of
the capital of the Carnatik, afterwards called Bider; Samudra-duta, which
occurs in the Hetopadesa, as signifying the ambassador of the sea; the
compound formed of su, good, and matra, measure; and more especially the
word samantara, which implying a boundary, intermediate, or what lies
between, might be thought to apply to the peculiar situation of an island
intermediate between two oceans and two straits.

NOT ENTIRELY UNKNOWN TO THE NATIVES.

When on a former occasion it was asserted (and with too much confidence)
that the name of Sumatra is unknown to the natives, who are ignorant of
its being an island, and have no general name for it, the expression
ought to have been confined to those natives with whom I had an
opportunity of conversing, in the southern part of the west coast, where
much genuineness of manners prevails, with little of the spirit of
commercial enterprise or communication with other countries. But even in
situations more favourable for acquiring knowledge I believe it will be
found that the inhabitants of very large islands, and especially if
surrounded by smaller ones, are accustomed to consider their own as terra
firma, and to look to no other geographical distinction than that of the
district or nation to which they belong. Accordingly we find that the
more general names have commonly been given by foreigners, and, as the
Arabians chose to call this island Al-rami or Lameri, so the Hindus
appear to have named it Sumatra or Samantara.

MALAYAN NAMES FOR THE ISLAND.

Since that period however, having become much better acquainted with
Malayan literature, and perused the writings of various parts of the
peninsula and islands where the language is spoken and cultivated, I am
enabled to say that Sumatra is well known amongst the eastern people and
the better-informed of the natives themselves by the two names of Indalas
and Pulo percha (or in the southern dialect Pritcho).

INDALAS.

Of the meaning or analogies of the former, which seems to have been
applied to it chiefly by the neighbouring people of Java, I have not any
conjecture, and only observe its resemblance (doubtless accidental) to
the Arabian denomination of Spain or Andalusia. In one passage I find the
Straits of Malacca termed the sea of Indalas, over which, we are gravely
told, a bridge was thrown by Alexander the Great.

PERCHA.

The latter and more common name is from a Malayan word signifying
fragments or tatters, and the application is whimsically explained by the
condition of the sails of the vessel in which the island was
circumnavigated for the first time; but it may with more plausibility be
supposed to allude to the broken or intersected land for which the
eastern coast is so remarkable. It will indeed be seen in the map that in
the vicinity of what are called Rupat's Straits there is a particular
place of this description named Pulo Percha, or the Broken Islands. As to
the appellation of Pulo Ber-api, or Volcano Island, which has also
occurred, it is too indefinite for a proper name in a region of the globe
where the phenomenon is by no means rare or peculiar, and should rather
be considered as a descriptive epithet.

MAGNITUDE.

In respect to magnitude, it ranks amongst the largest islands in the
world; but its breadth throughout is determined with so little accuracy
that any attempt to calculate its superficies must be liable to very
considerable error. Like Great Britain it is broadest at the southern
extremity, narrowing gradually to the north; and to this island it is
perhaps in size more nearly allied than in shape.

MOUNTAINS.

A chain of mountains runs through its whole extent, the ranges being in
many parts double and treble, but situated in general much nearer to the
western than the opposite coast, being on the former seldom so much as
twenty miles from the sea, whilst on the eastern side the extent of level
country, in the broader part of the island, through which run the great
rivers of Siak, Indragiri, Jambi, and Palembang, cannot be less than a
hundred and fifty. The height of these mountains, though very great, is
not sufficient to occasion their being covered with snow during any part
of the year, as those in South America between the tropics are found to
be. Mount Ophir,* or Gunong Pasaman, situated immediately under the
equinoctial line, is supposed to be the highest visible from the sea, its
summit being elevated thirteen thousand eight hundred and forty-two feet
above that level; which is no more than two-thirds of the altitude the
French astronomers have ascribed to the loftiest of the Andes, but
somewhat exceeds that of the Peak of Tenerife.

(*Footnote. The following is the result of observations made by Mr.
Robert Nairne of the height of Mount Ophir:

Height of the peak above the level of the sea, in feet: 13,842.
English miles: 2.6216.
Nautical miles: 2.26325.
Inland, nearly: 26 nautical miles.
Distance from Massang Point: 32 nautical miles.
Distance at sea before the peak is sunk under the horizon: 125 nautical
miles.
Latitude of the peak: 0 degrees 6 minutes north.
A volcano mountain, south of Ophir, is short of that in height by: 1377
feet.
Inland, nearly 29 nautical miles.
In order to form a comparison I subjoin the height, as computed by
mathematicians, of other mountains in different parts of the world:
Chimborazo, the highest of the Andes, 3220 toises or 20,633 English feet.
Of this about 2400 feet from the summit are covered with eternal snow.
Carazon, ascended by the French astronomers: 15,800 English feet.
Peak of Tenerife. Feuille: 2270 toises or 13,265 feet.
Mount Blanc, Savoy. Sr. G. Shuckburgh: 15,662.
Mount Etna, Sr. G. Shuckburgh: 10,954.

Between these ridges of mountains are extensive plains, considerably
elevated above the surface of the maritime lands, where the air is cool;
and from this advantage they are esteemed the most eligible portion of
the country, are consequently the best inhabited and the most cleared
from woods, which elsewhere in general throughout Sumatra cover both
hills and valleys with an eternal shade. Here too are found many large
and beautiful lakes that extend at intervals through the heart of the
country, and facilitate much the communication between the different
parts, but their dimensions, situation, or direction, are very little
known, though the natives make frequent mention of them in the accounts
of their journeys. Those principally spoken of are: one of great extent
but unascertained situation in the Batta country; one in the Korinchi
country, lately visited by Mr. C. Campbel; and another in the Lampong
country, extending towards Pasummah, navigated by boats of a large class
with sails, and requires a day and night to effect the passage across it;
which may be the case in the rainy season, as that part of the island
through which the Tulang Bawang River flows is subject to extensive
inundations, causing it to communicate with the river of the Palembang.
In a journey made many years since by a son of the sultan of the latter
place, to visit the English resident at Croee, he is said to have
proceeded by the way of that lake. It is much to be regretted that the
situation of so important a feature in the geography of the island should
be at this day the subject of uncertain conjecture.

WATERFALLS.

Waterfalls and cascades are not uncommon, as may be supposed in a country
of so uneven a surface as that of the western coast. A remarkable one
descends from the north side of Mount Pugong. The island of Mansalar,
lying off and affording shelter to the bay of Tappanuli, presents to the
view a fall of very striking appearance, the reservoir of which the
natives assert (in their fondness for the marvellous) to be a huge shell
of the species called kima (Chama gigas) found in great quantities in
that bay, as well as at New Guinea and other parts of the east.* At the
bottom of this fall ships occasionally take in their water without being
under the necessity of landing their casks; but such attempts are liable
to extreme hazard. A ship from England (the Elgin) attracted by the
appearance from sea of a small but beautiful cascade descending
perpendicularly from the steep cliff, that, like an immense rampart,
lines the seashore near Manna, sent a boat in order to procure fresh
water; but she was lost in the surf, and the crew drowned.

(*Footnote. The largest I have seen was brought from Tappanuli by Mr.
James Moore of Arno's Vale in the north of Ireland. It is 3 feet 3 1/2
inches in its longest diameter, and 2 feet 1 1/4 inches across. One of
the methods of taking them in deep water is by thrusting a long bamboo
between the valves as they lie open, when, by the immediate closure which
follows, they are made fast. The substance of the shell is perfectly
white, several inches thick, is worked by the natives into arm-rings, and
in the hands of our artists is found to take a polish equal to the finest
statuary marble.)

RIVERS.

No country in the world is better supplied with water than the western
coast of the island. Springs are found wherever they are sought for, and
the rivers are innumerable; but they are in general too small and rapid
for the purpose of navigation. The vicinity of the mountains to that side
of the island occasions this profusion of rivulets, and at the same time
the imperfections that attend them, by not allowing them space to
accumulate to any considerable size. On the eastern coast the distance of
the range of hills not only affords a larger scope for the course of the
rivers before they disembogue, presents a greater surface for the
receptacle of rain and vapours, and enables them to unite a greater
number of subsidiary streams, but also renders the flux more steady and
uniform by the extent of level space than where the torrent rolls more
immediately from the mountains. But it is not to be understood that on
the western side there are no large rivers. Kataun, Indrapura, Tabuyong,
and Sinkel have a claim to that title, although inferior in size to
Palembang, Jambi, Indragiri, and Siak. The latter derive also a material
advantage from the shelter given to them by the peninsula of Malacca, and
Borneo, Banca, and the other islands of the Archipelago, which, breaking
the force of the sea, prevent the surf from forming those bars that choke
the entrance of the south-western rivers, and render them impracticable
to boats of any considerable draught of water. These labour too under
this additional inconvenience that scarcely any except the largest run
out to sea in a direct course. The continual action of the surf, more
powerful than the ordinary force of the stream, throws up at their mouths
a bank of sand, which in many instances has the effect of diverting their
course to a direction parallel with the shore, between the cliffs and the
beach, until the accumulated waters at length force their way wherever
there is found the weakest resistance. In the southerly monsoon, when the
surfs are usually highest, and the streams, from the dryness of the
weather, least rapid, this parallel course is of the greatest extent; and
Moco-moco River takes a course, at times, of two or three miles in this
manner, before it mixes with the sea; but as the rivers swell with the
rain they gradually remove obstructions and recover their natural
channel.

AIR.

The heat of the air is by no means so intense as might be expected in a
country occupying the middle of the torrid zone. It is more temperate
than in many regions without the tropics, the thermometer, at the most
sultry hour, which is about two in the afternoon, generally fluctuating
between 82 and 85 degrees. I do not recollect to have ever seen it higher
than 86 in the shade, at Fort Marlborough; although at Natal, in latitude
34 minutes north, it is not unfrequently at 87 and 88 degrees. At sunrise
it is usually as low as 70; the sensation of cold however is much greater
than this would seem to indicate, as it occasions shivering and a
chattering of the teeth; doubtless from the greater relaxation of the
body and openness of the pores in that climate; for the same temperature
in England would be esteemed a considerable degree of warmth. These
observations on the state of the air apply only to the districts near the
sea-coast, where, from their comparatively low situation, and the greater
compression of the atmosphere, the sun's rays operate more powerfully.
Inland, as the country ascends, the degree of heat decreases rapidly,
insomuch that beyond the first range of hills the inhabitants find it
expedient to light fires in the morning, and continue them till the day
is advanced, for the purpose of warming themselves; a practice unknown in
the other parts of the island; and in the journal of Lieutenant Dare's
expedition it appears that during one night's halt on the summit of a
mountain, in the rainy season, he lost several of his party from the
severity of the weather, whilst the thermometer was not lower than 40
degrees. To the cold also they attribute the backwardness in growth of
the coconut-tree, which is sometimes twenty or thirty years in coming to
perfection, and often fails to produce fruit. Situations are uniformly
colder in proportion to their height above the level of the sea, unless
where local circumstances, such as the neighbourhood of sandy plains,
contribute to produce a contrary effect; but in Sumatra the coolness of
the air is promoted by the quality of the soil, which is clayey, and the
constant and strong verdure that prevails, which, by absorbing the sun's
rays, prevents the effect of their reflection. The circumstance of the
island being so narrow contributes also to its general temperateness, as
wind directly or recently from the sea is seldom possessed of any violent
degree of heat, usually acquired in passing over large tracts of land in
the tropical climates. Frost, snow, and hail I believe to be unknown to
the inhabitants. The hill-people in the country of Lampong speak indeed
of a peculiar kind of rain that falls there, which some have supposed to
be what we call sleet; but the fact is not sufficiently established. The
atmosphere is in common more cloudy than in Europe, which is sensibly
perceived from the infrequency of clear starlight nights. This may
proceed from the greater rarefaction of the air occasioning the clouds to
descend lower and become more opaque, or merely from the stronger heat
exhaling from the land and sea a thicker and more plentiful vapour. The
fog, called kabut by the natives, which is observed to rise every morning
among the distant hills, is dense to a surprising degree; the extremities
of it, even when near at hand, being perfectly defined; and it seldom is
observed to disperse till about three hours after sunrise.

WATERSPOUT.

That extraordinary phenomenon, the waterspout, so well known to and
described by navigators, frequently makes its appearance in these parts,
and occasionally on shore. I had seen many at sea; but the largest and
most distinct (from its proximity) that I had an opportunity of
observing, presented itself to me whilst on horseback. I was so near to
it that I could perceive what appeared to be an inward gyration, distinct
from the volume surrounding it or body of the tube; but am aware that
this might have been a deception of sight, and that it was the exterior
part which actually revolved--as quiescent bodies seem to persons in
quick motion, to recede in a contrary direction. Like other waterspouts
it was sometimes perpendicular and sometimes curved, like the pipe of a
still-head, its course tending in a direction from Bencoolen Bay across
the peninsula on which the English settlement stands; but before it
reached the sea on the other side it diminished by degrees, as if from
want of the supplies that should be furnished by its proper element, and
collected itself into the cloud from which it depended, without any
consequent fall of water or destructive effect. The whole operation we
may presume to be of the nature of a whirlwind, and the violent
ebullition in that part of the sea to which the lower extremity of the
tube points to be a corresponding effect to the agitation of the leaves
or sand on shore, which in some instances are raised to a vast height;
but in the formation of the waterspout the rotatory motion of the wind
acts not only upon the surface of the land or sea, but also upon the
overhanging cloud, and seems to draw it downwards.

THUNDER AND LIGHTNING.

Thunder and lightning are there so very frequent as scarcely to attract
the attention of persons long resident in the country. During the
north-west monsoon the explosions are extremely violent; the forked
lightning shoots in all directions, and the whole sky seems on fire,
whilst the ground is agitated in a degree little inferior to the motion
of a slight earthquake. In the south-east monsoon the lightning is more
constant, but the coruscations are less fierce or bright, and the thunder
is scarcely audible. It would seem that the consequences of these awful
meteors are not so fatal there as in Europe, few instances occurring of
lives being lost or buildings destroyed by the explosions, although
electrical conductors have never been employed. Perhaps the paucity of
inhabitants in proportion to the extent of country and the unsubstantial
materials of the houses may contribute to this observation. I have seen
some trees, however, that have been shattered in Sumatra by the action of
lightning.*

(*Footnote. Since the above was written accounts have been received that
a magazine at Fort Marlborough, containing four hundred barrels of
powder, was fired by lightning and blown up on the 18th of March 1782.)

MONSOONS.

The causes which produce a successive variety of seasons in the parts of
the earth without the tropics, having no relation or respect to the
region of the torrid zone, a different order takes place there, and the
year is distinguished into two divisions, usually called the rainy and
dry monsoons or seasons, from the weather peculiar to each. In the
several parts of India these monsoons are governed by various particular
laws in regard to the time of their commencement, period of duration,
circumstances attending their change, and direction of the prevailing
wind according to the nature and situation of the lands and coasts where
their influence is felt. The farther peninsula of India, where the
kingdom of Siam lies, experiences at the same time the effects of
opposite seasons; the western side, in the Bay of Bengal, being exposed
for half the year to continual rains, whilst on the eastern side the
finest weather is enjoyed; and so on the different coasts of Indostan the
monsoons exert their influence alternately; the one remaining serene and
undisturbed whilst the other is agitated by storms. Along the coast of
Coromandel the change, or breaking up of the monsoon as it is called, is
frequently attended with the most violent gales of wind.

On the west coast of Sumatra, southward of the equinoctial, the
south-east monsoon or dry season begins about May and slackens in
September: the north-west monsoon begins about November, and the hard
rains cease about March. The monsoons for the most part commence and
leave off gradually there; the months of April and May, October and
November generally affording weather and winds variable and uncertain.

CAUSE OF THE MONSOONS.

The causes of these periodical winds have been investigated by several
able naturalists, whose systems, however, do not entirely correspond
either in the principles laid down or in their application to the effects
known to be produced in different parts of the globe. I shall summarily
mention what appear to be the most evident, or probable at least, among
the general laws, or inferences, which have been deduced from the
examination of this subject. If the sea were perfectly uninterrupted and
free from the irregular influence of lands, a perpetual easterly wind
would prevail in all that space comprehended between the twenty-eighth or
thirteenth degrees of north and south latitude. This is primarily
occasioned by the diurnal revolution of the earth upon its axis from west
to east; but whether through the operation of the sun, proceeding
westward, upon the atmospheric fluid, or the rapidity of revolution of
the solid body, which leaves behind it that fluid with which it is
surrounded, and thereby causes it virtually to recede in a contrary
direction; or whether these principles cooperate, or unequally oppose
each other, as has been ingeniously contended, I shall not take upon me
to decide. It is sufficient to say that such an effect appears to be the
first general law of the tropical winds. Whatever may be the degree of
the sun's influence upon the atmosphere in his transient diurnal course,
it cannot be doubted but that, in regard to his station in the path of
the ecliptic, his power is considerable. Towards that region of the air
which is rarefied by the more immediate presence of the heat, the colder
and denser parts will naturally flow. Consequently from about, and a few
degrees beyond, the tropics, on either side, the air tends towards the
equator; and, combining with the general eastern current before
mentioned, produces (or would, if the surface were uniform) a north-east
wind in the northern division, and a south-east in the southern; varying
in the extent of its course as the sun happens to be more or less remote
at the time. These are denominated the trade-winds, and are the subject
of the second general observation. It is evident that, with respect to
the middle space between the tropics, those parts which at one season of
the year lie to the northward of the sun, are, during another, to the
southward of him; and of course that an alteration of the effects last
described must take place, according to the relative situation of the
luminary; or in other words, that the principle which causes at one time
a north-east wind to prevail at any particular spot in those latitudes
must, when the circumstances are changed, occasion a south-east wind.
Such may be esteemed the outline of the periodical winds, which
undoubtedly depend upon the alternate course of the sun northwards and
southwards; and this I state as the third general law. But although this
may be conformable with experience in extensive oceans, yet, in the
vicinity of continents and great islands, deviations are remarked that
almost seem to overturn the principle. Along the western coast of Africa
and in some parts of the Indian seas, the periodical winds, or monsoons
as they are termed in the latter, blow from the west-north-west and
south-west, according to the situation, extent, and nature of the nearest
lands; the effect of which upon the incumbent atmosphere, when heated by
the sun at those seasons in which he is vertical, is prodigious, and
possibly superior to that of any other cause which contributes to the
production or direction of wind. To trace the operation of this irregular
principle through the several winds prevalent in India, and their
periodical failures and changes, would prove an intricate but, I
conceive, by no means an impossible task.* It is foreign however to my
present purpose, and I shall only observe that the north-east monsoon is
changed, on the western coast of Sumatra, to north-west or
west-north-west by the influence of the land. During the south-east
monsoon the wind is found to blow there, between that point and south.
Whilst the sun continues near the equator the winds are variable, nor is
their direction fixed till he has advanced several degrees towards the
tropic: and this is the cause of the monsoons usually setting in, as I
have observed, about May and November, instead of the equinoctial months.

(*Footnote. It has been attempted, and with much ingenious reasoning, by
Mr. Semeyns in the third volume of the Haerlem Transactions which have
but lately fallen into my hands.)

LAND AND SEA BREEZES.

Thus much is sufficient with regard to the periodical winds. I shall
proceed to give an account of those distinguished by the appellation of
land and sea breezes, which require from me a minuter investigation, both
because, as being more local, they more especially belong to my subject,
and that their nature has hitherto been less particularly treated of by
naturalists.

In this island, as well as all other countries between the tropics of any
considerable extent, the wind uniformly blows from the sea to the land
for a certain number of hours in the four and twenty, and then changes
and blows for about as many from the land to the sea; excepting only when
the monsoon rages with remarkable violence, and even at such time the
wind rarely fails to incline a few points, in compliance with the efforts
of the subordinate clause, which has not power, under these
circumstances, to produce an entire change. On the west coast of Sumatra
the sea-breeze usually sets in, after an hour or two of calm, about ten
in the forenoon, and continues till near six in the evening. About seven
the land-breeze comes off, and prevails through the night till towards
eight in the morning, when it gradually dies away.

CAUSE OF THE LAND AND SEA-BREEZES.

These depend upon the same general principle that causes and regulates
all other wind. Heat acting upon air rarefies it, by which it becomes
specifically lighter, and mounts upward. The denser parts of the
atmosphere which surround that so rarefied, rush into the vacuity from
their superior weight; endeavouring, as the laws of gravity require, to
restore the equilibrium. Thus in the round buildings where the
manufactory of glass is carried on, the heat of the furnace in the centre
being intense, a violent current of air may be perceived to force its way
in, through doors or crevices, on opposite sides of the house. As the
general winds are caused by the DIRECT influence of the sun's rays upon
the atmosphere, that particular deviation of the current distinguished by
the name of land and sea breezes is caused by the influence of his
REFLECTED rays, returned from the earth or sea on which they strike. The
surface of the earth is more suddenly heated by the rays of the sun than
that of the sea, from its greater density and state of rest; consequently
it reflects those rays sooner and with more power: but, owing also to its
density, the heat is more superficial than that imbibed by the sea, which
becomes more intimately warmed by its transparency and by its motion,
continually presenting a fresh surface to the sun. I shall now endeavour
to apply these principles. By the time the rising sun has ascended to the
height of thirty or forty degrees above the horizon the earth has
acquired, and reflected on the body of air situated over it, a degree of
heat sufficient to rarefy it and destroy its equilibrium; in consequence
of which the body of air above the sea, not being equally, or scarcely at
all, rarefied, rushes towards the land and the same causes operating so
long as the sun continues above the horizon, a constant sea-breeze, or
current of air from sea to land, prevails during that time. From about an
hour before sunset the surface of the earth begins to lose the heat it
has acquired from the more perpendicular rays. That influence of course
ceases, and a calm succeeds. The warmth imparted to the sea, not so
violent as that of the land but more deeply imbibed, and consequently
more permanent, now acts in turn, and by the rarefaction it causes draws
towards its region the land air, grown cooler, more dense, and heavier,
which continues thus to flow back till the earth, by a renovation of its
heat in the morning, once more obtains the ascendancy. Such is the
general rule, conformable with experience, and founded, as it seems to
me, in the laws of motion and the nature of things. The following
observations will serve to corroborate what I have advanced, and to throw
additional light on the subject for the information and guidance of any
future investigator.

The periodical winds which are supposed to blow during six months from
the north-west and as many from the south-east rarely observe this
regularity, except in the very heart of the monsoon; inclining, almost at
all times, several points to seaward, and not unfrequently blowing from
the south-west or in a line perpendicular to the coast. This must be
attributed to the influence of that principle which causes the land and
sea winds proving on these occasions more powerful than the principle of
the periodical winds; which two seem here to act at right angles with
each other; and as the influence of either is prevalent the winds draw
towards a course perpendicular to or parallel with the line of the coast.
Excepting when a squall or other sudden alteration of weather, to which
these climates are particularly liable, produces an irregularity, the
tendency of the land-wind at night has almost ever a correspondence with
the sea-wind of the preceding or following day; not blowing in a
direction immediately opposite to it (which would be the case if the
former were, as some writers have supposed, merely the effect of the
accumulation and redundance of the latter, without any positive cause)
but forming an equal and contiguous angle, of which the coast is the
common side. Thus, if the coast be conceived to run north and south, the
same influence, or combination of influences, which produces a sea-wind
at north-west produces a land-wind at north-east; or adapting the case to
Sumatra, which lies north-west and south-east, a sea-wind at south is
preceded or followed by a land-wind at east. This remark must not be
taken in too strict a sense, but only as the result of general
observation. If the land-wind, in the course of the night, should draw
round from east to north it would be looked upon as an infallible
prognostic of a west or north-west wind the next day. On this principle
it is that the natives foretell the direction of the wind by the noise of
the surf at night, which if heard from the northward is esteemed the
forerunner of a northerly wind, and vice versa. The quarter from which
the noise is heard depends upon the course of the land-wind, which brings
the sound with it, and drowns it to leeward--the land-wind has a
correspondence with the next day's sea-wind--and thus the divination is
accounted for.

The effect of the sea-wind is not perceived to the distance of more than
three or four leagues from the shore in common, and for the most part it
is fainter in proportion to the distance. When it first sets in it does
not commence at the remoter extremity of its limits but very near the
shore, and gradually extends itself farther to sea, as the day advances;
probably taking the longer or shorter course as the day is more or less
hot. I have frequently observed the sails of ships at the distance of
four, six, or eight miles, quite becalmed, whilst a fresh sea-breeze was
at the time blowing upon the shore. In an hour afterwards they have felt
its effect.*

(*Footnote. This observation as well as many others I have made on the
subject I find corroborated in the Treatise before quoted from the
Haerlem Transactions which I had not seen when the present work was first
published.)

Passing along the beach about six o'clock in the evening when the
sea-breeze is making its final efforts, I have perceived it to blow with
a considerable degree of warmth, owing to the heat the sea had by that
time acquired, which would soon begin to divert the current of air
towards it when it had first overcome the vis inertiae that preserves
motion in a body after the impelling power has ceased to operate. I have
likewise been sensible of a degree of warmth on passing, within two hours
after sunset, to leeward of a lake of fresh water; which proves the
assertion of water imbibing a more permanent heat than earth. In the
daytime the breeze would be rendered cool in crossing the same lake.

Approaching an island situated at a distance from any other land, I was
struck with the appearance of the clouds about nine in the morning which
then formed a perfect circle round it, the middle being a clear azure,
and resembled what the painters call a glory. This I account for from the
reflected rays of the sun rarefying the atmosphere immediately over the
island, and equally in all parts, which caused a conflux of the
neighbouring air, and with in the circumjacent clouds. These last,
tending uniformly to the centre, compressed each other at a certain
distance from it, and, like the stones in an arch of masonry, prevented
each other's nearer approach. That island, however, does not experience
the vicissitude of land and sea breezes, being too small, and too lofty,
and situated in a latitude where the trade or perpetual winds prevail in
their utmost force. In sandy countries, the effect of the sun's rays
penetrating deeply, a more permanent heat is produced, the consequence of
which should be the longer continuance of the sea-breeze in the evening;
and agreeably to this supposition I have been informed that on the coast
of Coromandel it seldom dies away before ten at night. I shall only add
on this subject that the land-wind on Sumatra is cold, chilly, and damp;
an exposure to it is therefore dangerous to the health, and sleeping in
it almost certain death.

SOIL.

The soil of the western side of Sumatra may be spoken of generally as a
stiff, reddish clay, covered with a stratum or layer of black mould, of
no considerable depth. From this there springs a strong and perpetual
verdure of rank grass, brushwood, or timber-trees, according as the
country has remained a longer or shorter time undisturbed by the
consequences of population, which, being in most places extremely thin,
it follows that a great proportion of the island, and especially to the
southward, is an impervious forest.

UNEVENNESS OF SURFACE.

Along the western coast of the island the low country, or space of land
which extends from the seashore to the foot of the mountains, is
intersected and rendered uneven to a surprising degree by swamps whose
irregular and winding course may in some places be traced in a continual
chain for many miles till they discharge themselves either into the sea,
some neighbouring lake, or the fens that are so commonly found near the
banks of the larger rivers and receive their overflowings in the rainy
monsoons. The spots of land which these swamps encompass become so many
islands and peninsulas, sometimes flat at top, and often mere ridges;
having in some places a gentle declivity, and in others descending almost
perpendicularly to the depth of a hundred feet. In few parts of the
country of Bencoolen, or of the northern districts adjacent to it, could
a tolerably level space of four hundred yards square be marked out. I
have often, from an elevated situation, where a wider range was subjected
to the eye, surveyed with admiration the uncommon face which nature
assumes, and made inquiries and attended to conjectures on the causes of
these inequalities. Some choose to attribute them to the successive
concussions of earthquakes through a course of centuries. But they do not
seem to be the effect of such a cause. There are no abrupt fissures; the
hollows and swellings are for the most part smooth and regularly sloping
so as to exhibit not unfrequently the appearance of an amphitheatre, and
they are clothed with verdure from the summit to the edge of the swamp.
From this latter circumstance it is also evident that they are not, as
others suppose, occasioned by the falls of heavy rains that deluge the
country for one half of the year; which is likewise to be inferred from
many of them having no apparent outlet and commencing where no torrent
could be conceived to operate. The most summary way of accounting for
this extraordinary unevenness of surface were to conclude that, in the
original construction of our globe, Sumatra was thus formed by the same
hand which spread out the sandy plains of Arabia, and raised up the alps
and Andes beyond the region of the clouds. But this is a mode of solution
which, if generally adopted, would become an insuperable bar to all
progress in natural knowledge by damping curiosity and restraining
research. Nature, we know from sufficient experience, is not only turned
from her original course by the industry of man, but also sometimes
checks and crosses her own career. What has happened in some instances it
is not unfair to suppose may happen in others; nor is it presumption to
trace the intermediate causes of events which are themselves derived from
one first, universal, and eternal principle.

CAUSES OF THIS INEQUALITY.

To me it would seem that the springs of water with which these parts of
the island abound in an uncommon degree operate directly, though
obscurely, to the producing this irregularity of the surface of the
earth. They derive their number and an extraordinary portion of activity
from the loftiness of the ranges of mountains that occupy the interior
country, and intercept and collect the floating vapours. Precipitated
into rain at such a hight, the water acquires in its descent through the
fissures or pores of these mountains a considerable force which exerts
itself in every direction, lateral and perpendicular, to procure a vent.
The existence of these copious springs is proved in the facility with
which wells are everywhere sunk; requiring no choice of ground but as it
may respect the convenience of the proprietor; all situations, whether
high or low, being prodigal of this valuable element. Where the
approaches of the sea have rendered the cliffs abrupt, innumerable rills,
or rather a continued moisture, is seen to ooze through and trickle down
the steep. Where on the contrary the sea has retired and thrown up banks
of sand in its retreat I have remarked the streams of water, at a certain
level and commonly between the boundaries of the tide, effecting their
passage through the loose and feeble barrier opposed to them. In short,
every part of the low country is pregnant with springs that labour for
the birth; and these continual struggles, this violent activity of
subterraneous waters, must gradually undermine the plains above. The
earth is imperceptibly excavated, the surface settles in, and hence the
inequalities we speak of. The operation is slow but unremitting, and, I
conceive, fully capable of the effect.

MINERAL PRODUCTIONS.

The earth of Sumatra is rich in minerals and other fossil productions.

GOLD.

No country has been more famous in all ages for gold, and, though the
sources from whence it is drawn may be supposed in some measure exhausted
by the avarice and industry of ages, yet at this day the quantity
procured is very considerable, and doubtless might be much increased were
the simple labour of the gatherer assisted by a knowledge of the arts of
mineralogy.

COPPER, IRON, TIN, SULPHUR.

There are also mines of copper, iron, and tin. Sulphur is gathered in
large quantities about the numerous volcanoes.

SALTPETRE.

Saltpetre the natives procure by a process of their own from the earth
which is found impregnated with it; chiefly in extensive caves that have
been, from the beginning of time, the haunt of a certain species of
birds, of whose dung the soil is formed.

COAL.

Coal, mostly washed down by the floods, is collected in several parts,
particularly at Kataun, Ayer-rammi, and Bencoolen. It is light and not
esteemed very good; but I am informed that this is the case with all coal
found near the surface of the earth, and, as the veins are observed to
run in an inclined direction until the pits have some depth, the fossil
must be of an indifferent quality. The little island of Pisang, near the
foot of Mount Pugong, was supposed to be chiefly a bed of rock crystal,
but upon examination of specimens taken from thence they proved to be
calcareous spar.

HOT SPRINGS.

Mineral and hot springs have been discovered in many districts. In taste
the waters mostly resemble those of Harrowgate, being nauseous to the
palate.

EARTH OIL.

The oleum terrae, or earth oil, used chiefly as a preservative against
the destructive ravages of the white-ants, is collected at Ipu and
elsewhere.*

(*Footnote. The fountain of Naphtha or liquid balsam found at Pedir, so
much celebrated by the Portuguese writers, is doubtless this oleum
terrae, or meniak tanah, as it is called by the Malays.)

SOFT ROCK.

There is scarcely any species of hard rock to be met with in the low
parts of the island near the seashore. Besides the ledges of coral, which
are covered by the tide, that which generally prevails is the napal, as
it is called by the inhabitants, forming the basis of the red cliffs, and
not infrequently the beds of the rivers. Though this napal has the
appearance of rock it possesses in fact so little solidity that it is
difficult to pronounce whether it be a soft stone or only an indurated
clay. The surface of it becomes smooth and glossy by a slight attrition,
and to the touch resembles soap, which is its most striking
characteristic; but it is not soluble in water and makes no effervescence
with acids. Its colour is either grey, brown, or red, according to the
nature of the earth that prevails in its composition. The red napal has
by much the smallest proportion of sand, and seems to possess all the
qualities of the steatite or soap-earth found in Cornwall and other
countries. The specimens of stone which I brought from the hills in the
neighbourhood of Bencoolen were pronounced by some mineralogists, to whom
I showed them at the time, to be granite; but upon more particular
examination they appear to be a species of trap, consisting principally
of feldspar and hornblende, of a greyish colour and nearly similar to the
mountain stone of North Wales.

PETRIFACTION.

Where the encroachments of the sea have undermined the land the cliffs
are left abrupt and naked, in some places to a very considerable height.
In these many curious fossils are discovered, such as petrified wood, and
seashells of various sorts. Hypotheses on this subject have been so ably
supported and so powerfully attacked that I shall not presume to intrude
myself in the lists. I shall only observe that, being so near the sea,
many would hesitate to allow such discoveries to be of any weight in
proving a violent alteration to have taken place in the surface of the
terraqueous globe; whilst, on the other hand, it is unaccountable how, in
the common course of natural events, such extraneous matter should come
to be lodged in strata at the height perhaps of fifty feet above the
level of the water, and as many below the surface of the land.

COLOURED EARTHS.

Here are likewise found various species of earths which might be applied
to valuable purposes, as painters' colours, and otherwise. The most
common are the yellow and red, probably ochres, and the white, which
answers the description of the milenum of the ancients.

VOLCANOES.

There are a number of volcano mountains in this, as in almost all the
other islands of the eastern Archipelago. They are called in the Malay
language gunong-api, or more correctly, gunong ber-api. Lava has been
seen to flow from a considerable one near Priamang; but I have never
heard of its causing any other damage than the burning of woods. This
however may be owing to the thinness of population, which does not render
it necessary for the inhabitants to settle in a situation that exposes
them to danger of this kind. The only volcano I had an opportunity of
observing opened in the side of a mountain, about twenty miles inland of
Bencoolen, one-fourth way from its top, as nearly as I can judge. It
scarcely ever failed to emit smoke; but the column was only visible for
two or three hours in the morning, seldom rising and preserving its form,
above the upper edge of the hill, which is not of a conical shape but
extending with a gradual slope.

EARTHQUAKES.

The high trees with which the country thereabout is covered, prevent the
crater from being discernible at a distance; and this proves that the
spot is not considerably raised or otherwise affected by the earthquakes
which are very frequently felt there. Sometimes it has emitted smoke upon
these occasions, and in other instances not. Yet during a smart
earthquake which happened a few years before my arrival it was remarked
to send forth flame, which it is rarely known to do.* The apprehension of
the European inhabitants however is rather more excited when it continues
any length of time without a tendency to an eruption, as they conceive it
to be the vent by which the inflammable matter escapes that would
otherwise produce these commotions of the earth. Comparatively with the
descriptions I have read of earthquakes in South America, Calabria, and
other countries, those which happen in Sumatra are generally very slight;
and the usual manner of building renders them but little formidable to
the natives.

(*Footnote. Some gentlemen who deny the fact of its having at any time
emitted flame, conjecture that what exhibits the appearance of smoke is
more probably vapour arising from a considerable hot spring. The natives
speak of it as a volcano.)

REMARKABLE EFFECTS OF AN EARTHQUAKE.

The most severe that I have known was chiefly experienced in the district
of Manna in the year 1770. A village was destroyed by the houses falling
down and taking fire, and several lives were lost.* The ground was in one
place rent a quarter of a mile, the width of two fathoms, and depth of
four or five. A bituminous matter is described to have swelled over the
sides of the cavity, and the earth for a long time after the shocks was
observed to contract and dilate alternately. Many parts of the hills far
inland could be distinguished to have given way, and a consequence of
this was that during three weeks Manna River was so much impregnated with
particles of clay that the natives could not bathe in it. At this time
was formed near to the mouth of Padang Guchi, a neighbouring river south
of the former, a large plain, seven miles long and half a mile broad;
where there had been before only a narrow beach. The quantity of earth
brought down on this occasion was so considerable that the hill upon
which the English resident's house stands appears, from indubitable
marks, less elevated by fifteen feet than it was before the event.

(*Footnote. I am informed that in 1763 an entire village was swallowed up
by an earthquake in Pulo Nias, one of the islands which lie off the
western coast of Sumatra. In July or August of the same year a severe one
was felt in Bengal.)

Earthquakes have been remarked by some to happen usually upon sudden
changes of weather, and particularly after violent heats; but I do not
vouch this upon my own experience, which has been pretty ample. They are
preceded by a low rumbling noise like distant thunder. The domestic
cattle and fowls are sensible of the preternatural motion, and seem much
alarmed; the latter making the cry they are wont to do on the approach of
birds of prey. Houses situated on a low sandy soil are least affected,
and those which stand on distinct hills suffer most from the shocks
because the further removed from the centre of motion the greater the
agitation; and the loose contexture of the one foundation, making less
resistance than the solidity of the other, subjects the building to less
violence. Ships at anchor in the road, though several miles distant from
the shore, are strongly sensible of the concussion.

NEW LAND FORMED.

Besides the new land formed by the convulsions above described, the sea
by a gradual recess in some parts produces the same effect. Many
instances of this kind, of no considerable extent however have been
observed within the memory of persons now living. But it would seem to me
that that large tract of land called Pulo Point, forming the bay of the
name, near to Silebar, with much of the adjacent country has thus been
left by the withdrawing or thrown up by the motion of the sea. Perhaps
the point may have been at first an island (from whence its appellation
of Pulo) and the parts more inland gradually united to it.* Various
circumstances tend to corroborate such an opinion, and to evince the
probability that this was not an original portion of the main but new,
half-formed land. All the swamps and marshy grounds that lie within the
beach, and near the extremity there are little else, are known, in
consequence of repeated surveys, to be lower than the level of
high-water; the bank of sand alone preventing an inundation. The country
is not only quite free from hills or inequalities of any kind, but has
scarcely a visible slope. Silebar River, which empties itself into Pulo
Bay, is totally unlike those in other parts of the island. The motion of
its stream is hardly perceptible; it is never affected by floods; its
course is marked out, not by banks covered with ancient and venerable
woods but by rows of mangroves and other aquatics springing from the
ooze, and perfectly regular. Some miles from the mouth it opens into a
beautiful and extensive lake, diversified with small islands, flat, and
verdant with rushes only. The point of Pulo is covered with the arau tree
(casuarina) or bastard-pine, as some have called it, which never grows
but in the seasand and rises fast.

(*Footnote. Since I formed this conjecture I have been told that such a
tradition of no very ancient date prevails amongst the inhabitants.)

ENCROACHMENT OF THE SEA.

None such are found toward Sungei-Lamo and the rest of the shore
northward of Marlborough Point, where, on the contrary, you perceive the
effects of continual depredations by the ocean. The old forest trees are
there yearly undermined and, falling, obstruct the traveller; whilst
about Pulo the arau-trees are continually springing up faster than they
can be cut down or otherwise destroyed. Nature will not readily be forced
from her course. The last time I visited that part there was a beautiful
rising grove of these trees, establishing a possession in their proper
soil. The country, as well immediately here about as to a considerable
distance inland, is an entire bed of sand without any mixture of clay or
mould, which I know to have been in vain sought for many miles up the
neighbouring rivers. To the northward of Padang there is a plain which
has evidently been, in former times, a bay. Traces of a shelving beach
are there distinguishable at the distance of one hundred and fifty yards
from the present boundary of the sea.

But upon what hypothesis can it be accounted for that the sea should
commit depredations on the northern coast, of which there are the most
evident tokens as high up at least as Ipu, and probably to Indrapura,
where the shelter of the neighbouring islands may put a stop to them, and
that it should restore the land to the southward in the manner I have
described? I am aware that according to the general motion of the tides
from east to west this coast ought to receive a continual accession
proportioned to the loss which others, exposed to the direction of this
motion, must and do sustain; and it is likely that it does gain upon the
whole. But the nature of my work obliges me to be more attentive to
effects than causes, and to record facts though they should clash with
systems the most just in theory, and most respectable in point of
authority.

ISLANDS NEAR THE WEST COAST.

The chain of islands which lie parallel with the west coast of Sumatra
may probably have once formed a part of the main and been separated from
it, either by some violent effort of nature, or the gradual attrition of
the sea. I should scarcely introduce the mention of this apparently vague
surmise but that a circumstance presents itself on the coast which
affords some stronger colour of proof than can be usually obtained in
such instances. In many places, and particularly about Pally, we observe
detached pieces of land standing singly, as islands, at the distance of
one or two hundred yards from the shore, which were headlands of points
running out into the sea within the remembrance of the inhabitants. The
tops continue covered with trees or shrubs; but the sides are bare,
abrupt, and perpendicular. The progress of insulation here is obvious and
incontrovertible, and why may not larger islands, at a greater distance,
have been formed in the revolution of ages by the same accidents? The
probability is heightened by the direction of the islands Nias, Batu,
Mantawei, Pagi, Mego, etc., the similarity of the rock, soil, and
productions, and the regularity of soundings between them and the main,
whilst without them the depth is unfathomable.

CORAL ROCKS.

Where the shore is flat or shelving the coast of Sumatra, as of all other
tropical islands, is defended from the attacks of the sea by a reef or
ledge of coral rock on which the surfs exert their violence without
further effect than that of keeping its surface even, and reducing to
powder those beautiful excrescences and ramifications which have been so
much the object of the naturalist's curiosity, and which some ingenious
men who have analysed them contend to be the work of insects. The coral
powder is in particular places accumulated on the shore in great
quantities, and appears, when not closely inspected, like a fine white
sand.

SURF.

The surf (a word not to be found, I believe, in our dictionaries) is used
in India, and by navigators in general, to express a peculiar swell and
breaking of the sea upon the shore; the phenomena of which not having
been hitherto much adverted to by writers I shall be the more
circumstantial in my description of them.

The surf forms sometimes but a single range along the shore. At other
times there is a succession of two, three, four, or more, behind each
other, extending perhaps half a mile out to sea. The number of ranges is
generally in proportion to the height and violence of the surf.

The surf begins to assume its form at some distance from the place where
it breaks, gradually accumulating as it moves forward till it gains a
height, in common, of fifteen to twenty feet,* when it overhangs at top
and falls like a cascade, nearly perpendicular, involving itself as it
descends. The noise made by the fall is prodigious, and during the
stillness of the night may be heard many miles up the country.

(*Footnote. It may be presumed that in this estimation of its height I
was considerably deceived.)

Though in the rising and formation of the surf the water seems to have a
quick progressive motion towards the land, yet a light body on the
surface is not carried forward, but, on the contrary, if the tide is
ebbing, will recede from the shore; from which it would follow that the
motion is only propagated in the water, like sound in air, and not the
mass of water protruded. A similar species of motion is observed on
shaking at one end a long cord held moderately slack, which is expressed
by the word undulation. I have sometimes remarked however that a body
which sinks deep and takes hold of the water appears to move towards
shore with the course of the surf, as is perceptible in a boat landing
which seems to shoot swiftly forward on the top of the swell; though
probably it is only after having reached the summit, and may owe its
velocity to its own weight in the descent.

Countries where the surfs prevail require boats of a peculiar
construction, and the art of managing them demands the experience of a
man's life. All European boats are more or less unfit, and seldom fail to
occasion the sacrifice of the people on board them, in the imprudent
attempts that are sometimes made to land with them on the open coast. The
natives of Coromandel are remarkably expert in the management of their
craft; but it is to be observed that the intervals between the breaking
of the surfs are usually on that coast much longer than on the coast of
Sumatra.

The force of the surf is extremely great. I have known it to overset a
country vessel in such a manner that the top of the mast has stuck in the
sand, and the lower end made its appearance through her bottom. Pieces of
cloth have been taken up from a wreck, twisted and rent by its involved
motion. In some places the surfs are usually greater at high, and in
others at low, water; but I believe they are uniformly more violent
during the spring-tides.

CONSIDERATIONS RESPECTING THE CAUSE OF THE SURF.

I shall proceed to inquire into the efficient cause of the surfs. The
winds have doubtless a strong relation to them. If the air was in all
places of equal density, and not liable to any motion, I suppose the
water would also remain perfectly at rest and its surface even;
abstracting from the general course of the tides and the partial
irregularities occasioned by the influx of rivers. The current of the air
impels the water and causes a swell, which is the regular rising and
subsiding of the waves. This rise and fall is similar to the vibrations
of a pendulum and subject to like laws. When a wave is at its height it
descends by the force of gravity, and the momentum acquired in descending
impels the neighbouring particles, which in their turn rise and impel
others, and thus form a succession of waves. This is the case in the open
sea; but when the swell approaches the shore and the depth of water is
not in proportion to the size of the swell the subsiding wave, instead of
pressing on a body of water, which might rise in equal quantity, presses
on the ground, whose reaction causes it to rush on in that manner which
we call a surf. Some think that the peculiar form of it may be plainly
accounted for from the shallowness and shelving of the beach. When a
swell draws near to such a beach the lower parts of the water, meeting
first with obstruction from the bottom, stand still, whilst the higher
parts respectively move onward, by which a rolling and involved motion is
produced that is augmented by the return of the preceding swell. I object
that this solution is founded on the supposition of an actual progressive
motion of the body of water in forming a surf; and, that certainly not
being the fact, it seems deficient. The only real progression of the
water is occasioned by the perpendicular fall, after the breaking of the
surf, when from its weight it foams on to a greater or less distance in
proportion to the height from which it fell and the slope of the shore.

That the surfs are not, like common waves, the immediate effect of the
wind, is evident from this, that the highest and most violent often
happen when there is the least wind and vice versa. And sometimes the
surfs will continue with an equal degree of violence during a variety of
weather. On the west coast of Sumatra the highest are experienced during
the south-east monsoon, which is never attended with such gales of wind
as the north-west. The motion of the surf is not observed to follow the
course of the wind, but often the contrary; and when it blows hard from
the land the spray of the sea may be seen to fly in a direction opposite
to the body of it, though the wind has been for many hours in the same
point.

Are the surfs the effect of gales of wind at sea, which do not happen to
extend to the shore but cause a violent agitation throughout a
considerable tract of the waters, which motion, communicating with less
distant parts, and meeting at length with resistance from the shore,
occasions the sea to swell and break in the manner described? To this I
object that there seems no regular correspondence between their magnitude
and the apparent agitation of the water without them: that gales of wind,
except at particular periods, are very unfrequent in the Indian seas,
where the navigation is well known to be remarkably safe, whilst the
surfs are almost continual; and that gales are not found to produce this
effect in other extensive oceans. The west coast of Ireland borders a sea
nearly as extensive and much more wild than the coast of Sumatra, and yet
there, though when it blows hard the swell on the shore is high and
dangerous, is there nothing that resembles the surfs of India.

PROBABLE CAUSE OF THE SURF.

These, so general in the tropical latitudes, are, upon the most probable
hypothesis I have been able to form, after long observation and much
thought and inquiry, the consequence of the trade or perpetual winds
which prevail at a distance from shore between the parallels of thirty
degrees north and south, whose uniform and invariable action causes a
long and constant swell, that exists even in the calmest weather, about
the line, towards which its direction tends from either side. This swell
or libration of the sea is so prodigiously long, and the sensible effect
of its height, of course, so much diminished, that it is not often
attended to; the gradual slope engrossing almost the whole horizon when
the eye is not very much elevated above its surface: but persons who have
sailed in those parts may recollect that, even when the sea is apparently
the most still and level, a boat or other object at a distance from the
ship will be hidden from the sight of one looking towards it from the
lower deck for the space of minutes together. This swell, when a squall
happens or the wind freshens up, will for a time have other subsidiary
waves on the extent of its surface, breaking often in a direction
contrary to it, and which will again subside as a calm returns without
having produced on it any perceptible effect. Sumatra, though not
continually exposed to the south-east trade-wind, is not so distant but
that its influence may be presumed to extend to it, and accordingly at
Pulo Pisang, near the southern extremity of the island, a constant
southerly sea is observed even after a hard north-west wind. This
incessant and powerful swell rolling in from an ocean, open even to the
pole, seems an agent adequate to the prodigious effects produced on the
coast; whilst its very size contributes to its being overlooked. It
reconciles almost all the difficulties which the phenomena seem to
present, and in particular it accounts for the decrease of the surf
during the north-west monsoon, the local wind then counteracting the
operation of the general one; and it is corroborated by an observation I
have made that the surfs on the Sumatran coast ever begin to break at
their southern extreme, the motion of the swell not being perpendicular
to the direction of the shore. This manner of explaining their origin
seems to carry much reason with it; but there occurs to me one objection
which I cannot get over, and which a regard to truth obliges me to state.
The trade-winds are remarkably steady and uniform, and the swell
generated by them is the same. The surfs are much the reverse, seldom
persevering for two days in the same degree of violence; often mountains
high in the morning and nearly subsided by night. How comes a uniform
cause to produce effects so unsteady, unless by the intervention of
secondary causes, whose nature and operation we are unacquainted with?

It is clear to me that the surfs as above described are peculiar to those
climates which lie within the remoter limits of the trade-winds, though
in higher latitudes large swells and irregular breakings of the sea are
to be met with after boisterous weather. Possibly the following causes
may be judged to conspire, with that I have already specified, towards
occasioning this distinction. The former region being exposed to the
immediate influence of the two great luminaries, the water, from their
direct impulse, is liable to more violent agitation than nearer the poles
where their power is felt only by indirect communication. The equatorial
parts of the earth performing their diurnal revolution with greater
velocity than the rest, a larger circle being described in the same time,
the waters thereabout, from the stronger centrifugal force, may be
supposed to feel less restraint from the sluggish principle of matter; to
have less gravity; and therefore to be more obedient to external impulses
of every kind, whether from the winds or any other cause.

TIDES.

The spring-tides on the west coast of Sumatra are estimated to rise in
general no more than four feet, owing to its open, unconfined situation,
which prevents any accumulation of the tide, as is the case in narrow
seas. It is always high-water there when the moon is in the horizon, and
consequently at six o'clock nearly, on the days of conjunction and
opposition throughout the year, in parts not far remote from the
equator.* This, according to Newton's theory, is about three hours later
than the uninterrupted course of nature, owing to the obvious impediment
the waters meet with in revolving from the eastward.

(*Footnote. Owing to this uniformity it becomes an easy matter for the
natives to ascertain the height of the tide at any hour that the moon is
visible. Whilst she appears to ascend the water falls and vice versa; the
lowest of the ebb happening when she is in her meridian. The vulgar rule
for calculating the tides is rendered also to Europeans more simple and
practical from the same cause. There only needs to add together the
epact, number of the month, and day of the month; the sum of which, if
under thirty, gives the moon's age--the excess, if over. Allow
forty-eight minutes for each day or, which is the same, take four-fifths
of the age, and it will give you the number of hours after six o'clock at
which high-water happens. A readiness at this calculation is particularly
useful in a country where the sea-beach is the general road for
travelling.)


CHAPTER 2.

DISTINCTION OF INHABITANTS.
REJANGS CHOSEN FOR GENERAL DESCRIPTION.
PERSONS AND COMPLEXION.
CLOTHING AND ORNAMENTS.

GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE INHABITANTS.

Having exhibited a general view of the island as it is in the hands of
nature, I shall now proceed to a description of the people who inhabit
and cultivate it, and shall endeavour to distinguish the several species
or classes of them in such a manner as may best tend to perspicuity, and
to furnish clear ideas of the matter.

VARIOUS MODES OF DIVISION.

The most obvious division, and which has been usually made by the writers
of voyages, is that of Mahometan inhabitants of the sea-coast, and Pagans
of the inland country. This division, though not without its degree of
propriety, is vague and imperfect; not only because each description of
people differ considerably among themselves, but that the inland
inhabitants are, in some places, Mahometans, and those of the coast, in
others, what they term Pagans. It is not unusual with persons who have
not resided in this part of the East to call the inhabitants of the
islands indiscriminately by the name of Malays. This is a more
considerable error, and productive of greater confusion than the former.
By attempting to reduce things to heads too general we defeat the very
end we propose to ourselves in defining them at all: we create obscurity
where we wish to throw light. On the other hand, to attempt enumerating
and distinguishing the variety, almost endless, of petty sovereignties
and nations into which this island is divided, many of which differ
nothing in person or manners from their neighbours, would be a task both
insurmountable and useless. I shall aim at steering a middle course, and
accordingly shall treat of the inhabitants of Sumatra under the following
summary distinctions, taking occasion as it may offer to mention the
principal subdivisions. And first it is proper to distinguish the empire
of Menangkabau and the Malays; in the next place the Achinese; then the
Battas; the Rejangs; and next to them the people of Lampong.*

(*Footnote. In the course of my inquiries amongst the natives concerning
the aborigines of the island I have been informed of two different
species of people dispersed in the woods and avoiding all communication
with the other inhabitants. These they call Orang Kubu and Orang Gugu.
The former are said to be pretty numerous, especially in that part of the
country which lies between Palembang and Jambi. Some have at times been
caught and kept as slaves in Labun; and a man of that place is now
married to a tolerably handsome Kubu girl who was carried off by a party
that discovered their huts. They have a language quite peculiar to
themselves, and they eat promiscuously whatever the woods afford, as
deer, elephant, rhinoceros, wild hog, snakes, or monkeys. The Gugu are
much scarcer than these, differing in little but the use of speech from
the Orang Utan of Borneo; their bodies being covered with long hair.
There have not been above two or three instances of their being met with
by the people of Labun (from whom my information is derived) and one of
these was entrapped many years ago in much the same manner as the
carpenter in Pilpay's Fables caught the monkey. He had children by a
Labun woman which also were more hairy than the common race; but the
third generation are not to be distinguished from others. The reader will
bestow what measure of faith he thinks due to this relation, the veracity
of which I do not pretend to vouch for. It has probably some foundation
in truth but is exaggerated in the circumstances.)

Menangkabau being the principal sovereignty of the island, which formerly
comprehended the whole, and still receives a shadow of homage from the
most powerful of the other kingdoms which have sprung up from its ruins,
would seem to claim a right to precedence in description, but I have a
sufficient reason for deferring it to a subsequent part of the work;
which is that the people of this empire, by their conversion to
Mahometanism and consequent change of manners, have lost in a greater
degree than some neighbouring tribes the genuine Sumatran character,
which is the immediate object of my investigation.

MALAYS.

They are distinguished from the other inhabitants of this island by the
appellation of Orang Malayo, or Malays, which however they have in common
with those of the coast of the Peninsula and of many other islands; and
the name is applied to every Mussulman speaking the Malayan as his proper
language, and either belonging to, or claiming descent from, the ancient
kingdom of Menangkabau; wherever the place of his residence may be.
Beyond Bencoolen to the southward there are none to be met with excepting
such as have been drawn thither by, and are in the pay of, Europeans. On
the eastern side of the island they are settled at the entrance of almost
all the navigable rivers, where they more conveniently indulge their
habitual bent for trade and piracy. It must be observed indeed that in
common speech the term Malay, like that of Moor in the continent of
India, is almost synonymous with Mahometan; and when the natives of other
parts learn to read the Arabic character, submit to circumcision, and
practise the ceremonies of religion, they are often said men-jadi Malayo,
to become Malays, instead of the more correct expression sudah masuk
Islam, have embraced the faith. The distinction will appear more strongly
from this circumstance, that whilst the sultan of Anak Sungei
(Moco-moco), ambitious of imitating the sultan of Menangkabau, styles
himself and his immediate subjects Malays, his neighbour, the Pangeran of
Sungei Lamo, chief of the Rejangs, a very civilised Mahometan, and whose
ancestors for some generations were of the same faith, seemed offended,
in a conversation I had with him, at my supposing him (as he is usually
considered) a Malay, and replied with some emotion, "Malayo tidah, sir;
orang ulu betul sayo." "No Malay sir; I am a genuine, aboriginal
countryman." The two languages he wrote and talked (I know not if he be
still living) with equal facility; but the Rejang he esteemed his mother
tongue.

Attempts to ascertain from what quarter Sumatra was peopled must rest
upon mere conjecture. The adjacent peninsula (called by Europeans or
other foreigners the Malayan Peninsula) presents the most obvious source
of population; and it has accordingly been presumed that emigrants from
thence supplied it and the other islands of the eastern Archipelago with
inhabitants. By this opinion, adopted without examination, I was likewise
misled and, on a former occasion, spoke of the probability of a colony
from the peninsula having settled upon the western coast of the island;
but I have since learned from the histories and traditions of the natives
of both countries that the reverse is the fact, and that the founders of
the celebrated kingdoms of Johor, Singapura, and Malacca were adventurers
from Sumatra. Even at this day the inhabitants of the interior parts of
the peninsula are a race entirely distinct from those of the two coasts.

Thus much it was necessary, in order to avoid ambiguity, to say in the
first instance concerning the Malays, of whom a more particular account
will be given in a subsequent part of the work.

As the most dissimilar among the other classes into which I have divided
the inhabitants must of course have very many points of mutual
resemblance, and many of their habits, customs, and ceremonies, in
common, it becomes expedient, in order to avoid a troublesome and useless
repetition, to single out one class from among them whose manners shall
undergo a particular and full investigation, and serve as a standard for
the whole; the deviation from which, in other classes, shall afterwards
be pointed out, and the most singular and striking usages peculiar to
each superadded.

NATION OF THE REJANGS ADOPTED AS A STANDARD OF DESCRIPTION.

Various circumstances induce me on this occasion to give the preference
to the Rejangs, though a nation of but small account in the political
scale of the island. They are placed in what may be esteemed a central
situation, not geographically, but with respect to the encroachments of
foreign manners and opinions introduced by the Malays from the north, and
Javans from the south; which gives them a claim to originality superior
to that of most others. They are a people whose form of government and
whose laws extend with very little variation over a considerable part of
the island, and principally that portion where the connexions of the
English lie. There are traditions of their having formerly sent forth
colonies to the southward; and in the country of Passummah the site of
their villages is still pointed out; which would prove that they have
formerly been of more consideration than they can boast at present. They
have a proper language and a perfect written character. These advantages
point out the Rejang people as an eligible standard of description; and a
motive equally strong that induces me to adopt them as such is that my
situation and connexions in the island led me to a more intimate and
minute acquaintance with their laws and manners than with those of any
other class. I must premise however that the Malay customs having made
their way in a greater or less degree to every part of Sumatra, it will
be totally impossible to discriminate with entire accuracy those which
are original from those which are borrowed; and of course what I shall
say of the Rejangs will apply for the most part not only to the Sumatrans
in general but may sometimes be in strictness proper to the Malays alone,
and by them taught to the higher rank of country people.

SITUATION OF THE REJANG COUNTRY.

The country of the Rejangs is divided to the north-west from the kingdom
of Anak Sungei (of which Moco-moco is the capital) by the small river of
Uri, near that of Kattaun; which last, with the district of Labun on its
banks, bounds it on the north or inland side. The country of Musi, where
Palembang River takes its rise, forms its limit to the eastward.
Bencoolen River, precisely speaking, confines it on the south-east;
though the inhabitants of the district called Lemba, extending from
thence to Silebar, are entirely the same people in manners and language.
The principal rivers besides those already mentioned are Laye, Pally, and
Sungeilamo; on all of which the English have factories, the resident or
chief being stationed at Laye.

PERSONS OF THE INHABITANTS.

The persons of the inhabitants of the island, though differing
considerably in districts remote from each other, may in general be
comprehended in the following description; excepting the Achinese, whose
commixture with the Moors of the west of India has distinguished them
from the other Sumatrans.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION.

They are rather below the middle stature; their bulk is in proportion;
their limbs are for the most part slight, but well shaped, and
particularly small at the wrists and ankles. Upon the whole they are
gracefully formed, and I scarcely recollect to have ever seen one
deformed person among the natives.*

(*Footnote. Ghirardini, an Italian painter, who touched at Sumatra on his
way to China in 1698 observes of the Malays:
Son di persona ben formata
Quanto mai finger san pittori industri.
He speaks in high terms of the country as being beautifully picturesque.)

The women however have the preposterous custom of flattening the noses,
and compressing the heads of children newly born, whilst the skull is yet
cartilaginous, which increases their natural tendency to that shape. I
could never trace the origin of the practice, or learn any other reason
for moulding the features to this uncouth appearance, but that it was an
improvement of beauty in their estimation. Captain Cook takes notice of a
similar operation at the island of Ulietea. They likewise pull out the
ears of infants to make them stand at an angle from the head. Their eyes
are uniformly dark and clear, and among some, especially the southern
women, bear a strong resemblance to those of the Chinese, in the
peculiarity of formation so generally observed of that people. Their hair
is strong and of a shining black; the improvement of both which qualities
it probably owes in great measure to the early and constant use of
coconut oil, with which they keep it moist. The men frequently cut their
hair short, not appearing to take any pride in it; the women encourage
theirs to a considerable length, and I have known many instances of its
reaching the ground. The men are beardless and have chins so remarkably
smooth that, were it not for the priests displaying a little tuft, we
should be apt to conclude that nature had refused them this token of
manhood. It is the same in respect to other parts of the body with both
sexes; and this particular attention to their persons they esteem a point
of delicacy, and the contrary an unpardonable neglect. The boys as they
approach to the age of puberty rub their chins, upper lips, and those
parts of the body that are subject to superfluous hair with chunam
(quicklime) especially of shells, which destroys the roots of the
incipient beard. The few pilae that afterwards appear are plucked out
from time to time with tweezers, which they always carry about them for
that purpose. Were it not for the numerous and very respectable
authorities from which we are assured that the natives of America are
naturally beardless, I should think that the common opinion on that
subject had been rashly adopted, and that their appearing thus at a
mature age was only the consequence of an early practice, similar to that
observed among the Sumatrans. Even now I must confess that it would
remove some small degree of doubt from my mind could it be ascertained
that no such custom prevails.*

(*Footnote. It is allowed by travellers that the Patagonians have tufts
of hair on the upper lip and chin. Captain Carver says that among the
tribes he visited the people made a regular practice of eradicating their
beards with pincers. At Brussels is preserved, along with a variety of
ancient and curious suits of armour, that of Montezuma, king of Mexico,
of which the visor, or mask for the face, has remarkably large whiskers;
an ornament which those Americans could not have imitated unless nature
had presented them with the model. See a paper in the Philosophical
Transactions for 1786, which puts this matter beyond a doubt. In a French
dictionary of the Huron language, published in 1632, I observe a term
corresponding to "arracher la barbe.")

Their complexion is properly yellow, wanting the red tinge that
constitutes a tawny or copper colour. They are in general lighter than
the Mestees, or halfbreed, of the rest of India; those of the superior
class who are not exposed to the rays of the sun, and particularly their
women of rank, approaching to a great degree of fairness. Did beauty
consist in this one quality some of them would surpass our brunettes in
Europe. The major part of the females are ugly, and many of them even to
disgust, yet there are those among them whose appearance is strikingly
beautiful; whatever composition of person, features, and complexion that
sentiment may be the result of.

COLOUR NOT ASCRIBABLE TO CLIMATE.

The fairness of the Sumatrans comparatively with other Indians, situated
as they are under a perpendicular sun where no season of the year affords
an alternative of cold, is I think an irrefragable proof that the
difference of colour in the various inhabitants of the earth is not the
immediate effect of climate. The children of Europeans born in this
island are as fair as those born in the country of their parents. I have
observed the same of the second generation, where a mixture with the
people of the country has been avoided. On the other hand the offspring
and all the descendants of the Guinea and other African slaves imported
there continue in the last instance as perfectly black as in the original
stock. I do not mean to enter into the merits of the question which
naturally connects with these observations; but shall only remark that
the sallow and adust countenances so commonly acquired by Europeans who
have long resided in hot climates are more ascribable to the effect of
bilious distempers, which almost all are subject to in a greater or less
degree, than of their exposure to the influence of the weather, which few
but seafaring people are liable to, and of which the impression is seldom
permanent. From this circumstance I have been led to conjecture that the
general disparity of complexions in different nations might POSSIBLY be
owing to the more or less copious secretion or redundance of that juice,
rendering the skin more or less dark according to the qualities of the
bile prevailing in the constitutions of each. But I fear such a
hypothesis would not stand the test of experiment, as it might be
expected to follow that, upon dissection, the contents of a negro's
gall-bladder, or at least the extravasated bile, should uniformly be
found black. Persons skilled in anatomy will determine whether it is
possible that the qualities of any animal secretion can so far affect the
frame as to render their consequences liable to be transmitted to
posterity in their full force.*

(*Footnote. In an Essay on the Causes of the Variety of Complexion and
Figure in the Human Species published at Philadelphia in 1787 the
permanent effect of the bilious secretion in determining the colour is
strongly insisted upon.)

The small size of the inhabitants, and especially of the women, may be in
some measure owing to the early communication between the sexes; though,
as the inclinations which lead to this intercourse are prompted here by
nature sooner than in cold climates, it is not unfair to suppose that,
being proportioned to the period of maturity, this is also sooner
attained, and consequently that the earlier cessation of growth of these
people is agreeable to the laws of their constitution, and not occasioned
by a premature and irregular appetite.

Persons of superior rank encourage the growth of their hand-nails,
particularly those of the fore and little fingers, to an extraordinary
length; frequently tingeing them red with the expressed juice of a shrub
which they call inei, the henna of the Arabians; as they do the nails of
their feet also, to which, being always uncovered, they pay as much
attention as to their hands. The hands of the natives, and even of the
halfbreed, are always cold to the touch; which I cannot account for
otherwise than by a supposition that, from the less degree of elasticity
in the solids occasioned by the heat of the climate, the internal action
of the body by which the fluids are put in motion is less vigorous, the
circulation is proportionably languid, and of course the diminished
effect is most perceptible in the extremities, and a coldness there is
the natural consequence.

HILL PEOPLE SUBJECT TO WENS.

The natives of the hills through the whole extent of the island are
subject to those monstrous wens from the throat which have been observed
of the Vallaisans and the inhabitants of other mountainous districts in
Europe. It has been usual to attribute this affection to the badness,
thawed state, mineral quality, or other peculiarity of the waters; many
skilful men having applied themselves to the investigation of the
subject. My experience enables me to pronounce without hesitation that
the disorder, for such it is though it appears here to mark a distinct
race of people (orang-gunong), is immediately connected with the
hilliness of the country, and of course, if the circumstances of the
water they use contribute thereto, it must be only so far as the nature
of the water is affected by the inequality or height of the land. But in
Sumatra neither snow nor other congelation is ever produced, which
militates against the most plausible conjecture that has been adopted
concerning the Alpine goitres. From every research that I have been
enabled to make I think I have reason to conclude that the complaint is
owing, among the Sumatrans, to the fogginess of the air in the valleys
between the high mountains, where, and not on the summits, the natives of
these parts reside. I before remarked that, between the ranges of hills,
the kabut or dense mist was visible for several hours every morning;
rising in a thick, opaque, and well-defined body with the sun, and seldom
quite dispersed till afternoon. This phenomenon, as well as that of the
wens, being peculiar to the regions of the hills, affords a presumption
that they may be connected; exclusive of the natural probability that a
cold vapour, gross to a uncommon degree, and continually enveloping the
habitations, should affect with tumors the throats of the inhabitants. I
cannot pretend to say how far this solution may apply to the case of the
goitres, but I recollect it to have been mentioned that the only method
of curing the people is by removing them from the valleys to the clear
and pure air on the tops of the hills; which seems to indicate a similar
source of the distemper to what I have pointed out. The Sumatrans do not
appear to attempt any remedy for it, the wens being consistent with the
highest health in other respects.

DIFFERENCE IN PERSON BETWEEN MALAYS AND OTHER SUMATRANS.

The personal difference between the Malays of the coast and the country
inhabitants is not so strongly marked but that it requires some
experience to distinguish them. The latter however possess an evident
superiority in point of size and strength, and are fairer complexioned,
which they probably owe to their situation, where the atmosphere is
colder; and it is generally observed that people living near the
seashore, and especially when accustomed to navigation, are darker than
their inland neighbours. Some attribute the disparity in constitutional
vigour to the more frequent use of opium among the Malays, which is
supposed to debilitate the frame; but I have noted that the Limun and
Batang Asei gold traders, who are a colony of that race settled in the
heart of the island, and who cannot exist a day without opium, are
remarkably hale and stout; which I have known to be observed with a
degree of envy by the opium-smokers of our settlements. The inhabitants
of Passummah also are described as being more robust in their persons
than the planters of the low country.

CLOTHING.

The original clothing of the Sumatrans is the same with that found by
navigators among the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, and now
generally called by the name of Otaheitean cloth. It is still used among
the Rejangs for their working dress, and I have one in my possession
procured from these people consisting of a jacket, short drawers, and a
cap for the head. This is the inner bark of a certain species of tree,
beaten out to the degree of fineness required, approaching the more to
perfection as it resembles the softer kind of leather, some being nearly
equal to the most delicate kid-skin; in which character it somewhat
differs from the South Sea cloth, as that bears a resemblance rather to
paper, or to the manufacture of the loom. The country people now conform
in a great measure to the dress of the Malays, which I shall therefore
describe in this place, observing that much more simplicity still
prevails among the former, who look upon the others as coxcombs who lay
out all their substance on their backs, whilst in their turns they are
regarded by the Malays with contempt as unpolished rustics.

MAN'S DRESS.

A man's dress consists of the following parts. A close waistcoat, without
sleeves, but having a neck like a shirt, buttoned close up to the top,
with buttons, often of gold filigree. This is peculiar to the Malays.
Over this they wear the baju, which resembles a morning gown, open at the
neck, but generally fastened close at the wrists and halfway up the arm,
with nine buttons to each sleeve. The sleeves, however, are often wide
and loose, and others again, though nearly tight, reach not far beyond
the elbow, especially of those worn by the younger females, which, as
well as those of the young men, are open in front no farther down than
the bosom, and reach no lower than the waist, whereas the others hang
loose to the knees, and sometimes to the ankles. They are made usually of
blue or white cotton cloth; for the better sort, of chintz; and for great
men, of flowered silks. The kain-sarong is not unlike a Scots
highlander's plaid in appearance, being a piece of party-coloured cloth
about six or eight feet long and three or four wide, sewed together at
the ends; forming, as some writers have described it, a wide sack without
a bottom. This is sometimes gathered up and slung over the shoulder like
a sash, or else folded and tucked about the waist and hips; and in full
dress it is bound on by the belt of the kris (dagger), which is of
crimson silk and wraps several times round the body, with a loop at the
end in which the sheath of the kris hangs. They wear short drawers
reaching halfway down the thigh, generally of red or yellow taffeta.
There is no covering to their legs or feet. Round their heads they
fasten, in a particular manner, a fine, coloured handkerchief, so as to
resemble a small turban; the country people usually twisting a piece of
white or blue cloth for this purpose. The crown of their head remains
uncovered except on journeys, when they wear a tudong or umbrella-hat,
which completely screens them from the weather.

WOMAN'S DRESS.

The women have a kind of bodice, or short waistcoat rather, that defends
the breasts and reaches to the hips. The kain-sarong, before described,
comes up as high as the armpits, and extends to the feet, being kept on
simply by folding and tucking it over at the breast, except when the
tali-pending, or zone, is worn about the waist, which forms an additional
and necessary security. This is usually of embroidered cloth, and
sometimes a plate of gold or silver, about two inches broad, fastening in
the front with a large clasp of filigree or chased work, with some kind
of precious stone, or imitation of such, in the centre. The baju, or
upper gown, differs little from that of the men, buttoning in the same
manner at the wrists. A piece of fine, thin, cotton cloth, or slight
silk, about five feet long, and worked or fringed at each end, called a
salendang, is thrown across the back of the neck, and hangs down before;
serving also the purpose of a veil to the women of rank when they walk
abroad. The handkerchief is carried either folded small in the hand, or
in a long fold over the shoulder. There are two modes of dressing the
hair, one termed kundei and the other sanggol. The first resembles much
the fashion in which we see the Chinese women represented in paintings,
and which I conclude they borrowed from thence, where the hair is wound
circularly over the centre of the head, and fastened with a silver bodkin
or pin. In the other mode, which is more general, they give the hair a
single twist as it hangs behind, and then doubling it up they pass it
crosswise under a few hairs separated from the rest on the back of the
head for that purpose. A comb, often of tortoise-shell and sometimes
filigreed, helps to prevent it from falling down. The hair of the front
and of all parts of the head is of the same length, and when loose hangs
together behind, with most of the women, in very great quantity. It is
kept moist with oil newly expressed from the coconut; but those persons
who can afford it make use also of an empyreumatic oil extracted from gum
benzoin, as a grateful perfume. They wear no covering except ornaments of
flowers, which on particular occasions are the work of much labour and
ingenuity. The head-dresses of the dancing girls by profession, who are
usually Javans, are very artificially wrought, and as high as any modern
English lady's cap, yielding only to the feathered plumes of the year
1777. It is impossible to describe in words these intricate and fanciful
matters so as to convey a just idea of them. The flowers worn in undress
are for the most part strung in wreaths, and have a very neat and pretty
effect, without any degree of gaudiness, being usually white or pale
yellow, small, and frequently only half-blown. Those generally chosen for
these occasions are the bunga-tanjong and bunga-mellur: the
bunga-chumpaka is used to give the hair a fragrance, but is concealed
from the sight. They sometimes combine a variety of flowers in such a
manner as to appear like one, and fix them on a single stalk; but these,
being more formal, are less elegant than the wreaths.

DISTINGUISHING ORNAMENTS OF VIRGINS.

Among the country people, particularly in the southern countries, the
virgins (anak gaddis, or goddesses, as it is usually pronounced) are
distinguished by a fillet which goes across the front of the hair and
fastens behind. This is commonly a thin plate of silver, about half an
inch broad: those of the first rank have it of gold, and those of the
lowest class have their fillet of the leaf of the nipah tree. Beside this
peculiar ornament their state is denoted by their having rings or
bracelets of silver or gold on their wrists. Strings of coins round the
neck are universally worn by children, and the females, before they are
of an age to be clothed, have what may not be inaptly termed a
modesty-piece, being a plate of silver in the shape of a heart (called
chaping) hung before, by a chain of the same metal, passing round the
waist. The young women in the country villages manufacture themselves the
cloth that forms the body-dress, or kain-sarong, which for common
occasions is their only covering, and reaches from the breast no lower
than the knees. The dresses of the women of the Malay bazaars on the
contrary extend as low as the feet; but here, as in other instances, the
more scrupulous attention to appearances does not accompany the superior
degree of real modesty. This cloth, for the wear both of men and women,
is imported from the island of Celebes, or, as it is here termed, the
Bugis country.

MODE OF FILING TEETH.

Both sexes have the extraordinary custom of filing and otherwise
disfiguring their teeth, which are naturally very white and beautiful
from the simplicity of their food. For files they make use of small
whetstones of different degrees of fineness, and the patients lie on
their back during the operation. Many, particularly the women of the
Lampong country, have their teeth rubbed down quite even with the gums;
others have them formed in points; and some file off no more than the
outer coat and extremities, in order that they may the better receive and
retain the jetty blackness with which they almost universally adorn them.
The black used on these occasions is the empyreumatic oil of the
coconut-shell. When this is not applied the filing does not, by
destroying what we term the enamel, diminish the whiteness of the teeth;
but the use of betel renders them black if pains be not taken to prevent
it. The great men sometimes set theirs in gold, by casing, with a plate
of that metal, the under row; and this ornament, contrasted with the
black dye, has by lamp or candlelight a very splendid effect. It is
sometimes indented to the shape of the teeth, but more usually quite
plain. They do not remove it either to eat or sleep.

At the age of about eight or nine they bore the ears and file the teeth
of the female children; which are ceremonies that must necessarily
precede their marriage. The former they call betende, and the latter
bedabong; and these operations are regarded in the family as the occasion
of a festival. They do not here, as in some of the adjacent islands (of
Nias in particular), increase the aperture of the ear to a monstrous
size, so as in many instances to be large enough to admit the hand, the
lower parts being stretched till they touch the shoulders. Their earrings
are mostly of gold filigree, and fastened not with a clasp, but in the
manner of a rivet or nut screwed to the inner part.


CHAPTER 3.

VILLAGES.
BUILDINGS.
DOMESTIC UTENSILS.
FOOD.

I shall now attempt a description of the villages and buildings of the
Sumatrans, and proceed to their domestic habits of economy, and those
simple arts on which the procuring of their food and other necessaries
depends. These are not among the least interesting objects of
philosophical speculation. In proportion as the arts in use with any
people are connected with the primary demands of nature, they carry the
greater likelihood of originality, because those demands must have been
administered to from a period coeval with the existence of the people
themselves. Or if complete originality be regarded as a visionary idea,
engendered from ignorance and the obscurity of remote events, such arts
must be allowed to have the fairest claim to antiquity at least. Arts of
accommodation, and more especially of luxury, are commonly the effect of
imitation, and suggested by the improvements of other nations which have
made greater advances towards civilisation. These afford less striking
and characteristic features in delineating the picture of mankind, and,
though they may add to the beauty, diminish from the genuineness of the
piece. We must not look for unequivocal generic marks, where the breed,
in order to mend it, has been crossed by a foreign mixture. All the arts
of primary necessity are comprehended within two distinctions: those
which protect us from the inclemency of the weather and other outward
accidents; and those which are employed in securing the means of
subsistence. Both are immediately essential to the continuance of life,
and man is involuntarily and immediately prompted to exercise them by the
urgent calls of nature, even in the merest possible state of savage and
uncultivated existence. In climates like that of Sumatra this impulse
extends not far. The human machine is kept going with small effort in so
favourable a medium. The spring of importunate necessity there soon loses
its force, and consequently the wheels of invention that depend upon it
fail to perform more than a few simple revolutions. In regions less mild
this original motive to industry and ingenuity carries men to greater
lengths in the application of arts to the occasions of life; and these of
course in an equal space of time attain to greater perfection than among
the inhabitants of the tropical latitudes, who find their immediate wants
supplied with facility, and prefer the negative pleasure of inaction to
the enjoyment of any conveniences that are to be purchased with exertion
and labour. This consideration may perhaps tend to reconcile the high
antiquity universally allowed to Asiatic nations, with the limited
progress of arts and sciences among them; in which they are manifestly
surpassed by people who compared with them are but of very recent date.

The Sumatrans however in the construction of their habitations have
stepped many degrees beyond those rude contrivances which writers
describe the inhabitants of some other Indian countries to have been
contented with adopting in order to screen themselves from the immediate
influence of surrounding elements. Their houses are not only permanent
but convenient, and are built in the vicinity of each other that they may
enjoy the advantages of mutual assistance and protection resulting from a
state of society.*

(*Footnote. In several of the small islands near Sumatra (including the
Nicobars), whose inhabitants in general are in a very low state of
civilisation, the houses are built circularly. Vid Asiatic Researches
volume 4 page 129 plate.)

VILLAGES.

The dusuns or villages (for the small number of inhabitants assembled in
each does not entitle them to the appellations of towns) are always
situated on the banks of a river or lake for the convenience of bathing
and of transporting goods. An eminence difficult of ascent is usually
made choice of for security. The access to them is by footways, narrow
and winding, of which there are seldom more than two; one to the country
and the other to the water; the latter in most places so steep as to
render it necessary to cut steps in the cliff or rock. The dusuns, being
surrounded with abundance of fruit-trees, some of considerable height, as
the durian, coco, and betel-nut, and the neighbouring country for a
little space about being in some degree cleared of wood for the rice and
pepper plantations, these villages strike the eye at a distance as clumps
merely, exhibiting no appearance of a town or any place of habitation.
The rows of houses form commonly a quadrangle, with passages or lanes at
intervals between the buildings, where in the more considerable villages
live the lower class of inhabitants, and where also their padi-houses or
granaries are erected. In the middle of the square stands the balei or
town hall, a room about fifty to a hundred feet long and twenty or thirty
wide, without division, and open at the sides, excepting when on
particular occasions it is hung with mats or chintz; but sheltered in a
lateral direction by the deep overhanging roof.


(PLATE 19. A VILLAGE HOUSE IN SUMATRA.
W. Bell delt. J.G. Stadler sculpt.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.


PLATE 19a. A PLANTATION HOUSE IN SUMATRA.
W. Bell delt. J.G. Stadler sculpt.)


BUILDINGS.

In their buildings neither stone, brick, nor clay, are ever made use of,
which is the case in most countries where timber abounds, and where the
warmth of the climate renders the free admission of air a matter rather
to be desired than guarded against: but in Sumatra the frequency of
earthquakes is alone sufficient to have prevented the natives from
adopting a substantial mode of building. The frames of the houses are of
wood, the underplate resting on pillars of about six or eight feet in
height, which have a sort of capital but no base, and are wider at top
than at bottom. The people appear to have no idea of architecture as a
science, though much ingenuity is often shown in the manner of working up
their materials, and they have, the Malays at least, technical terms
corresponding to all those employed by our house carpenters. Their
conception of proportions is extremely rude, often leaving those parts of
a frame which have the greatest bearing with the weakest support, and
lavishing strength upon inadequate pressure. For the floorings they lay
whole bamboos (a well-known species of large cane) of four or five inches
diameter, close to each other, and fasten them at the ends to the
timbers. Across these are laid laths of split bamboo, about an inch wide
and of the length of the room, which are tied down with filaments of the
rattan; and over these are usually spread mats of different kinds. This
sort of flooring has an elasticity alarming to strangers when they first
tread on it. The sides of the houses are generally closed in with palupo,
which is the bamboo opened and rendered flat by notching or splitting the
circular joints on the outside, chipping away the corresponding divisions
within, and laying it to dry in the sun, pressed down with weights. This
is sometimes nailed onto the upright timbers or bamboos, but in the
country parts it is more commonly interwoven, or matted, in breadths of
six inches, and a piece, or sheet, formed at once of the size required.
In some places they use for the same purpose the kulitkayu, or coolicoy,
as it is pronounced by the Europeans, who employ it on board ship as
dunnage in pepper and other cargoes. This is a bark procured from some
particular trees, of which the bunut and ibu are the most common. When
they prepare to take it the outer rind is first torn or cut away; the
inner, which affords the material, is then marked out with a prang,
pateel, or other tool, to the size required, which is usually three
cubits by one; it is afterwards beaten for some time with a heavy stick
to loosen it from the stem, and being peeled off is laid in the sun to
dry, care being taken to prevent its warping. The thicker or thinner
sorts of the same species of kulitkayu owe their difference to their
being taken nearer to or farther from the root. That which is used in
building has nearly the texture and hardness of wood. The pliable and
delicate bark of which clothing is made is procured from a tree called
kalawi, a bastard species of the bread-fruit.

The most general mode of covering houses is with the atap, which is the
leaf of a species of palm called nipah. These, previous to their being
laid on, are formed into sheets of about five feet long and as deep as
the length of the leaf will admit, which is doubled at one end over a
slip or lath of bamboo; they are then disposed on the roof so as that one
sheet shall lap over the other, and are tied to the bamboos which serve
for rafters. There are various other and more durable kinds of covering
used. The kulitkayu, before described, is sometimes employed for this
purpose: the galumpei--this is a thatch of narrow split bamboos, six feet
in length, placed in regular layers, each reaching within two feet of the
extremity of that beneath it, by which a treble covering is formed:
iju--this is a vegetable production so nearly resembling horse-hair as
scarcely to be distinguished from it. It envelopes the stem of that
species of palm called anau, from which the best toddy or palm wine is
procured, and is employed by the natives for a great variety of purposes.
It is bound on as a thatch in the manner we do straw, and not
unfrequently over the galumpei; in which case the roof is so durable as
never to require renewal, the iju being of all vegetable substances the
least prone to decay, and for this reason it is a common practice to wrap
a quantity of it round the ends of timbers or posts which are to be fixed
in the ground. I saw a house about twenty miles up Manna River, belonging
to Dupati Bandar Agung, the roof of which was of fifty years standing.
The larger houses have three pitches in the roof; the middle one, under
which the door is placed, being much lower than the other two. In smaller
houses there are but two pitches, which are always of unequal height, and
the entrance is in the smaller, which covers a kind of hall or cooking
room.

There is another kind of house, erected mostly for a temporary purpose,
the roof of which is flat and is covered in a very uncommon, simple, and
ingenious manner. Large, straight bamboos are cut of a length sufficient
to lie across the house, and, being split exactly in two and the joints
knocked out, a first layer of them is disposed in close order, with the
inner or hollow sides up; after which a second layer, with the outer or
convex sides up, is placed upon the others in such manner that each of
the convex falls into the two contiguous concave pieces, covering their
edges; the latter serving as gutters to carry off the water that falls
upon the upper or convex layer.*

(*Footnote. I find that the original inhabitants of the Philippine
Islands covered their buildings in the same manner.)

The mode of ascent to the houses is by a piece of timber or stout bamboo,
cut in notches, which latter an European cannot avail himself of,
especially as the precaution is seldom taken of binding them fast. These
are the wonderful light scaling-ladders which the old Portuguese writers
described to have been used by the people of Achin in their wars with
their nation. It is probable that the apprehension of danger from the
wild beasts caused them to adopt and continue this rude expedient, in
preference to more regular and commodious steps. The detached buildings
in the country, near to their plantations, called talangs, they raise to
the height of ten or twelve feet from the ground, and make a practice of
taking up their ladder at night to secure themselves from the destructive
ravages of the tigers. I have been assured, but do not pledge myself for
the truth of the story, that an elephant, attempting to pass under one of
these houses, which stand on four or six posts, stuck by the way, but,
disdaining to retreat, carried it, with the family it contained, on his
back to a considerable distance.

In the buildings of the dusuns, particularly where the most respectable
families reside, the woodwork in front is carved in the style of
bas-relief, in a variety of uncouth ornaments and grotesque figures, not
much unlike the Egyptian hieroglyphics, but certainly without any mystic
or historical allusion.

FURNITURE.

The furniture of their houses, corresponding with their manner of living,
is very simple, and consists of but few articles. Their bed is a mat,
usually of fine texture, and manufactured for the purpose, with a number
of pillows, worked at the ends and adorned with a shining substance that
resembles foil. A sort of canopy or valance, formed of various coloured
cloths, hangs overhead. Instead of tables they have what resemble large
wooden salvers, with feet called dulang, round each of which three or
four persons dispose themselves; and on these are laid the talams or
brass waiters which hold the cups that contain their curry, and plantain
leaves or matted vessels filled with rice. Their mode of sitting is not
cross-legged, as the inhabitants of Turkey and our tailors use, but
either on the haunches or on the left side, supported by the left hand
with the legs tucked in on the right side; leaving that hand at liberty
which they always, from motives of delicacy, scrupulously eat with; the
left being reserved for less cleanly offices. Neither knives, spoons, nor
any substitutes for them are employed; they take up the rice and other
victuals between the thumb and fingers, and dexterously throw it into the
mouth by the action of the thumb, dipping frequently their hands in water
as they eat.

UTENSILS.

They have a little coarse chinaware, imported by the eastern praws, which
is held a matter of luxury. In cooking they employ a kind of iron vessel
well-known in India by the name of quallie or tauch, resembling in shape
the pans used in some of our manufactures, having the rim wide and bottom
narrow. These are likewise brought from the eastward. The priu and
balanga, species of earthen pipkins, are in more common use, being made
in small quantities in different parts of the island, particularly in
Lampong, where they give them a sort of glazing; but the greater number
of them are imported from Bantam. The original Sumatran vessel for
boiling rice, and which is still much used for that purpose, is the
bamboo, that material of general utility with which bountiful nature has
supplied an indolent people. By the time the rice is dressed the utensil
is nearly destroyed by the fire, but resists the flame so long as there
is moisture within.

FIRES.

Fire being wanted among these people but occasionally, and only when they
cook their victuals, there is not much attention paid in their buildings
to provide conveniences for it. Their houses have no chimneys, and their
fireplaces are no more than a few loose bricks or stones, disposed in a
temporary manner and frequently on the landing-place before the doors.
The fuel made use of is wood alone, the coal which the island produces
never being converted by the inhabitants to that purpose. The flint and
steel for striking fire are common in the country, but it is a practice
certainly borrowed from some other people, as that species of stone is
not a native of the soil. These generally form part of their travelling
apparatus, and especially with those men called risaus (spendthrifts that
turn freebooters), who find themselves often obliged to take up their
habitation in the woods or in deserted houses. But they also frequently
kindle fire from the friction of two sticks.

MODE OF KINDLING THEM.

They choose a piece of dry, porous wood, and cutting smooth a spot of it
lay it in a horizontal direction. They then apply a smaller piece, of a
harder substance, with a blunt point, in a perpendicular position, and
turn it quickly round, between the two hands, as chocolate is milled,
pressing it downwards at the same time. A hole is soon formed by this
motion of the smaller stick; but it has not penetrated far before the
larger one takes fire. I have also seen the same effect produced more
simply by rubbing one bit of bamboo with a sharp edge across another.*

(*Footnote. This mode of kindling fire is not peculiar to Sumatra: we
read of the same practice in Africa and even in Kamtschatka. It is
surprising, but confirmed by abundant authority, that many nations of the
earth have at certain periods, been ignorant of the use of fire. To our
immediate apprehension human existence would seem in such circumstances
impossible. Every art, every convenience, every necessary of life, is now
in the most intimate manner connected with it: and yet the Chinese, the
Egyptians, the Phoenicians, and Greeks acknowledged traditions concerning
its first discovery in their respective countries. But in fact if we can
once suppose a man, or society of men, unacquainted with the being and
uses of this element, I see no difficulty in conceiving the possibility
of their supporting life without it; I mean in the tropical climates; and
of centuries passing before they should arrive at the important
discovery. It is true that lightning and its effects, volcanoes, the
firing of dry substances by fortuitous attrition, or of moist, by
fermentation, might give them an idea of its violent and destructive
properties; but far from being thence induced to appropriate and apply it
they would, on the contrary, dread and avoid it, even in its less
formidable appearances. They might be led to worship it as their deity,
but not to cherish it as their domestic. There is some reason to conclude
that the man who first reduced it to subjection and rendered it
subservient to the purposes of life procured it from the collision of two
flints; but the sparks thus produced, whether by accident or design,
might be observed innumerable times without its suggesting a beneficial
application. In countries where those did not present themselves the
discovery had, most probably, its origin in the rubbing together of dry
sticks, and in this operation, the agent and subject coexisting, flame,
with its properties and uses, became more immediately apparent. Still, as
no previous idea was conceived of this latent principle, and consequently
no search made, no endeavours exerted, to bring it to light, I see not
the impossibility a priori of its remaining almost as long concealed from
mankind as the properties of the loadstone or the qualities of
gunpowder.)

Water is conveyed from the spring in bamboos, which for this purpose are
cut, either to the length of five or six feet and carried over the
shoulder, or into a number of single joints that are put together in a
basket. It is drunk out of the fruit called labu here, resembling the
calabash of the West Indies, a hole being made in the side of the neck
and another at top for vent. In drinking they generally hold the vessel
at a distance above their mouths and catch the stream as it falls; the
liquid descending to the stomach without the action of swallowing.
Baskets (bronong, bakul) are a considerable part of the furniture of a
man's house, and the number of these seen hanging up are tokens of the
owner's substance; for in them his harvests of rice or pepper are
gathered and brought home; no carts being employed in the interior parts
of the island which I am now describing. They are made of slips of bamboo
connected by means of split rattans; and are carried chiefly by the
women, on the back, supported by a string or band across the forehead.

FOOD.

Although the Sumatrans live in a great measure upon vegetable food they
are not restrained by any superstitious opinion from other aliments, and
accordingly at their entertainments the flesh of the buffalo (karbau),
goat, and fowls, are served up. Their dishes are almost all prepared in
that mode of dressing to which we have given the name of curry (from a
Hindostanic word), and which is now universally known in Europe. It is
called in the Malay language gulei, and may be composed of any kind of
edible, but is generally of flesh or fowl, with a variety of pulse and
succulent herbage, stewed down with certain ingredients, by us termed,
when mixed and ground together, curry powder. These ingredients are,
among others, the cayenne or chili-pepper, turmeric, sarei or
lemon-grass, cardamums, garlick, and the pulp of the coconut bruised to a
milk resembling that of almonds, which is the only liquid made use of.
This differs from the curries of Madras and Bengal, which have greater
variety of spices, and want the coconut. It is not a little remarkable
that the common pepper, the chief produce and staple commodity of the
country, is never mixed by the natives in their food. They esteem it
heating to the blood, and ascribe a contrary effect to the cayenne; which
I can say, my own experience justifies. A great diversity of curries is
usually served up at the same time, in small vessels, each flavoured to a
nice discerning taste in a different manner; and in this consists all the
luxury of their tables. Let their quantity or variety or meat be what it
may, the principle article of their food is rice, which is eaten in a
large proportion with every dish, and very frequently without any other
accompaniment than salt and chili-pepper. It is prepared by boiling in a
manner peculiar to India; its perfection, next to cleanness and
whiteness, consisting in its being, when thoroughly dressed and soft to
the heart, at the same time whole and separate, so that no two grains
shall adhere together. The manner of effecting this is by putting into
the earthen or other vessel in which it is boiled a quantity of water
sufficient to cover it, letting it simmer over a slow fire, taking off
the water by degrees with a flat ladle or spoon that the grain may dry,
and removing it when just short of burning. At their entertainments the
guests are treated with rice prepared also in a variety of modes, by
frying it in cakes or boiling a particular species of it mixed with the
kernel of the coconut and fresh oil, in small joints of bamboo. This is
called lemmang. Before it is served up they cut off the outer rind of the
bamboo and the soft inner coat is peeled away by the person who eats.

FLESH-MEAT.

They dress their meat immediately after killing it, while it is still
warm, which is conformable with the practice of the ancients as recorded
in Homer and elsewhere, and in this state it is said to eat tenderer than
when kept for a day: longer the climate will not admit of, unless when it
is preserved in that mode called dinding. This is the flesh of the
buffalo cut into small thin steaks and exposed to the heat of the sun in
fair weather, generally on the thatch of their houses, till it is become
so dry and hard as to resist putrefaction without any assistance from
salt. Fish is preserved in the same manner, and cargoes of both are sent
from parts of the coast where they are in plenty to those where
provisions are in more demand. It is seemingly strange that heat, which
in a certain degree promotes putrefaction, should when violently
increased operate to prevent it; but it must be considered that moisture
also is requisite to the former effect, and this is absorbed in thin
substances by the sun's rays before it can contribute to the production
of maggots.

Blachang, a preservation, if it may be so termed, of an opposite kind, is
esteemed a great delicacy among the Malays, and is by them exported to
the west of India. The country Sumatrans seldom procure it. It is a
species of caviar, and is extremely offensive and disgusting to persons
who are not accustomed to it, particularly the black kind, which is the
most common. The best sort, or the red blachang, is made of the spawn of
shrimps, or of the shrimps themselves, which they take about the mouths
of rivers. They are, after boiling, exposed to the sun to dry, then
pounded in a mortar with salt, moistened with a little water and formed
into cakes, which is all the process. The black sort, used by the lower
class, is made of small fish, prepared in the same manner. On some parts
of the east coast of the island they salt the roes of a large fish of the
shad kind, and preserve them perfectly dry and well flavoured. These are
called trobo.

When the natives kill a buffalo, which is always done at their public
meetings, they do not cut it up into joints as we do an ox, but into
small pieces of flesh, or steaks, which they call bantei. The hide of the
buffalo is sometimes scalded, scraped, and hung up to dry in their houses
where it shrivels and becomes perfectly hard. When wanted for use a piece
is chopped off and, being stewed down for a great number of hours in a
small quantity of water, forms a rich jelly which, properly seasoned, is
esteemed a very delicate dish.

The sago (sagu), though common on Sumatra and used occasionally by the
natives, is not an article of food of such general use among them as with
the inhabitants of many other eastern islands, where it is employed as a
substitute for rice. Millet (randa jawa) is also cultivated for food, but
not in any considerable quantity.

When these several articles of subsistence fail the Sumatran has recourse
to those wild roots, herbs, and leaves of trees which the woods
abundantly afford in every season without culture, and which the habitual
simplicity of his diet teaches him to consider as no very extraordinary
circumstance of hardship. Hence it is that famines in this island or,
more properly speaking, failures of crops of grain, are never attended
with those dreadful consequences which more improved countries and more
provident nations experience.


CHAPTER 4.

AGRICULTURE.
RICE, ITS CULTIVATION, ETC.
PLANTATIONS OF COCONUT, BETEL-NUT, AND OTHER VEGETABLES FOR DOMESTIC USE.
DYE STUFFS.

AGRICULTURE.

From their domestic economy I am led to take a view of their labours in
the field, their plantations and the state of agriculture amongst them,
which an ingenious writer esteems the justest criterion of civilisation.

RICE.

The most important article of cultivation, not in Sumatra alone but
throughout the East, is rice. It is the grand material of food on which a
hundred millions of the inhabitants of the earth subsist, and although
chiefly confined by nature to the regions included between and bordering
on the tropics, its cultivation is probably more extensive than that of
wheat, which the Europeans are wont to consider as the universal staff of
life. In the continent of Asia, as you advance to the northward, you come
to the boundary where the plantations of rice disappear and the
wheatfields commence; the cold felt in that climate, owing in part to the
height of the land, being unfriendly to the production of the former
article.

Rice (Oryza sativa) whilst in the husk is called padi by the Malays (from
whose language the word seems to have found its way to the maritime parts
of the continent of India), bras when deprived of the husk, and nasi
after it has been boiled; besides which it assumes other names in its
various states of growth and preparation. This minuteness of distinction
applies also to some other articles of common use, and may be accounted
for upon this principle: that amongst people whose general objects of
attention are limited, those which do of necessity occupy them are liable
to be more the subject of thought and conversation than in more
enlightened countries where the ideas of men have an extensive range. The
kinds of rice also (whether technically of different species I cannot
pronounce) are very numerous, but divided in the first place into the two
comprehensive classes of padi ladang or upland, from its growing in high,
dry grounds, and padi sawah (vulgarly pronounced sawur or sour) or
lowland, from its being planted in marshes; each of which is said to
contain ten or fifteen varieties, distinct in shape, size, and colour of
the grain, modes of growth, and delicacy of flavour; it being observed
that in general the larger-grained rice is not so much prized by the
natives as that which is small, when at the same time white and in some
degree transparent.* To M. Poivre, in his Travels of a Philosopher, we
are indebted for first pointing out these two classes when speaking of
the agriculture of Cochin-China. The qualities of the ladang, or upland
rice, are held to be superior to those of the sawah, being whiter, more
nourishing, better tasted and having the advantage in point of keeping.
Its mode of culture too is free from the charge of unhealthiness
attributed to the latter, which is of a watery substance, is attended
with less increase in boiling, and is subject to a swifter decay; but of
this the rate of produce from the seed is much greater, and the certainty
of the crops more to be depended on. It is accordingly cheaper and in
more common use. The seed of each sort is kept separate by the natives,
who assert that they will not grow reciprocally.

(*Footnote. The following sorts of dry-ground padi have come under my
notice but as the names vary in different districts it is possible that
some of these may be repetitions, where there is no striking difference
of character:
Padi Ebbas, large grain, very common;
Andalong, short round grain, grows in whorls or bunches round the stalk,
common;
Galu, light-coloured, scarce;
Sini, small grain, deep coloured, scarce;
Iju, light ish colour, scarce;
Kuning, deep yellow, crooked and pointed, fine rice;
Kukur-ballum, small, much crooked and resembling a dove's claw, from
whence the name; light-coloured, highly esteemed for its delicate flavour;
Pisang, outer coat light brown, inner red, longer, smaller, and less
crooked than the preceding;
Bringin, long, flattish, ribbed, pointed, dead yellow;
Bujut, shaped like the preceding, but with a tinge of red in the colour;
Chariap, short, roundish, reddish yellow;
Janggut or bearded, small, narrow, pale brown;
Jambi, small, somewhat crooked and pointed, light brown;
Laye, gibbous, light-coloured;
Musang, long, small, crooked and pointed, deep purple;
Pandan, small, light-coloured;
Pau, long, crooked and pointed, light yellow;
Puyuh, small, delicate, crooked and pointed, bright ochre;
Rakkun, roundish grain, resembles the andalong, but larger and deeper colour;
Sihong, much resembles the laye in shape and colour;
Sutar, short, roundish, bright, reddish brown;
Pulut gading or ivory, long, nearly straight, light yellow;
Pulut kechil, small, crooked, reddish yellow;
Pulut bram, long and rather large grain, purple, when fresh more nearly red;
Pulut bram lematong, in shape like the preceding, but of a dead pale colour.
Beside these four there is also a black kind of pulut.
Samples of most of these have been in my possession for a number of
years, and still continue perfectly sound. Of the sorts of rice growing
in low grounds I have not specimens. The padi santong, which is small,
straight, and light-coloured, is held to be the finest. In the Lampong
country they make a distinction of padi krawang and padi jerru, of which
I know nothing more than that the former is a month earlier in growth
than the latter.)

UPLAND RICE.

For the cultivation of upland padi the site of woods is universally
preferred, and the more ancient the woods the better, on account of the
superior richness of the soil; the continual fall and rotting of the
leaves forming there a bed of vegetable mould, which the open plains do
not afford, being exhausted by the powerful operation of the sun's rays
and the constant production of a rank grass called lalang. When this
grass, common to all the eastern islands, is kept under by frequent
mowing or the grazing of cattle (as is the case near the European
settlements) its room is supplied by grass of a finer texture. Many
suppose that the same identical species of vegetable undergoes this
alteration, as no fresh seeds are sown and the substitution uniformly
takes place. But this is an evident mistake as the generic characters of
the two are essentially different; the one being the Gramen caricosum and
the other the Gramen aciculatum described by Rumphius. The former, which
grows to the height of five feet, is remarkable for the whiteness and
softness of the down or blossom, and the other for the sharpness of its
bearded seeds, which prove extremely troublesome to the legs of those who
walk among it.*

(*Footnote. Gramen hoc (caricosum) totos occupat campos, nudosque colles
tam dense et laete germinans, ut e longinquo haberetur campus oryza
consitus, tam luxuriose ac fortiter crescit, ut neque hortos neque sylvas
evitet, atque tam vehementer prorepit, ut areae vix depurari ac servari
possint, licet quotidie deambulentur...Potissimum amat solum flavum
arguillosum. (Gramen aciculatum) Usus ejus fere nullus est, sed hic
detegendum est taediosum ludibrium, quod quis habet, si quis per campos
vel in sylvis procedat, ubi hoc gramen ad vias publicas crescit, quum
praetereuntium vestibus, hoc semen quam maxime inhaeret. Rumphius volume
6 book 10 chapters 8 and 13. M. Poivre describes the plains of Madagascar
and Java as covered with a long grass which he calls fatak, and which,
from the analogy of the countries in other respects, I should suppose to
be the lalang; but he praises it as affording excellent pasturage;
whereas in Sumatra it is reckoned the worst, and except when very young
it is not edible by the largest cattle; for which reason the carters and
drovers are in the practice of setting fire to that which grows on the
plains by the roadside, that the young shoots which thereupon shoot up,
may afterwards supply food to their buffaloes.)

If old woods are not at hand ground covered with that of younger growth,
termed balukar, is resorted to; but not, if possible, under the age of
four or five years. Vegetation is there so strong that spots which had
been perfectly cleared for cultivation will, upon being neglected for a
single season, afford shelter to the beasts of the forest; and the same
being rarely occupied for two successive years, the face of the country
continues to exhibit the same wild appearance, although very extensive
tracts are annually covered with fresh plantations. From this it will be
seen that, in consequence of the fertility to which it gives occasion,
the abundance of wood in the country is not considered by the inhabitants
as an inconvenience but the contrary. Indeed I have heard a native prince
complain of a settlement made by some persons of a distant tribe in the
inland part of his dominions, whom he should be obliged to expel from
thence in order to prevent the waste of his old woods. This seemed a
superfluous act of precaution in an island which strikes the eye as one
general, impervious, and inexhaustible forest.

MODE OF CLEARING THE GROUND.

On the approach of the dry monsoon (April and May) or in the course of
it, the husbandman makes choice of a spot for his ladang, or plantation
of upland rice, for that season, and marks it out. Here it must be
observed that property in land depends upon occupancy, unless where
fruit-bearing trees have been planted, and, as there is seldom any
determined boundary between the lands of neighbouring villages, such
marks are rarely disturbed. Collecting his family and dependents, he next
proceeds to clear the ground. This is an undertaking of immense labour,
and would seem to require herculean force, but it is effected by skill
and perseverance. The work divides itself into two parts. The first
(called tebbas, menebbas) consists in cutting down the brushwood and rank
vegetables, which are suffered to dry during an interval of a fortnight,
or more or less, according to the fairness of the weather, before they
proceed to the second operation (called tebbang, menebbang) of felling
the large trees. Their tools, the prang and billiong (the former
resembling a bill-hook, and the latter an imperfect adze) are seemingly
inadequate to the task, and the saw is unknown in the country. Being
regardless of the timber they do not fell the tree near the ground, where
the stem is thick, but erect a stage and begin to hew, or chop rather, at
the height of ten or twelve, to twenty or thirty feet, where the
dimensions are smaller (and sometimes much higher, taking off little more
than the head) until it is sufficiently weakened to admit of their
pulling it down with rattans made fast to the branches instead of ropes.*
And thus by slow degrees the whole is laid low.

(*Footnote. A similar mode of felling is described in the Maison rustique
de Cayenne.)

In some places however a more summary process is attempted. It may be
conceived that in the woods the cutting down trees singly is a matter of
much difficulty on account of the twining plants which spread from one to
the other and connect them strongly together. To surmount this it is not
an uncommon practice to cut a number of trees half through, on the same
side, and then fix upon one of great bulk at the extremity of the space
marked out, which they cut nearly through, and, having disengaged it from
these lianas (as they are termed in the western world) determine its fall
in such a direction as may produce the effect of its bearing down by its
prodigious weight all those trees which had been previously weakened for
the purpose. By this much time and labour are saved, and, the object
being to destroy and not to save the timber, the rending or otherwise
spoiling the stems is of no moment. I could never behold this devastation
without a strong sentiment of regret. Perhaps the prejudices of a
classical education taught me to respect those aged trees as the
habitation or material frame of an order of sylvan deities, who were now
deprived of existence by the sacrilegious hand of a rude,
undistinguishing savage. But without having recourse to superstition it
is not difficult to account for such feelings on the sight of a venerable
wood, old, to appearance, as the soil it stood on, and beautiful beyond
what pencil can describe, annihilated for the temporary use of the space
it occupied. It seemed a violation of nature in the too arbitrary
exercise of power. The timber, from its abundance, the smallness of
consumption, and its distance in most cases from the banks of navigable
rivers, by which means alone it could be transported to any distance, is
of no value; and trees whose bulk, height, straightness of stem, and
extent of limbs excite the admiration of a traveller, perish
indiscriminately. Some of the branches are lopped off, and when these,
together with the underwood, are become sufficiently arid, they are set
fire to, and the country, for the space of a month or two, is in a
general blaze and smoke, until the whole is consumed and the ground
effectually cleared. The expiring wood, beneficent to its ungrateful
destroyer, fertilises for his use by its ashes and their salts the earth
which it so long adorned.

Unseasonable wet weather at this period, which sometimes happens, and
especially when the business is deferred till the close of the dry or
south-east monsoon, whose termination is at best irregular, produces much
inconvenience by the delay of burning till the vegetation has had time to
renew itself; in which case the spot is commonly abandoned, or, if
partially burned, it is not without considerable toil that it can be
afterwards prepared for sowing. On such occasions there are imposters
ready to make a profit of the credulity of the husbandman who, like all
others whose employments expose them to risks, are prone to superstition,
by pretending to a power of causing or retarding rain. One of these will
receive, at the time of burning the ladangs, a dollar or more from each
family in the neighbourhood, under the pretence of ensuring favourable
weather for their undertaking. To accomplish this purpose he abstains, or
pretends to abstain, for many days and nights from food and sleep, and
performs various trifling ceremonies; continuing all the time in the open
air. If he espies a cloud gathering he immediately begins to smoke
tobacco with great vehemence, walking about with a quick pace and
throwing the puffs towards it with all the force of his lungs. How far he
is successful it is no difficult matter to judge. His skill, in fact,
lies in choosing his time, when there is the greatest prospect of the
continuance of fair weather in the ordinary course of nature: but should
he fail there is an effectual salvo. He always promises to fulfil his
agreement with a Deo volente clause, and so attributes his occasional
disappointments to the particular interposition of the deity. The cunning
men who, in this and many other instances of conjuration, impose on the
simple country people, are always Malayan adventurers, and not
unfrequently priests. The planter whose labour has been lost by such
interruptions generally finds it too late in the season to begin on
another ladang, and the ordinary resource for subsisting himself and
family is to seek a spot of sawah ground, whose cultivation is less
dependent upon accidental variations of weather. In some districts much
confusion in regard to the period of sowing is said to have arisen from a
very extraordinary cause. Anciently, say the natives, it was regulated by
the stars, and particularly by the appearance (heliacal rising) of the
bintang baniak or Pleiades; but after the introduction of the Mahometan
religion they were induced to follow the returns of the puisa or great
annual fast, and forgot their old rules. The consequence of this was
obvious, for the lunar year of the hejrah being eleven days short of the
sidereal or solar year the order of the seasons was soon inverted; and it
is only astonishing that its inaptness to the purposes of agriculture
should not have been immediately discovered.

SOWING.

When the periodical rains begin to fall, which takes place gradually
about October, the planter assembles his neighbours (whom he assists in
turn), and with the aid of his whole family proceeds to sow his ground,
endeavouring to complete the task in the course of one day. In order to
ensure success he fixes, by the priest's assistance, on a lucky day, and
vows the sacrifice of a kid if his crop should prove favourable; the
performance of which is sacredly observed, and is the occasion of a feast
in every family after harvest. The manner of sowing (tugal-menugal) is
this. Two or three men enter the plantation, as it is usual to call the
padi-field, holding in each hand sticks about five feet long and two
inches diameter, bluntly pointed, with which, striking them into the
ground as they advance, they make small, shallow holes, at the distance
of about five inches from each other. These are followed by the women and
elder children with small baskets containing the seed-grain (saved with
care from the choicest of the preceding crop) of which they drop four or
five grains into every hole, and, passing on, are followed by the younger
children who with their feet (in the use of which the natives are nearly
as expert as with their hands) cover them lightly from the adjacent
earth, that the seed may not be too much exposed to the birds, which, as
might be expected, often prove destructive foes. The ground, it should be
observed, has not been previously turned up by any instrument of the hoe
or plough kind, nor would the stumps and roots of trees remaining in it
admit of the latter being worked; although employed under other
circumstances, as will hereafter appear. If rain succeeds the padi is
above ground in four or five days; but by an unexpected run of dry
weather it is sometimes lost, and the field sowed a second time. When it
has attained a month or six weeks' growth it becomes necessary to clear
it of weeds (siang-menyiang), which is repeated at the end of two months
or ten weeks; after which the strength it has acquired is sufficient to
preserve it from injury in that way. Huts are now raised in different
parts of the plantation, from whence a communication is formed over the
whole by means of rattans, to which are attached scarecrows, rattles,
clappers, and other machines for frightening away the birds, in the
contrivance of which they employ incredible pains and ingenuity; so
disposing them that a child, placed in the hut, shall be able, with
little exertion, to create a loud clattering noise to a great extent; and
on the borders of the field are placed at intervals a species of windmill
fixed on poles which, on the inexperienced traveller, have an effect as
terrible as those encountered by the knight of La Mancha. Such
precautions are indispensable for the protection of the corn, when in the
ear, against the numerous flights of the pipi, a small bird with a
light-brown body, white head, and bluish beak, rather less than the
sparrow, which in its general appearance and habits it resembles. Several
of these lighting at once upon a stalk of padi, and bearing it down, soon
clear it of its produce, and thus if unmolested destroy whole crops.

At the time of sowing the padi it is a common practice to sow also, in
the interstices, and in the same manner, jagong or maize, which, growing
up faster and ripening before it (in little more than three months) is
gathered without injury to the former. It is also customary to raise in
the same ground a species of momordica, the fruit of which comes forward
in the course of two months.

REAPING.

The nominal time allowed from the sowing to the reaping of the crop is
five lunar months and ten days; but from this it must necessarily vary
with the circumstances of the season. When it ripens, if all at the same
time, the neighbours are again summoned to assist, and entertained for
the day: if a part only ripens first the family begin to reap it, and
proceed through the whole by degrees. In this operation, called
tuwei-menuwei from the instrument used, they take off the head of corn
(the term of ear not being applicable to the growth of this plant) about
six inches below the grain, the remaining stalk or halm being left as of
no value. The tuwei is a piece of wood about six inches long, usually of
carved work and about two inches diameter, in which is fixed lengthwise a
blade of four or five inches, secured at the extremes by points bent to a
right angle and entering the wood. To this is added a piece of very small
bamboo from two to three inches long, fixed at right angles across the
back of the wood, with a notch for receiving it, and pinned through by a
small peg. This bamboo rests in the hollow of the hand, one end of the
piece of wood passing between the two middle fingers, with the blade
outwards; the natives always cutting FROM them.* With this in the right
hand and a small basket slung over the left shoulder, they very
expeditiously crop the heads of padi one by one, bringing the stalk to
the blade with their two middle fingers, and passing them, when cut, from
the right hand to the left. As soon as the left hand is full the contents
are placed in regular layers in the basket (sometimes tied up in a little
sheaf), and from thence removed to larger baskets, in which the harvest
is to be conveyed to the dusun or village, there to be lodged in the
tangkian or barns, which are buildings detached from the dwelling-houses,
raised like them from the ground, widening from the floor towards the
roof, and well lined with boards or coolitcoy. In each removal care is
taken to preserve the regularity of the layers, by which means it is
stowed to advantage, and any portion of it readily taken out for use.

(*Footnote. The inhabitants of Menangkabau are said to reap with an
instrument resembling a sickle.)

LOW-GROUND RICE.

Sawahs are plantations of padi in low wet ground, which, during the
growth of the crop, in the rainy season between the months of October and
March,* are for the most part overflowed to the depth of six inches or a
foot, beyond which latter the water becomes prejudicial. Level marshes,
of firm bottom, under a moderate stratum of mud, and not liable to deep
stagnant water, are the situations preferred; the narrower hollows,
though very commonly used for small plantations, being more liable to
accidents from torrents and too great depth of water, which the
inhabitants have rarely industry enough to regulate to advantage by
permanent embankments. They are not however ignorant of such expedients,
and works are sometimes met with, constructed for the purpose chiefly of
supplying the deficiency of rain to several adjoining sawahs by means of
sluices, contrived with no small degree of skill and attention to levels.

(*Footnote. In the Transactions of the Batavian Society the following
mention is made of the cultivation of rice in Java. The padi sawa is sown
in low watered grounds in the month of March, transplanted in April, and
reaped in August. The padi tipar is sown in high ploughed lands in
November, and reaped in March (earlier in the season than I could have
supposed.) when sown where woods have been recently cut down, or in the
clefts of the hills (klooven van het gebergte) it is named padi gaga.
Volume 1 page 27.)

In new ground, after clearing it from the brushwood, reeds, and aquatic
vegetables with which the marshes, when neglected, are overrun, and
burning them at the close of the dry season, the soil is, in the
beginning of the wet, prepared for culture by different modes of working.
In some places a number of buffaloes, whose greatest enjoyment consists
in wading and rolling in mud, are turned in, and these by their motions
contribute to give it a more uniform consistence as well as enrich it by
their dung. In other parts less permanently moist the soil is turned up,
either with a wooden instrument between a hoe and a pickaxe, or with the
plough, of which they use two kinds; their own, drawn by one buffalo,
extremely simple, and the wooden share of it doing little more than
scratch the ground to the depth of six inches; and one they have borrowed
from the Chinese, drawn either with one or two buffaloes, very light, and
the share more nearly resembling ours, turning the soil over as it passes
and making a narrow furrow. In sawahs however the surface has in general
so little consistence that no furrow is perceptible, and the plough does
little more than loosen the stiff mud to some depth, and cut the roots of
the grass and weeds, from which it is afterwards cleared by means of a
kind of harrow or rake, being a thick plank of heavy wood with strong
wooden teeth and loaded with earth where necessary. This they contrive to
drag along the surface for the purpose at the same time of depressing the
rising spots and filling up the hollow ones. The whole being brought as
nearly as possible to a level, that the water may lie equally upon it the
sawah is, for the more effectual securing of this essential point,
divided into portions nearly square or oblong (called piring, which
signifies a dish) by narrow banks raised about eighteen inches and two
feet wide. These drying become harder than the rest, confine the water,
and serve the purpose of footways throughout the plantation. When there
is more water in one division than another small passages are cut through
the dams to produce an equality. Through these apertures water is also in
some instances introduced from adjacent rivers or reservoirs, where such
exist, and the season requires their aid. The innumerable springs and
rivulets with which this country abounds render unnecessary the laborious
processes by which water is raised and supplied to the rice grounds in
the western part of India, where the soil is sandy: yet still the
principal art of the planter consists, and is required, in the management
of this article; to furnish it to the ground in proper and moderate
quantities and to carry it off from time to time by drains; for if
suffered to be long stagnant it would occasion the grain to rot.

TRANSPLANTATION.

Whilst the sawahs have been thus in preparation to receive the padi a
small, adjacent, and convenient spot of good soil has been chosen, in
which the seed-grain is sown as thick as it can well lie to the ground,
and is then often covered with layers of lalang (long grass, instead of
straw) to protect the grain from the birds, and perhaps assist the
vegetation. When it has grown to the height of from five to eight inches,
or generally at the end of forty days from the time of sowing, it is
taken up in showery weather and transplanted to the sawah, where holes
are made four or five inches asunder to receive the plants. If they
appear too forward the tops are cropped off. A supply is at the same time
reserved in the seed-plots to replace such as may chance to fail upon
removal. These plantations, in the same manner as the ladangs, it is
necessary to cleanse from weeds at least twice in the first two or three
months; but no maize or other seed is sown among the crop. When the padi
begins to form the ear or to blossom, as the natives express it, the
water is finally drawn off, and at the expiration of four months from the
time of transplanting it arrives at maturity. The manner of guarding
against the birds is similar to what has been already described; but the
low ground crop has a peculiar and very destructive enemy in the rats,
which sometimes consume the whole of it, especially when the plantation
has been made somewhat out of season; to obviate which evil the
inhabitants of a district sow by agreement pretty nearly at the same
time; whereby the damage is less perceptible. In the mode of reaping
likewise there is nothing different. Upon the conclusion of the harvest
it is an indispensable duty to summon the neighbouring priests to the
first meal that is made of the new rice, when an entertainment is given
according to the circumstances of the family. Should this ceremony be
omitted the crop would be accursed (haram) nor could the whole household
expect to outlive the season. This superstition has been by the
Mahometans judiciously engrafted on the stock of credulity in the country
people.

The same spot of low ground is for the most part used without regular
intermission for several successive years, the degree of culture they
bestow by turning up the soil and the overflowing water preserving its
fertility. They are not however insensible to the advantage of occasional
fallows. In consequence of this continued use the value of the sawah
grounds differs from that of ladangs, the former being, in the
neighbourhood of populous towns particularly, distinct property, and of
regularly ascertained value. At Natal for example those consisting
between one and two acres sell for sixteen to twenty Spanish dollars. In
the interior country, where the temperature of the air is more favourable
to agriculture, they are said to sow the same spot with ladang rice for
three successive years; and there also it is common to sow onions as soon
as the stubble is burned off. Millet (randa jawa) is sown at the same
time with the padi. In the country of Manna, southward of Bencoolen, a
progress in the art of cultivation is discovered, superior to what
appears in almost any other part of the island; the Batta country perhaps
alone excepted. Here may be seen pieces of land in size from five to
fifteen acres, regularly ploughed and harrowed. The difference is thus
accounted for. It is the most populous district in that southern part,
with the smallest extent of sea-coast. The pepper plantations and ladangs
together having in a great measure exhausted the old woods in the
accessible parts of the country, and the inhabitants being therein
deprived of a source of fertility which nature formerly supplied, they
must either starve, remove to another district, or improve by cultivation
the spot where they reside. The first is contrary to the inherent
principle that teaches man to preserve life by every possible means:
their attachment to their native soil, or rather their veneration for the
sepulchres of their ancestors, is so strong that to remove would cost
them a struggle almost equal to the pangs of death: necessity therefore,
the parent of art and industry, compels them to cultivate the earth.

RATE OF PRODUCE.

The produce of the grounds thus tilled is reckoned at thirty for one;
from those in the ordinary mode about a hundred fold on the average, the
ladangs yielding about eighty, and the sawahs a hundred and twenty. Under
favourable circumstances I am assured the rate of produce is sometimes so
high as a hundred and forty fold. The quantity sown by a family is
usually from five to ten bamboo measures or gallons. These returns are
very extraordinary compared with those of our wheat-fields in Europe,
which I believe seldom exceed fifteen, and are often under ten. To what
is this disproportion owing? to the difference of grain, as rice may be
in its nature extremely prolific? to the more genial influence of a
warmer climate? or to the earth's losing by degrees her fecundity from an
excessive cultivation? Rather than to any of these causes I am inclined
to attribute it to the different process followed in sowing. In England
the saving of labour and promoting of expedition are the chief objects,
and in order to effect these the grain is almost universally scattered in
the furrows; excepting where the drill has been introduced. The
Sumatrans, who do not calculate the value of their own labour or that of
their domestics on such occasions, make holes in the ground, as has been
described, and drop into each a few grains*; or, by a process still more
tedious, raise the seed in beds and then plant it out. Mr. Charles
Miller, in a paper published in the Philosophical Transactions, has shown
us the wonderful effects of successive transplantation. How far it might
be worth the English farmer's while to bestow more labour in the business
of sowing the grain, with the view of a proportionate increase in the
rate of produce, I am not competent, nor is it to my present purpose, to
form a judgment. Possibly as the advantage might be found to lie rather
in the quantity of grain saved in the sowing than gained in the reaping,
it would not answer his purpose; for although half the quantity of
seed-corn bears reciprocally the same proportion to the usual produce
that double the latter does to the usual allowance of seed, yet in point
of profit the scale is different. To augment this it is of much more
importance to increase the produce from a given quantity of land than to
diminish the quantity of grain necessary for sowing it.

(*Footnote. In an address from the Bath Agricultural Society dated 12th
October 1795 it is strongly recommended to the cultivators of land (on
account of the then existing scarcity of grain) to adopt the method of
dibbling wheat. The holes to be made either by the common dibble, or with
an implement having four or more points in a frame, at the distance of
about four inches every way, and to the depth of an inch and a half;
dropping TWO grains into every hole. The man who dibbles is to move
backwards and to be followed by two or three women or children, who drop
in the grains. A bush-hurdle, drawn across the furrows by a single horse,
finishes the business. About six pecks of seed-wheat per acre are saved
by this method. The expense of dibbling, dropping, and covering is
reckoned in Norfolk at about six shillings per acre. Times Newspaper of
20th October 1795.)

FERTILITY OF SOIL.

Notwithstanding the received opinion of the fertility of what are called
the Malay Islands, countenanced by the authority of M. Poivre and other
celebrated writers, and still more by the extraordinary produce of grain,
as above stated, I cannot help saying that I think the soil of the
western coast of Sumatra is in general rather sterile than rich. It is
for the most part a stiff red clay, burned nearly to the state of a brick
where it is exposed to the influence of the sun. The small proportion of
the whole that is cultivated is either ground from which old woods have
been recently cleared, whose leaves had formed a bed of vegetable earth
some inches deep, or else ravines into which the scanty mould of the
adjoining hills has been washed by the annual torrents of rain. It is
true that in many parts of the coast there are, between the cliffs and
the sea-beach, plains varying in breadth and extent of a sandy soil,
probably left by the sea and more or less mixed with earth in proportion
to the time they have remained uncovered by the waters; and such are
found to prove the most favourable spots for raising the productions of
other parts of the world. But these are partial and insufficient proofs
of fertility. Every person who has attempted to make a garden of any kind
nor Fort Marlborough must well know how ineffectual a labour it would
prove to turn up with the spade a piece of ground adopted at random. It
becomes necessary for this purpose to form an artificial soil of dung,
ashes, rubbish, and such other materials as can be procured. From these
alone he can expect to raise the smallest supply of vegetables for the
table. I have seen many extensive plantations of coconut, pinang, lime,
and coffee-trees, laid out at a considerable expense by different
gentlemen, and not one do I recollect to have succeeded; owing as it
would seem to the barrenness of the soil, although covered with long
grass. These disappointments have induced the Europeans almost entirely
to neglect agriculture. The more industrious Chinese colonists, who work
the ground with indefatigable pains, and lose no opportunity of saving
and collecting manure, are rather more successful; yet have I heard one
of the most able cultivators among this people, who, by the dint of
labour and perseverance, had raised what then appeared to me a delightful
garden, designed for profit as well as pleasure, declare that his heart
was almost broken in struggling against nature; the soil being so
ungrateful that, instead of obtaining an adequate return for his trouble
and expense, the undertaking was likely to render him a bankrupt; and
which he would inevitably have been but for assistance afforded him by
the East India Company.*

(*Footnote. Some particular plants, especially the tea, Key Sun used to
tell me he considered as his children: his first care in the morning and
his last in the evening was to tend and cherish them. I heard with
concern of his death soon after the first publication of this work, and
could have wished the old man had lived to know that the above small
tribute of attention had been paid to his merits as a gardener. In a
letter received from the late ingenious Mr. Charles Campbell, belonging
to the medical establishment of Fort Marlborough, whose communications I
shall have future occasion to notice, he writes on the 29th of March
1802: "I must not omit to say a word about my attempts to cultivate the
land. The result of all my labours in that way was disappointment almost
as heartbreaking as that of the unlucky Chinaman, whose example however
did not deter me. After many vexations I descended from the plains into
the ravines, and there met with the success denied me on the elevated
land. In one of these, through which runs a small rivulet emptying itself
into the lake of Dusun Besar, I attempted a plantation of coffee, where
there are now upwards of seven thousand plants firmly rooted and putting
out new leaves." this cultivation has since been so much increased as to
become an important article of commerce. It should at the same time be
acknowledged that our acquaintance with the central and eastern parts of
the island is very imperfect, and that much fertile land may be found
beyond the range of mountains.)

The natives, it is true, without much or any cultivation raise several
useful trees and plants; but they are in very small quantities, and
immediately about their villages, where the ground is fertilised in spite
of their indolence by the common sweepings of their houses and streets
and the mere vicinity of their buildings. I have often had occasion to
observe in young plantations that those few trees which surrounded the
house of the owner or the hut of the keeper considerably over-topped
their brethren of the same age. Every person at first sight, and on a
superficial view of the Malayan countries, pronounces them the favourites
of nature where she has lavished her bounties with a profusion unknown in
other regions, and laments the infatuation of the people, who neglect to
cultivate the finest soil in the world. But I have scarcely known one
who, after a few years' residence, has not entirely altered his opinion.
Certain it is that in point of external appearance they may challenge all
others to comparison. In many parts of Sumatra, rarely trodden by human
foot, scenes present themselves adapted to raise the sublimest sentiments
in minds susceptible of the impression. But how rarely are they
contemplated by minds of that temper! and yet it is alone:

For such the rivers dash their foaming tides,
The mountain swells, the vale subsides,
The stately wood detains the wandering sight,
And the rough barren rock grows pregnant with delight.

Even when there ARE inhabitants, to how little purpose as it respects
them has she been profuse in ornament! In passing through places where my
fancy was charmed with more luxuriant, wild, and truly picturesque views
than I had ever before met with, I could not avoid regretting that a
country so captivating to the eye should be allotted to a race of people
who seem totally insensible of its beauties. But it is time to return
from this excursion and pursue the progress of the husbandman through his
remaining labours.

MODES OF THRESHING.

Different nations have adopted various methods of separating the grain
from the ear. The most ancient we read of was that of driving cattle over
the sheaves in order to trample it out. Large planks, blocks of marble,
heavy carriages, have been employed in later times for this end. In most
parts of Europe the flail is now in use, but in England begins to be
superseded by the powerful and expeditious but complicated threshing
machine. The Sumatrans have a mode differing from all these. The bunches
of padi in the ear being spread on mats, they rub out the grain between
and under their feet; supporting themselves in common for the more easy
performance of this labour by holding with their hands a bamboo placed
horizontally over their heads. Although, by going always unshod, their
feet are extremely callous, and therefore adapted to the exercise, yet
the workmen when closely tasked by their masters sometimes continue
shuffling till the blood issues from their soles. This is the universal
practice throughout the island.

After treading out or threshing the next process is to winnow the corn
(mengirei), which is done precisely in the same manner as practised by
us. Advantage being taken of a windy day, it is poured out from the sieve
or fan; the chaff dispersing whilst the heavier grain falls to the
ground. This simple mode seems to have been followed in all ages and
countries, though now giving place, in countries where the saving of
labour is a principal object, to mechanical contrivances.

In order to clear the grain from the husk, by which operation the padi
acquires the name of rice (bras), and loses one half of its measured
quantity, two bamboos of the former yielding only one of the latter, it
is first spread out in the sunshine to dry (jumur), and then pounded in
large wooden mortars (lesung) with heavy pestles (alu) made of a hard
species of wood, until the outer coat is completely separated from it,
when it is again fanned. This business falls principally to the lot of
the females of the family, two of whom commonly work at the same mortar.
In some places (but not frequently) it is facilitated by the use of a
lever, to the end of which a short pestle or pounder is fixed; and in
others by a machine which is a hollow cylinder or frustum of a cone,
formed of heavy wood, placed upon a solid block of the same diameter, the
contiguous surfaces of each being previously cut in notches or small
grooves, and worked backwards and forwards horizontally by two handles or
transverse arms; a spindle fixed in the centre of the lower cylinder
serving as an axis to the upper or hollow one. Into this the grain is
poured, and it is thus made to perform the office of the hopper at the
same time with that of the upper, or movable stone, in our mills. In
working it is pressed downwards to increase the friction, which is
sufficient to deprive the padi of its outer coating.

The rice is now in a state for sale, exportation, or laying up. To render
it perfectly clean for eating, a point to which they are particularly
attentive, it is put a second time into a lesung of smaller size, and,
being sufficiently pounded without breaking the grains, it is again
winnowed by tossing it dexterously in a flat sieve until the pure and
spotless corns are separated from every particle of bran. They next wash
it in cold water and then proceed to boil it in the manner before
described.

RICE AS AN ARTICLE OF TRADE.

As an article of trade the Sumatran rice seems to be of a more perishable
nature than that of some other countries, the upland rice not being
expected to keep longer than twelve months, and the lowland showing signs
of decay after six. At Natal there is a practice of putting a quantity of
leaves of a shrub called lagundi (Vitex trifolia) amongst it in
granaries, or the holds of vessels, on the supposition of its possessing
the property of destroying or preventing the generation of weevils that
usually breed in it. In Bengal it is said the rice intended for
exportation is steeped in hot water whilst still in the husk, and
afterwards dried by exposure to the sun; owing to which precaution it
will continue sound for two or three years, and is on that account
imported for garrison store at the European settlements. If retained in
the state of padi it will keep very long without damaging.* The country
people lay it up unthreshed from the stalk and beat it out (as we render
their word tumbuk) from time to time as wanted for use or sale.

(*Footnote. I have in my possession specimens of a variety of species
which were transmitted to me twelve years ago and are still perfectly
sound.)

The price of this necessary of life differs considerably throughout the
island, not only from the circumstances of the season but according to
the general demand at the places where it is purchased, the degree of
industry excited by such demand, and the aptitude of the country to
supply it. The northern parts of the coast under the influence of the
Achinese produce large quantities; particularly Susu and Tampat-tuan,
where it is (or used to be) purchased at the rate of thirty bamboos
(gallons) for the Spanish dollar, and exported either to Achin or to the
settlement of Natal for the use of the Residency of Fort Marlborough. At
Natal also, and for the same ultimate destination, is collected the
produce of the small island of Nias, whose industrious inhabitants,
living themselves upon the sweet-potato (Convolvulus batatas), cultivate
rice for exportation only, encouraged by the demand from the English and
(what were) the Dutch factories. Not any is exported from Natal of its
actual produce; a little from Ayer Bungi; more from the extensive but
neglected districts of Pasaman and Masang, and many cargoes from the
country adjacent to Padang. Our pepper settlements to the northward of
Fort Marlborough, from Moco-moco to Laye inclusive, export each a small
quantity, but from thence southward to Kroi supplies are required for the
subsistence of the inhabitants, the price varying from twelve to four
bamboos according to the season. At our head settlement the consumption
of the civil and military establishments, the company's LABOURERS,
together with the Chinese and Malayan settlers, so much exceeds the
produce of the adjoining districts (although exempted from any obligation
to cultivate pepper) that there is a necessity for importing a quantity
from the islands of Java and Bally, and from Bengal about three to six
thousand bags annually.*

(*Footnote. This has reference to the period between 1770 and 1780
generally. So far as respects the natives there has been no material
alteration.)

The rice called pulut or bras se-pulut (Oryza gelatinosa), of which
mention has been made in the list above, is in its substance of a very
peculiar nature, and not used as common food but with the addition of
coconut-kernel in making a viscous preparation called lemang, which I
have seen boiled in a green bamboo, and other juadahs or friandises. It
is commonly distinguished into the white, red, and black sorts, among
which the red appears to be the most esteemed. The black chiefly is
employed by the Chinese colonists at Batavia and Fort Marlborough in the
composition of a fermented liquor called bram or brum, of which the basis
is the juice extracted from a species of palm.

COCONUT.

The coconut-tree, kalapa, nior (Cocos nucifera), may be esteemed the next
important object of cultivation from the uses to which its produce is
applied; although by the natives of Sumatra it is not converted to such a
variety of purposes as in the Maldives and those countries where nature
has been less bountiful in other gifts. Its value consists principally in
the kernel of the nut, the consumption of which is very great, being an
essential ingredient in the generality of their dishes. From this also,
but in a state of more maturity, is procured the oil in common use near
the sea-coast, both for anointing the hair, in cookery, and for burning
in lamps. In the interior country other vegetable oils are employed, and
light is supplied by a kind of links made of dammar or resin. A liquor,
commonly known in India by the name of toddy, is extracted from this as
well as from other trees of the palm-kind. Whilst quite fresh it is sweet
and pleasant to the taste, and is called nira. After four and twenty
hours it acidulates, ferments, and becomes intoxicating, in which state
it is called tuak. Being distilled with molasses and other ingredients it
yields the spirit called arrack. In addition to these but of trifling
importance are the cabbage or succulent pith at the head of the tree,
which however can be obtained only when it is cut down, and the fibres of
the leaves, of which the natives form their brooms. The stem is never
used for building nor any carpenter's purposes in a country where fine
timber so much abounds. The fibrous substance of the husk is not there
manufactured into cordage, as in the west of India where it is known by
the name of coir; rattans and eju (a substance to be hereafter described)
being employed for that purpose. The shell of the nut is but little
employed as a domestic utensil, the lower class of people preferring the
bamboo and the labu (Cucurbita lagenaria) and the better sort being
possessed of coarse chinaware. If the filaments surrounding the stem are
anywhere manufactured into cloth, as has been asserted, it must be in
countries that do not produce cotton, which is a material beyond all
comparison preferable: besides that certain kind of trees, as before
observed, afford in their soft and pliable inner bark what may be
considered as a species of cloth ready woven to their hands.

This tree in all its species, stages, fructification, and appropriate
uses has been so elaborately and justly described by many writers,
especially the celebrated Rumphius in his Herbarium Amboinense, and Van
Rheede in his Hortus Malabaricus, that to attempt it here would be an
unnecessary repetition, and I shall only add a few local observations on
its growth. Every dusun is surrounded with a number of fruit-bearing
trees, and especially the coconut where the soil and temperature will
allow them to grow, and, near the bazaars or sea-port towns, where the
concourse of inhabitants is in general much greater than in the country,
there are always large plantations of them to supply the extraordinary
demand. The tree thrives best in a low, sandy soil, near the sea, where
it will produce fruit in four or five years; whilst in the clayey ground
it seldom bears in less than seven to ten years. As you recede from the
coast the growth is proportionably slower, owing to the greater degree of
cold among the hills; and it must attain there nearly its full height
before it is productive, whereas in the plains a child can generally
reach its first fruit from the ground. Here, said a countryman at Laye,
if I plant a coconut or durian-tree I may expect to reap the fruit of it;
but in Labun (an inland district) I should only plant for my
great-grandchildren. In some parts where the land is particularly high,
neither these, the betel-nut, nor pepper-vines, will produce fruit at
all.

It has been remarked by some writer that the date-bearing palm-tree and
the coconut are never found to flourish in the same country. However this
may hold good as a general assertion it is a fact that not one tree of
that species is known to grow in Sumatra, where the latter, and many
others of the palm kind, so much abound. All the small low islands which
lie off the western coast are skirted near the sea-beach so thickly with
coconut-trees that their branches touch each other, whilst the interior
parts, though not on a higher level, are entirely free from them. This
beyond a doubt is occasioned by the accidental floating of the nuts to
the shore, where they are planted by the hand of nature, shoot up, and
bear fruit; which, falling when it arrives at maturity, causes a
successive reproduction. Where uninhabited, as is the case with Pulo
Mego, one of the southernmost, the nuts become a prey to the rats and
squirrels unless when occasionally disturbed by the crews of vessels
which go thither to collect cargoes for market on the mainland. In the
same manner, as we are told by Flacourt,* they have been thrown upon a
coast of Madagascar and are not there indigenous; as I have been also
assured by a native. Yet it appears that the natives call it voaniou,
which is precisely the name by which it is familiarly known in Sumatra,
being buah-nior; and v being uniformly substituted for b, and f for p, in
the numerous Malayan words occurring in the language of the former
island. On the other hand the singular production to which the
appellation of sea-coconut (kalapa laut) has been given, and which is
known to be the fruit of a species of borassus growing in one of the
Seychelles Islands,** not far from Madagascar, are sometimes floated as
far as the Malayan coasts, where they are supposed to be natives of the
ocean and were held in high veneration for their miraculous effects in
medicine until, about the year 1772, a large cargo of them was brought to
Bencoolen by a French vessel, when their character soon fell with their
price.

(*Footnote. Histoire de l'isle Madagascar page 127.)

(*Footnote. See a particular description of the sea-coconut with plates
in the Voyage a la Nouvelle Guinee par Sonnerat page 3.)

PINANG OR BETEL-NUT.

The pinang (Areca catechu L.) or betel-nut-tree (as it is usually, but
improperly, called, the betel being a different plant) is in its mode of
growth and appearance not unlike the coconut. It is however straighter in
the stem, smaller in proportion to the height, and more graceful. The
fruit, of which the varieties are numerous (such as pinang betul, pinang
ambun, and pinang wangi), is in its outer coat about the size of a plum;
the nut something less than that of the nutmeg but rounder. This is eaten
with the leaf of the sirih or betel (Piper betel L.) a claiming plant
whose leaf has a strong aromatic flavour and other stimulating additions;
a practice that shall be hereafter described. Of both of these the
natives make large plantations.

BAMBOO.

In respect to its numerous and valuable uses the bambu or bamboo-cane
(Arundo bambos) holds a conspicuous rank amongst the vegetables of the
island, though I am not aware that it is anywhere cultivated for domestic
purposes, growing wild in most parts in great abundance. In the Batta
country, and perhaps some other inland districts, they plant a particular
species very thickly about their kampongs or fortified villages as a
defence against the attacks of an enemy; the mass of hedge which they
form being almost impenetrable. It grows in common to the thickness of a
man's leg, and some sorts to that of the thigh. The joints are from
fifteen to twenty inches asunder, and the length about twenty to forty
feet. In all manner of building it is the chief material, both in its
whole state, and split into laths and otherwise, as has already appeared
in treating of the houses of the natives; and the various other modes of
employing it will be noticed either directly or incidentally in the
course of the work.

SUGAR-CANE.

The sugar-cane (tubbu) is very generally cultivated, but not in large
quantities, and more frequently for the sake of chewing the juicy reed,
which they consider as a delicacy, than for the manufacture of sugar. Yet
this is not unattended to for home consumption, especially in the
northern districts. By the Europeans and Chinese large plantations have
been set on foot near Bencoolen, and worked from time to time with more
or less effect; but in no degree to rival those of the Dutch at Batavia,
from whence in time of peace the exportation of sugar (gula), sugar-candy
(gula batu) and arrack is very considerable. In the southern parts of the
island, and particularly in the district of Manna, every village is
provided with two or three machines of a peculiar construction for
squeezing the cane; but the inhabitants are content with boiling the
juice to a kind of syrup. In the Lampong country they manufacture from
the liquor yielded by a species of palm-tree a moist, clammy, imperfect
kind of sugar, called jaggri in most parts of India.*

(*Footnote. This word is evidently the shakar of the Persians, the Latin
saccharum, and our sugar.)

JAGGRI.

This palm, named in Sumatra anau, and by the eastern Malays gomuto, is
the Borassus gomutus of Loureiro, the Saguerus pinnatus of the Batavian
Transactions, and the cleophora of Gaertner. Its leaves are long and
narrow and, though naturally tending to a point, are scarcely ever found
perfect, but always jagged at the end. The fruit grows in bunches of
thirty or forty together, on strings three or four feet long, several of
which hang from one shoot. In order to procure the nira or toddy (held in
higher estimation than that from the coconut-tree), one of these shoots
for fructification is cut off a few inches from the stem, the remaining
part is tied up and beaten, and an incision is then made, from which the
liquor distils into a vessel or bamboo closely fastened beneath. This is
replaced every twenty-four hours. The anau palm produces also (beside a
little sago) the remarkable substance called iju and gomuto, exactly
resembling coarse black horse-hair, and used for making cordage of a very
excellent kind, as well as for many other purposes, being nearly
incorruptible. It encompasses the stem of the tree, and is seemingly
bound to it by thicker fibres or twigs, of which the natives made pens
for writing. Toddy is likewise procured from the lontar or Borassus
flabellifer, the tala of the Hindus.

SAGO.

The rambiya, puhn sagu, or proper sago tree, is also of the palm kind.
Its trunk contains a farinaceous and glutinous pith that, being soaked,
dried, and granulated, becomes the sago of our shops, and has been too
frequently and accurately described (by Rumphius in particular, Volume 1
chapters 17 and 18, and by M. Poivre) to need a repetition here.

NIBONG.

The nibong (Caryota urens), another species of palm, grows wild in such
abundance as not to need cultivation. The stem is tall, slender, and
straight, and, being of a hard texture on the outer part, it is much used
for posts in building the slight houses of the country, as well as for
paling of a stronger kind than the bamboo usually employed. Withinside it
is fibrous and soft and, when hollowed out, being of the nature of a
pipe, is well adapted to the purpose of gutters or channels to convey
water. The cabbage, as it is termed, or pith at the head of the tree (the
germ of the foliage) is eaten as a delicacy, and preferred to that of the
coconut.

NIPAH.

The nipah (Cocos nypa, Lour.) a low species of palm, is chiefly valuable
for its leaves, which are much used as thatch for the roofs of houses.
The pulpy kernels of the fruit (called buah atap) are preserved as a
sweetmeat, but are entirely without flavour.

CYCAS.

The paku bindu (Cycas circinalis) has the general appearance of a young,
or rather dwarf coconut-tree, and like that and the nibong produces a
cabbage that is much esteemed as a culinary vegetable. The tender shoots
are likewise eaten. The stem is short and knobby, the lower part of each
branch (if branches they may be called) prickly, and the blossom yellow.
The term paku, applied to it by the Malays, shows that they consider it
as partaking of the nature of the fern (filix) and Rumphius, who names it
Sayor calappa and Olus calappoides, describes it as an arborescent
species of osmunda. It is well depicted in Volume 1 table 22.

MAIZE.

The maize or turkey-corn (Zea mays), called jagong, though very generally
sown, is not cultivated in quantities as an article of food, excepting in
the Batta country. The ears are plucked whilst green, and, being slightly
roasted on the embers, are eaten as a delicacy. Chili or cayenne pepper
(capsicum), called improperly lada panjang or long pepper, and also lada
merah, red pepper, which, in preference to the common or black pepper, is
used in their curries and with almost every article of their food, always
finds a place in their irregular and inartificial gardens. To these
indeed their attention is very little directed, in consequence of the
liberality with which nature, unsolicited, supplies their wants. Turmeric
(curcuma) is a root of general use. Of this there are two kinds, the one
called kunyit merah, an indispensable ingredient in their curries,
pilaws, and sundry dishes; the other, kunyit tummu (a variety with
coloured leaves and a black streak running along the midrib) is esteemed
a good yellow dye, and is sometimes employed in medicine. Ginger (Amomum
zinziber) is planted in small quantities. Of this also there are two
kinds, alia jai (Zinziber majus) and alia padas (Zinziber minus),
familiarly called se-pade or se-pudde, from a word signifying that
pungent acrid taste in spices which we express by the vague term hot. The
tummu (Costus arabicus) and lampuyang (Amomum zerumbet) are found both in
the wild and cultivated state, being used medicinally; as is also the
galangale (Kaempferia galanga). The coriander, called katumbar, and the
cardamum, puah lako, grow in abundance. Of the puah (amomum) they reckon
many species, the most common of which has very large leaves, resembling
those of the plantain and possessing an aromatic flavour not unlike that
of the bay tree. The jintan or cumin-seed (cuminum) is sometimes an
ingredient in curries. Of the morunggei or kelor (Guilandina moringa L.
Hyperanthera moringa Wilden.), a tall shrub with pinnated leaves, the
root has the appearance, flavour, and pungency of the horse-radish, and
the long pods are dressed as a culinary vegetable; as are also the young
shoots of the pringgi (Cucurbita pepo) various sorts of the lapang or
cucumber, and of the lobak or radish. The inei or henna of the Arabians
(Lawsonia inermis) is a shrub with small light-green leaves, yielding an
expressed juice with which the natives tinge the nails of their hands and
feet. Ampalas (Delima sarmentosa and Ficus ampelos) is a shrub whose
blossom resembles that of our hawthorn in appearance and smell. Its leaf
has an extraordinary roughness, on which account it is employed to give
the last fine polish to carvings in wood ivory, particularly the handles
and sheaths of their krises, on which they bestow much labour. The leaf
of the sipit also, a climbing species of fig, having the same quality, is
put to the same use. Ganja or hemp (cannabis) is extensively cultivated,
not for the purpose of making rope, to which they never apply it, but to
make an intoxicating preparation called bang, which they smoke in pipes
along with tobacco. In other parts of India a drink is prepared by
bruising the blossoms, young leaves, and tender parts of the stalk. Small
plantations of tobacco, which the natives call tambaku, are met with in
every part of the country. The leaves are cut whilst green into fine
shreds, and afterwards dried in the sun. The species is the same as the
Virginian, and, were the quantity increased and people more expert in the
method of curing it, a manufacture and trade of considerable importance
might be established.

PULAS TWINE.

The kaluwi is a species of urtica or nettle of which excellent twine
called pulas is made. It grows to the height of about four feet, has a
stem imperfectly ligneous, without branches. When cut down, dried, and
beaten, the rind is stripped off and then twisted as we do the hemp. It
affords me great satisfaction to learn that the manufacture of rope from
this useful plant has lately attracted the attention of the Company's
Government, and that a considerable nursery of the kaluwi has been
established in the Botanic Garden at Calcutta, under the zealous and
active management of Dr. Roxburgh, who expresses his opinion that so soon
as a method shall be discovered of removing a viscid matter found to
adhere to the fibres the kaluwi hemp, or pulas, will supersede every
other material. The bagu-tree (Gnetum gnemon, L.) abounds on the southern
coast of the island, where its bark is beaten, like hemp, and the twine
manufactured from it is employed in the construction of large fishing
nets. The young leaves of the tree are dressed in curries. In the island
of Nias they make a twine of the baru-tree (Hibiscus tiliaceus), which is
afterwards woven into a coarse cloth for bags. From the pisang (musa) a
kind of sewing-thread is procured by stripping filaments from the midribs
of the leaves, as well as from the stem. In some places this thread is
worked in the loom. The kratau, a dwarf species of mulberry (morus,
foliis profunde incisis) is planted for the food of the silkworms, which
they rear, but not to any great extent, and the raw silk produced from
them seems of but an indifferent quality. The samples I have seen were
white instead of yellow, in large, flat cakes, which would require much
trouble to wind off, and the filaments appeared coarse; but this may be
partly occasioned by the method of loosening them from the bags, which is
by steeping them in hot water. Jarak (ricinus and Palma christi), from
whence the castor oil is extracted, grows wild in abundance: especially
near the sea-shore. Bijin (Sesamum indicum) is sown extensively in the
interior districts for the oil it produces, which is there used for
burning in place of the coconut-oil so common near the coast.

ELASTIC GUM.

In the description of the Urceola elastica, or caout-chouc-vine, of
Sumatra and Pulo Pinang, by Dr. W. Roxburgh, in the Asiatic Researches
Volume 5 page 167, he says, "For the discovery of this useful vine we
are, I believe, indebted to Mr. Howison, late surgeon at Pulo Pinang; but
it would appear he had no opportunity of determining its botanical
character. To Dr. Charles Campbell of Fort Marlborough we owe the
gratification arising from a knowledge thereof. About twelve months ago I
received from that gentleman, by means of Mr. Fleming, very complete
specimens, in full foliage, flower, and fruit. From these I was enabled
to reduce it to its class and order in the Linnean system. It forms new
genus immediately after tabernaemontana, and consequently belongs to the
class called contortae. One of the qualities of the plants of this order
is their yielding, on being cut, a juice which is generally milky, and
for the most part deemed of a poisonous nature." Of another plant,
producing a similar substance, I received the following information from
Mr. Campbell, in a letter dated in November, 1803: "You may remember a
trailing plant with a small yellowish flower and a seed vessel of an
oblong form, containing one seed; the whole plant resembling much the
caout-chouc. To this, finding it wholly nondescript, I have taken the
liberty to attach your name. It has no relationship to a genus yielding a
similar substance, of which I sent a specimen to Dr. Roxburgh at Bengal,
who published an account of it under the name of urceola. It is called
jintan by the Malays, and of its three species I have accurately
ascertained two, the jintan itam and jintan burong, the latter very rare.
Its leaves are of a deep glossy green, and the flowers lightly tinged
with a pale yellow; it belongs to the tetrandria, and is a handsome
plant--but more of this with the drawing." Unfortunately however neither
this drawing nor any part of his valuable collection of materials for
improving the natural history of that interesting country, which he
bequeathed to me by his will, have yet reached my hands.

GUM.

Mr. Charles Miller observed in the country near Bencoolen a gum exuding
spontaneously from the paty tree, which appeared very much to resemble
the gum-arabic; and, as they belong to the same genus of plants, he
thought it not improbable that this gum might be used for the same
purposes. In the list of new species by F. Norona (Batavian Transactions
Volume 5) he gives to the pete of Java the name of Acacia gigantea; which
I presume to be the same plant.

PULSE.

Kachang is a term applied to all sorts of pulse, of which a great variety
is cultivated; as the kachang china (Dolichos sinensis), kachang putih
(Dolichos katjang), k. ka-karah (D. lignosus), k. kechil (Phaseolus
radiatus), k. ka-karah gatal (Dolichos pruriens) and many others. The
kachang tanah (Arachis hypogaea) is of a different class, being the
granulose roots (or, according to some, the self-buried pods) of a herb
with a yellow, papilionaceous flower, the leaves of which have some
resemblance to the clover, but double only, and, like it, affords rice
pasture for cattle. The seeds are always eaten fried or parched, from
whence they obtain their common appellation of kachang goring.

YAMS.

The variety of roots of the yam and potato kind, under the general name
of ubi, is almost endless; the dioscorea being generally termed ubi
kechil (small), and the convolvulus ubi gadang (large); some of which
latter, of the sort called at Bencoolen the China-yam, weigh as much as
forty pounds, and are distinguished into the white and the purple. The
fruit of the trong (melongena), of which the egg-plant is one species, is
much eaten by the natives, split and fried. They are commonly known by
the name of brinjals, from the beringelhas of the Portuguese.

DYE-STUFFS.


(PLATE 8. Marsdenia tinctoria, OR BROAD-LEAFED INDIGO.
E.W. Marsden delt. Swaine fct.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)


INDIGO.

Tarum or indigo (Indigofera tinctoria) being the principal dye-stuff they
employ, the shrub is always found in their planted spots; but they do not
manufacture it into a solid substance, as is the practice elsewhere. The
stalks and branches having lain for some days in water to soak and
macerate, they then boil it, and work among it with their hands a small
quantity of chunam (quick lime, from shells), with leaves of the paku
sabba (a species of fern) for fixing the colour. It is afterwards drained
off, and made use of in the liquid state.

There is another kind of indigo, called in Sumatra tarum akar, which
appears to be peculiar to that country, and was totally unknown to
botanists to whom I showed the leaves upon my return to England in the
beginning of the year 1780. The common kind is known to have small
pinnated leaves growing on stalks imperfectly ligneous. This, on the
contrary, is a vine, or climbing plant, with leaves from three to five
inches in length, thin, of a dark green, and in the dried state
discoloured with blue stains. It yields the same dye as the former sort;
they are prepared also in the same manner, and used indiscriminately, no
preference being given to the one above the other, as the natives
informed me, excepting inasmuch as the tarum akar, by reason of the
largeness of the foliage, yields a greater proportion of sediment.
Conceiving it might prove a valuable plant in our colonies, and that it
was of importance in the first instance that its identity and class
should be accurately ascertained, I procured specimens of its
fructification, and deposited them in the rich and extensively useful
collection of my friend Sir Joseph Banks. In a paper on the Asclepiadeae,
highly interesting to botanical science, communicated by Mr. Robert Brown
(who has lately explored the vegetable productions of New Holland and
other parts of the East) to the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh, and
printed in their Transactions, he has done me the honour of naming the
genus to which this plant belongs, MARSDENIA, and this particular species
Marsdenia tinctoria.*

(*Footnote. 2. M. caule volubili, foliis cordatis ovato-oblongis
acuminatis glabriusculis basi antice glandulosis, thyrsis lateralibus,
fauce barbata. Tarram akkar Marsd. Sumat. page 78 edition 2 Hab. In
insula Sumatra. (v.s. in Herb. Banks.))

KASUMBA.

Under the name of kasumba are included two plants yielding materials for
dyeing, but very different from each other. The kasumba (simply) or
kasumba jawa, as it is sometimes called, is the Carthamus tinctorius, of
which the flowers are used to produce a saffron colour, as the name
imports. The kasumba kling or galuga is the Bixa orellana, or arnotto of
the West Indies. Of this the capsule, about an inch in length, is covered
with soft prickles or hair, opens like a bivalve shell, and contains in
its cavities a dozen or more seeds, the size of grape-stones, thickly
covered with a reddish farina, which is the part that constitutes the
dye.

Sapang, the Brazil-wood, (Caesalpinia sappan), whether indigenous or not,
is common in the Malayan countries. The heart of this being cut into
chips, steeped for a considerable time in water, and then boiled, is used
for dying here, as in other countries. The cloth or thread is repeatedly
dipped in this liquid, and hung to dry between each wetting till it is
brought to the shade required. To fix the colour alum is added in the
boiling.

Of the tree called bangkudu in some districts, and in others mangkudu
(Morinda umbellata) the outward parts of the root, being dried, pounded,
and boiled in water, afford a red dye, for fixing which the ashes
procured from the stalks of the fruit and midribs of the leaves of the
coconut are employed. Sometimes the bark or wood of the sapang tree is
mixed with these roots. It is to be observed that another species of
bangkudu,
with broader leaves (Morinda citrifolia) does not yield any colouring
matter, but is, as I apprehend, the tree commonly planted in the Malayan
peninsula and in Pulo Pinang as a support to the pepper-vine.

RED-WOOD.

Ubar is a red-wood resembling the logwood (haematoxylon) of Honduras, and
might probably be employed for the same purpose. It is used by the
natives in tanning twine for fishing nets, and appears to be the okir or
Tanarius major of Rumphius, Volume 3 page 192, and Jambolifera rezinoso
of Lour. Fl. C. C. page 231. Their black dye is commonly made from the
coats of the mangostin-fruit and of the kataping (Terminalia catappa).
With this the blue cloth from the west of India is changed to a black, as
usually worn by the Malays of Menangkabau. It is said to be steeped in
mud in order to fix the colour.

The roots of the chapada or champadak (Artocarpus integrifolia) cut into
chips and boiled in water produce a yellow dye. To strengthen the tint a
little turmeric (the kunyit tumma or variety of curcuma already spoken
of) is mixed with it, and alum to fix it; but as the yellow does not hold
well it is necessary that the operation of steeping and drying should be
frequently repeated.


CHAPTER 5.

FRUITS, FLOWERS, MEDICINAL SHRUBS AND HERBS.

FRUITS.

Nature, says a celebrated writer,* seems to have taken a pleasure in
assembling in the Malayan countries her most favourite productions; and
with truth I think it may be affirmed that no region of the earth can
boast an equal abundance and variety of indigenous fruits; for although
the whole of those hereafter enumerated cannot be considered as such, yet
there is reason to conclude that the greater part may, for the natives,
who never appear to bestow the smallest labour in improving or even in
cultivating such as they naturally possess, can hardly be suspected of
taking the pains to import exotics. The larger number grow wild, and the
rest are planted in a careless, irregular manner about their villages.

(*Footnote. Les terres possedees par les Malais, sont en general de tres
bonne qualite. La nature semble avoir pris plaisir d'y placer ses plus
excellentes productions. On y voit tous les fruits delicieux que j'ai dit
se trouver sur le territoire de Siam, et une multitude d'autres fruits
agreables qui sont particuliers a ces isles. On y respire un air embaume
par une multitude de fleurs agreables qui se succedent toute l'annee, et
dont l'odeur suave penetre jusqu'a l'ame, et inspire la volupte la plus
seduisante. Il n'est point de voyageur qui en se promenant dans les
campagnes de Malacca, ne se sente invite a fixer son sejour dans un lieu
si plein d'agremens, dont la nature seule a fait tous les frais. Voyages
d'un Philosophe par M. Poivre page 56.)


(PLATE 3. THE MANGUSTIN FRUIT, GARCINIA MANGOSTANA.
Engraved by J. Swaine.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)


MANGUSTIN.

The mangustin, called by the natives manggis and manggista (Garcinia
mangostana, L.) is the pride of these countries, to which it exclusively
belongs, and has, by general consent, obtained, in the opinion of
Europeans, the pre-eminence amongst Indian fruits. Its characteristic
quality is extreme delicacy of flavour, without being rich or luscious.
It is a drupe of a brownish-red colour, and the size of a common apple,
consisting of a thick rind, somewhat hard on the outside, but soft and
succulent within, encompassing kernels which are covered with a juicy and
perfectly white pulp, which is the part eaten, or, more properly, sucked,
for it dissolves in the mouth. Its qualities are as innocent as they are
grateful, and the fruit may be eaten in any moderate quantity without
danger of surfeit, or other injurious effects. The returns of its season
appeared to be irregular, and the periods short.

DURIAN.

The durian (Durio zibethinus) is also peculiar to the Malayan countries.
It is a rich fruit but strong and even offensive in taste as well as
smell, to those who are not accustomed to it, and of a very heating
quality; yet the natives (and others who fall into their habits) are
passionately addicted to it, and during the time of its continuing in
season live almost wholly upon its luscious and cream-like pulp; whilst
the rinds, thrown about in the bazaars, communicate their scent to the
surrounding atmosphere. The tree is large and lofty; the leaves are small
in proportion, but in themselves long and pointed. The blossoms grow in
clusters on the stem and larger branches. The petals are five, of a
yellowish-white, surrounding five branches of stamina, each bunch
containing about twelve, and each stamen having four antherae. The
pointal is knobbed at top. When the stamina and petal fall, the
empalement resembles a fungus, and nearly in shape a Scot's bonnet. The
fruit is in its general appearance not unlike the bread-fruit, but
larger, and its coat is rougher.

BREAD-FRUIT.

The sutun kapas, and sukun biji or kalawi, are two species of the
bread-fruit-tree (Artocarpus incisa). The former is the genuine, edible
kind, without kernels, and propagated by cuttings of the roots. Though by
no means uncommon, it is said not to be properly a native of Sumatra. The
kalawi, on the contrary, is in great abundance, and its bark supplies the
country people with a sort of cloth for their working dresses. The leaves
of both species are deeply indented, like those of the fig, but
considerably longer. The bread-fruit is cut in slices, and, being boiled
or broiled on the fire, is eaten with sugar, and much esteemed. It cannot
however be considered as an article of food, and I suspect that in
quality it is inferior to the bread-fruit of the South-Sea Islands.

JACK-FRUIT.

The Malabaric name of jacca, or the jack-fruit, is applied both to the
champadak or chapada (Artocarpus integrifolia, L. and Polyphema jaca,
Lour.) and to the nangka (Artocarpus integrifolia, L. and Polyphema
champeden, Lour). Of the former the leaves are smooth and pointed; of the
latter they are roundish, resembling those of the cashew. This is the
more common, less esteemed, and larger fruit, weighing, in some
instances, fifty or sixty pounds. Both grow in a peculiar manner from the
stem of the tree. The outer coat is rough, containing a number of seeds
or kernels (which, when roasted, have the taste of chestnuts) inclosed in
a fleshy substance of a rich, and, to strangers, too strong smell and
flavour, but which gains upon the palate. When the fruit ripens the
natives cover it with mats or the like to preserve it from injury by the
birds. Of the viscous juice of this tree they make a kind of bird­lime:
the yellow wood is employed for various purposes, and the root yields a
dye-stuff.

MANGO.

The mango, called mangga and mampalam (Mangifera indica, L.) is well
known to be a rich, high-flavoured fruit of the plumb kind, and is found
here in great perfection; but there are many inferior varieties beside
the ambachang, or Mangifera foetida, and the tais.

JAMBU.

Of the jambu (eugenia, L.) there are several species, among which the
jambu merah or kling (Eugenia malaccensis) is the most esteemed for the
table, and is also the largest. In shape it has some resemblance to the
pear, but is not so taper near the stalk. The outer skin, which is very
fine, is tinged with a deep and beautiful red, the inside being perfectly
white. Nearly the whole substance is edible, and when properly ripe it is
a delicious fruit; but otherwise, it is spongy and indigestible. In smell
and even in taste it partakes much of the flavour of the rose; but this
quality belongs more especially to another species, called jambu ayer
mawar, or the rose-water jambu. Nothing can be more beautiful than the
blossoms, the long and numerous stamina of which are of a bright pink
colour. The tree grows in a handsome, regular, conical shape, and has
large, deep-green, pointed leaves. The jambu ayer (Eugenia aquea) is a
delicate and beautiful fruit in appearance, the colour being a mixture of
white and pink; but in its flavour, which is a faint, agreeable acid, it
does not equal the jambu merah.

PLANTAIN.

Of the pisang, or plantain (Musa paradisiaca, L.) the natives reckon
above twenty varieties, including the banana of the West Indies. Among
these the pisang amas, or small yellow plantain, is esteemed the most
delicate; and next to that the pisang raja, pisang dingen, and pisang
kalle.

Pineapple.

The nanas, or pineapple (Bromelia ananas), though certainly not
indigenous, grows here in great plenty with the most ordinary culture.
Some think them inferior to those produced from hothouses in England; but
this opinion may be influenced by the smallness of their price, which
does not exceed two or three pence. With equal attention it is probable
they might be rendered much superior, and their variety is considerable.
The natives eat them with salt.

ORANGES.

Oranges (limau manis) of many sorts, are in the highest perfection. That
called limau japan, or Japan orange, is a fine fruit, not commonly known
in Europe. In this the cloves adhere but slightly to each other, and
scarcely at all to the rind, which contains an unusual quantity of the
essential oil. The limau gadang, or pumple-nose (Citrus aurantium),
called in the West Indies the shaddock (from the name of the captain who
carried them thither), is here very fine, and distinguished into the
white and red sorts. Limes or limau kapas, and lemons, limau kapas
panjang, are in abundance. The natives enumerate also the limau langga,
limau kambing, limau pipit, limau sindi masam, and limau sindi manis. The
true citron, or limau karbau, is not common nor in esteem.

GUAVA.

The guava (Psidium pomiferum) called jambu biji, and also jambu protukal
(for Portugal, in consequence, as we may presume, of its having been
introduced by the people of that country) has a flavour which some
admire, and others equally dislike. The pulp of the red sort is sometimes
mixed with cream by Europeans, to imitate strawberries, from a fond
partiality to the productions of their native soil; and it is not
unusual, amidst a profusion of the richest eastern fruits, to sigh for an
English codling or gooseberry.

CUSTARD-APPLE.

The siri kaya, or custard-apple (Annona squamosa), derives its name from
the likeness which its white and rich pulp bears to a custard, and it is
accordingly eaten with a spoon. The nona, as it is called by the natives
(Annona reticulata), is another species of the same fruit, but not so
grateful to the taste.

PAPAW.

The kaliki, or papaw (Carica papaja), is a large, substantial, and
wholesome fruit, in appearance not unlike a smooth sort of melon, but not
very highly flavoured. The pulp is of a reddish yellow, and the seeds,
which are about the size of grains of pepper, have a hot taste like
cresses. The watermelon, called here samangka (Cucurbita citrullus) is of
very fine quality. The rock or musk-melons, are not common.

TAMARIND.

Tamarinds, called asam jawa, or the Javan acid, are the produce of a
large and noble tree, with small pinnated leaves, and supply a grateful
relief in fevers, which too frequently require it. The natives preserve
them with salt, and use them as an acid ingredient in their curries and
other dishes. It may be remarked that in general they are not fond of
sweets, and prefer many of their fruits whilst green to the same in their
ripe state.


(PLATE 4. THE RAMBUTAN, Nephelium lappaceum.
L. Wilkins delt. Engraved by J. Swaine.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)


RAMBUTAN.

The rambutan (Nephelium lappaceum, L. Mant.) is in appearance not much
unlike the fruit of the arbutus, but larger, of a brighter red, and
covered with coarser hair or soft spines, from whence it derives its
name. The part eaten is a gelatinous and almost transparent pulp
surrounding the kernel, of a rich and pleasant acid.


(PLATE 5. THE LANSEH FRUIT, Lansium domesticum.
L. Wilkins delt. Hooker Sc.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.


PLATE 6. THE RAMBEH FRUIT, A SPECIES OF LANSEH.
Maria Wilkins delt. Engraved by J. Swaine.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)


LANSEH.

The lanseh, likewise but little known to botanists, is a small oval
fruit, of a whitish-brown colour, which, being deprived of its thin outer
coat, divides into five cloves, of which the kernels are covered with a
fleshy pulp, subacid, and agreeable to the taste. The skin contains a
clammy juice, extremely bitter, and, if not stripped with care, it is apt
to communicate its quality to the pulp. M. Correa de Serra, in les
Annales du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle Tome 10 page 157 plate 7, has
given a description of the Lansium domesticum from specimens of the fruit
preserved in the collection of Sir Joseph Banks. The chupak, ayer-ayer,
and rambe are species or varieties of the same fruit.

BLIMBING.

Of the blimbing (Averrhoa carambola) a pentagonal fruit, containing five
flattish seeds, and extremely acid, there are two sorts, called penjuru
and besi. The leaves of the latter are small, opposite, and of a
sap­green; those of the former grow promiscuously and are of a silver
green. There is also the blimbing bulu (Averrhoa billimbi), or smooth
species. Their uses are chiefly in cookery, and for purposes where a
strong acid is required, as in cleaning the blades of their krises and
bringing out the damask, for which they are so much admired. The cheremi
(Averrhoa acida) is nearly allied to the blimbing besi, but the fruit is
smaller, of an irregular shape, growing in clusters close to the branch,
and containing each a single hard seed or stone. It is a common
substitute for our acid fruits in tarts.

KATAPING.

The kataping (Terminalia catappa, L. and Juglans catappa, Lour.)
resembles the almond both in its outer husk and the flavour of its
kernel; but instead of separating into two parts, like the almond, it is
formed of spiral folds, and is developed somewhat like a rosebud, but
continuous, and not in distinct laminae.

SPECIES OF CHESTNUT.

The barangan (a species of fagus) resembles the chestnut. The tree is
large, and the nuts grow sometimes one, two, and three in a husk. The
jerring, a species of mimosa, resembles the same fruit, but is larger and
more irregularly shaped than the barangan. The tree is smaller. The tapus
(said to be a new genus belonging to the tricoccae) has likewise some
analogy, but more distant, to the chestnut. There are likewise three nuts
in one husk, forming in shape an oblong spheroid. If eaten unboiled they
are said to inebriate. The tree is large.


(PLATE 7. THE KAMILING OR BUAH KRAS, Juglans camirium.
L. Wilkins delt. Engraved by J. Swaine.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)


KAMILING.

The fruit named kamiri, kamiling, and more commonly buah kras, or the
hard fruit (Camirium cordifolium, Gaert. and Juglans camirium, Lour.)
bears much resemblance to the walnut in the flavour and consistence of
the kernel; but the shell is harder and does not open in the same manner.
The natives of the hills make use of it as a substitute for the coconut,
both in their cookery and for procuring a delicate oil.

RATTAN.

The rotan salak (Calamus zalacca, Gaert.) yields a fruit, the pulp of
which is sweetish, acidulous, and pleasant. Its outer coat, like those of
the other rotans, is covered with scales, or the appearance of nice
basket-work. It incloses sometimes one, two, and three kernels, of a
peculiar horny substance.

CASHEW.

The cashew-apple and nut, called jambu muniet, or monkey-jambu
(Anacardium occidentale), are well known for the strong acidity of the
former, and the caustic quality of the oil contained in the latter, from
tasting which the inexperienced often suffer.

POMEGRANATE.

The pomegranate or dalima (Punica granatum) flourishes here, as in all
warm climates.

GRAPES, ETC.

Grape-vines are planted with success by Europeans for their tables, but
not cultivated by the people of the country. There is found in the woods
a species of wild grape, called pringat (Vitis indica); and also a
strawberry, the blossom of which is yellow, and the fruit has little
flavour. Beside these there are many other, for the most part wild,
fruits, of which some boast a fine flavour, and others are little
superior to our common berries, but might be improved by culture. Such
are the buah kandis, a variety of garcinia (it should be observed that
buah, signifying fruit, is always prefixed to the particular name), buah
malaka (Phyllanthus emblica), rukam (Carissa spinarum), bangkudu or
mangkudu (Morinda citrifolia), sikaduduk (melastoma), kitapan (Callicarpa
japonica).

FLOWERS.

"You breathe in the country of the Malays (says the writer before quoted)
an air impregnated with the odours of innumerable flowers of the greatest
fragrance, of which there is a perpetual succession throughout the year,
the sweet flavour of which captivates the soul, and inspires the most
voluptuous sensations." Although this luxurious picture may be drawn in
too-warm tints it is not however without its degree of justness. The
people of the country are fond of flowers in the ornament of their
persons, and encourage their growth, as well as that of various
odoriferous shrubs and trees.

KANANGA.

The kananga (Uvaria cananga, L.) being a tree of the largest size,
surpassed by few in the forest, may well take the lead, on that account,
in a description of those which bear flowers. These are of a greenish
yellow, scarcely distinguishable from the leaves, among which the bunches
hang down in a peculiar manner. About sunset, if the evening be calm,
they diffuse a fragrance around that affects the sense at the distance of
some hundred yards.

CHAMPAKA.

Champaka (Michelia champaca). This tree grows in a regular, conical
shape, and is ornamental in gardens. The flowers are a kind of small
tulip, but close and pointed at top; their colour a deep yellow, the
scent strong, and at a distance agreeable. They are wrapped in the folds
of the hair, both by the women, and by young men who aim at gallantry.

TANJONG.

Bunga tanjong (Mimusops elengi, L.) A fair tree, rich in foliage, of a
dark green; the flowers small, radiated, of a yellowish white, and worn
in wreaths by the women; their scent, though exquisite at a distance, is
too powerful when brought nigh. The fruit is a drupe, containing a large
blackish flatted seed.

GARDENIA.

Sangklapa (Gardenia flore simplice). A handsome shrub with leaves of very
deep green, long-pointed; the flowers a pure white, without visible
stamina or pistil, the petals standing angularly to each other. It has
little or no scent. The pachah-piring (Gardenia florida, described by
Rumphius under the name of catsjopiri) is a grand white double flower,
emitting a pleasing and not powerful odour.

HIBISCUS.

The bunga raya (Hibiscus rosa sinensis) is a well-known shrub, with
leaves of a yellowish green, serrated and curled. Of one sort the flower
is red, yielding a juice of deep purple, and when applied to leather
produces a bright black, from whence its vulgar name of the shoe-flower.
Of another sort the blossom is white. They are without smell.

PLUMERIA.

Bunga or kumbang kamboja (Plumeria obtusa) is likewise named bunga
kubur-an, from its being always planted about graves. The flower is
large, white, yellow towards the centre, consisting of five simple,
smooth,
thick petals, without visible pistil or stamina, and yielding a strong
scent. The leaf of the tree is long, pointed, of a deep green, remarkable
in this, that round the fibres proceeding from the midrib run another set
near the edge, forming a handsome border. The tree grows in a stunted,
irregular manner, and even whilst young has a venerable antique
appearance.

NYCTANTHES.

The bunga malati and bunga malur (Nyctanthes sambac) are different names
for the same humble plant, called mugri in Bengal. It bears a pretty
white flower, diffusing a more exquisite fragrance, in the opinion of
most persons, than any other of which the country boasts. It is much worn
by the females; sometimes in wreaths, and various combinations, along
with the bunga tanjong, and frequently the unblown buds are strung in
imitation of rows of pearls. It should be remarked that the appellative
bunga, or flower, (pronounced bungo in the south-western parts of
Sumatra), is almost ever prefixed to the proper name, as buah is to
fruits. There is also the malati china (Nyctanthes multiflora); the
elegant bunga malati susun (Nyctanthes acuminata).

PERGULARIA.

And the celebrated bunga tonking (Pergularia odoratissima), whose
fascinating sweets have been widely dispersed in England by the
successful culture and liberal participation of Sir Joseph Banks. At
Madras it obtained the appellation of West-coast, i.e. Sumatran, creeper,
which marks the quarter from whence it was obtained. At Bencoolen the
same appellation is familiarly applied to the bunga tali-tali (Ipomoea
quamoclit), a beautiful, little, monopetalous flower, divided into five
angular segments, and closing at sunset. From its bright crimson colour
it received from Rumphius the name of Flos cardinalis. The plant is a
luxuriant creeper, with a hairlike leaf.

Pavetta indica, ETC.

The angsuka, or bunga jarum-jarum (Pavetta indica), obtained from
Rumphius, on account of the glowing red colour of its long calices, the
name of flamma sylvarum peregrina. The bunga marak (Poinciana
pulcherrima) is a most splendid flower, the colours being a mixture of
yellow and scarlet, and its form being supposed to resemble the crest of
the peacock, from whence its Malayan name, which Rumphius translated. The
nagasari (Calophyllum nagassari) bears a much admired blossom, well known
in Bengal; but in the upper parts of India, called nagakeh­sir, and in
the Batavian Transactions Acacia aurea. The bakong, or salandap (Crinum
asiaticum), is a plant of the lily kind, with six large, white,
turbinated petals of an agreeable scent. It grows wild near the beach
amongst those plants which bind the loose sands. Another and beautiful
species of the bakong has a deep shade of purple mixed with the white.
The kachubong (Datura metel) appears also to flourish mostly by the
seaside. It bears a white infundibuliform flower, rather pentagonal than
round, with a small hook at each angle. The leaves are dark green,
pointed, broad and unequal at the bottom. The fruit is shaped like an
apple, very prickly, and full of small seeds. Sundal malam or harlot of
the night (Polyanthes tuberosa) is so termed from the circumstance of its
diffusing its sweet odours at that season. It is the tuberose of our
gardens, but growing with great vigour and luxuriance. The bunga mawur
(Rosa semperflorens, Curtis, Number 284), is small and of a deep crimson
colour. Its scent is delicate and by no means so rich as that yielded by
the roses of our climate. The Amaranthus cristatus (Celosia castrensis,
L.) is probably a native, being found commonly in the interior of the
Batta country, where strangers have rarely penetrated. The various
species of this genus are called by the general name of bayam, of which
some are edible, as before observed.

PANDAN.

Of the pandan (pandanus), a shrub with very long prickly leaves, like
those of the pineapple or aloe, there are many varieties, of which some
are highly fragrant, particularly the pandan wangi (Pandanus
odoratissima, L.), which produces a brownish white spath or blossom, one
or two feet in length. This the natives shred fine and wear about their
persons. The pandan pudak, or keura of Thunberg, which is also fragrant,
I have reason to believe the same as the wangi. The common sort is
employed for hedging and called caldera by Europeans in many parts of
India. In the Nicobar islands it is cultivated and yields a fruit called
the melori, which is one of the principle articles of food.

EPIDENDRA.

Bunga anggrek (epidendrum). The species or varieties of this remarkable
tribe of parasitical plants are very numerous, and may be said to exhibit
a variety of loveliness. Kaempfer describes two kinds by the names of
angurek warna and katong'ging; the first of which I apprehend to be the
anggrek bunga putri (Angraecum scriptum, R.) and the other the anggrek
kasturi (Angraecum moschatum, R.) or scorpion-flower, from its resembling
that insect, as the former does the butterfly. The musky scent resides at
the extremity of the tail.*

(*Footnote. Habetur haec planta apud Javanos in deliciis et magno studio
colitur; tum ob floris eximium odorem, quem spirat, moschi, tum ob
singularem elegantiam et figuram scorpionis, quam exhibet...spectaculo
sane jocundissimo, ut negem quicquam elegantius et admiratione dignius in
regno vegetabili me vidisse...Odorem flos moschi exquisitissimum atque
adeo copiosum spargit, ut unicus stylus floridus totum conclave impleat.
Qui vero odor, quod maxi me mireris, in extrema parte petali caudam
referentis, residet; qua abicissa, omnis cessat odoris expiratio. Amoen
exoticae, page 868.)

WATER-LILIES, ETC.

The bunga tarati or seruja (Nymphaea nelumbo) as well as several other
beautiful kinds of aquatic plants are found upon the inland waters of
this country. Daun gundi or tabung bru (Nepenthes destillatoria) can
scarcely be termed a flower, but is a very extraordinary climbing plant.
From the extremity of the leaf a prolongation of the mid-rib, resembling
the tendril of a vine, terminates in a membrane formed like a tankard
with the lid or valve half opened; and growing always nearly erect, it is
commonly half full of pure water from the rain or dews. This monkey-cup
(as the Malayan name implies) is about four or five inches long and an
inch in diameter. Giring landak (Crotalaria retusa) is a papilionaceous
flower resembling the lupin, yellow, and tinged at the extremities with
red. From the rattling of its seed in the pod it obtains its name, which
signifies porcupine-bells, alluding to the small bells worn about the
ankles of children. The daup (bauhinia) is a small, white, semiflosculous
flower, with a faint smell. The leaves alone attract notice, being
double, as if united by a hinge, and this peculiarity suggested the
Linnean name, which was given in compliment to two brothers of the name
of Bauhin, celebrated botanists, who always worked conjointly.

To the foregoing list, in every respect imperfect, many interesting
plants might be added by an attentive and qualified observer. The natives
themselves have a degree of botanical knowledge that surprises Europeans.
They are in general, and at a very early age, acquainted not only with
the names, but the properties of every shrub and herb amongst that
exuberant variety with which the island is clothed. They distinguish the
sexes of many plants and trees, and divide several of the genera into as
many species as our professors. Of the paku or fern I have had specimens
brought to me of twelve sorts, which they told me were not the whole, and
to each they gave a distinct name.

MEDICINAL HERBS.

Some of the shrubs and herbs employed medicinally are as follows.
Scarcely any of them are cultivated, being culled from the woods or
plains as they happen to be wanted.

Lagundi (Vitex trifolia, L.) The botanic characters of this shrub are
well known. The leaves, which are bitter and pungent rather than
aromatic, are considered as a powerful antiseptic, and are employed in
fevers in the place of Peruvian bark. They are also put into granaries
and among cargoes of rice to prevent the destruction of the grain by
weevils.

Katupong resembles the nettle in growth, in fruit the blackberry. I have
not been able to identify it. The leaf, being chewed, is used in dressing
small fresh wounds.

Siup, a kind of wild fig, is applied to the scurf or leprosy of the Nias
people, when not inveterate.

Sikaduduk (melastoma) has the appearance of a wild rose. A decoction of
its leaves is used for the cure of a disorder in the sole of the foot,
called maltus, resembling the impetigo or ringworm.

Ampadu-bruang or bear's gall (brucea, foliis serratis) is the lussa raja
of Rumphius, excessively bitter, and applied in infusion for the relief
of disorders in the bowels.

Kabu (unknown). Of this the bark and root are used for curing the kudis
or itch, by rubbing it on the part affected.

Marampuyan (a new genus). The young shoots of this, being supposed to
have a refreshing and corroborating quality, are rubbed over the body and
limbs after violent fatigue.

Mali-mali (unknown). The leaf of this plant, which bears a white
umbellated blossom, is applied to reduce swellings.

Chapo (Conyza balsamifera) resembles the sage (salvia) in colour, smell,
taste, and qualities, but grows to the height of six feet, has a long
jagged leaf, and its blossom resembles that of groundsel.

Murribungan (unknown). The leaves of this climber are broad, roundish,
and smooth. The juice of its stalk is applied to heal excoriations of the
tongue.

Ampi-ampi (unknown). A climbing plant with leaves resembling the box, and
a small flosculous blossom. It is used as a medicine in fevers.

Kadu (species of piper), with a leaf in shape and taste resembling the
betel. It is burned to preserve children newly born from the influence of
evil spirits.

Gumbai (unknown). A shrub with monopetalous, stillated, purple flowers,
growing in tufts. The leaves are used in disorders of the bowels.

Tabulan bukan (unknown). A shrub bearing a semiflosculous blossom,
applied to the cure of sore eyes.

Kachang prang (Dolichos ensiformis). The pods of this are of a huge size,
and the beans, of a fine crimson colour, are used in diseases of the
pleura.

Sipit, a species of fig, with a large oval leaf, rough to the touch, and
rigid. An infusion of it is swallowed in iliac affections.

Daun se-dingin (Cotyledon laciniata). This leaf, as the name denotes, is
of a remarkably cold quality. It is applied to the forehead to cure the
headache, and sometimes to the body in fevers.

Long pepper (Piper longum) is used medicinally.

Turmeric, also, mixed with rice reduced to powder and then formed into a
paste, is much used outwardly in cases of colds and pains in the bones;
and chunam or quick-lime is likewise commonly rubbed on parts of the body
affected with pain.

In the cure of the kura or boss (from the Portuguese word baco), which is
an obstruction of the spleen, forming a hard lump in the upper part of
the abdomen, a decoction of the following plants is externally applied:
sipit tunggul; madang tandok (a new genus, highly aromatic); ati ayer
(species of arum ?) tapa besi; paku tiong (a most beautiful fern, with
leaves like a palm; genus not ascertained); tapa badak (a variety of
callicarpa); laban (Vitex altissima); pisang ruko (species of musa); and
paku lamiding (species of polypodium ?); together with a juice extracted
from the akar malabatei (unknown).

In the cure of the kurap, tetter or ringworm, they apply the daun
galinggan (Cassia quadri-alata) a herbaceous shrub with large pinnated
leaves and a yellow blossom. In the more inveterate cases, barangan
(coloured arsenic, or orpiment), a strong poison, is rubbed in.

The milky exsudation from the sudu-sudu (Euphorbia neriifolia) is valued
highly by the natives for medicinal purposes. Its leaves eaten by sheep
or goats occasion present death.

UPAS TREE.

On the subject of the puhn upas or poison tree (Arbor toxicaria, R.), of
whose properties so extraordinary an account was published in the London
Magazine for September 1785 by Mr. N.P. Foersch, a surgeon in the service
of the Dutch East India Company, at that time in England, I shall quote
the observations of the late ingenious Mr. Charles Campbell, of the
medical establishment at Fort Marlborough. "On my travels in the country
at the back of Bencoolen I found the upas tree, about which so many
ridiculous tales have been told. Some seeds must by this time have
arrived in London in a packet I forwarded to Mr. Aiton at Kew. The poison
is certainly deleterious, but not in so terrific a degree as has been
represented. Some of it in an inspissated state you will receive by an
early opportunity. As to the tree itself, it does no manner of injury to
those around it. I have sat under its shade, and seen birds alight upon
its branches; and as to the story of grass not growing beneath it,
everyone who has been in a forest must know that grass is not found in
such situations." For further particulars respecting this poison-tree,
which has excited so much interest, the reader is referred to Sir George
Staunton's Account of Lord Macartney's Embassy Volume 1 page 272; to
Pennant's Outlines of the Globe Volume 4 page 42, where he will find a
copy of Foersch's original narrative; and to a Dissertation by Professor
C.P. Thunberg upon the Arbor toxicaria Macassariensis, in the Mem. of the
Upsal Acad. for 1788. The information given by Rumphius upon the subject
of the Ipo or Upas, in his Herb. Amboin. Volume 2 page 263, will also be
perused with satisfaction.* It is evident that some of the exaggerated
stories related to him by the people of Celebes (the plant not being
indigenous at Amboina) suggested to Mr. Foersch, the fables with which he
amused the world.

(*Footnote. Since the above was written I have seen the Dissertation sur
les Effets d'un Poison de Java, appele Upas tieute, etc.; presentee a la
Faculte de Medicine de Paris le 6 Juillet 1809, par M. Alire
Raffeneau-Delile, in which he details a set of curious and interesting
experiments on this very active poison, made with specimens brought from
Java by M. Leschenault; and also a second dissertation, in manuscript
(presented to the Royal Society), upon the effects of similar experiments
made with what he terms the upas antiar. The former he states to be a
decoction or extract from the bark of the roots of a climbing plant of
the genus strychnos, called tieute by the natives of Java; and the latter
to be a milky, bitter, and yellowish juice, running from an incision in
the bark of a large tree (new genus) called antiar; the word upas
meaning, as M. Leschenault understands, vegetable poison of any kind. A
small branch of the puhn upas, with some of the poisonous gum, was
brought to England in 1806 by Dr. Roxburgh, who informed Mr. Lambert that
a plant of it which he had procured from Sumatra was growing rapidly in
the Company's Botanic Garden at Calcutta. A specimen of the gum, by the
favour of the latter gentleman, is in my possession.)


CHAPTER 6.

BEASTS.
REPTILES.
FISH.
BIRDS.
INSECTS.

BEASTS.

The animal kingdom claims attention, but, the quadrupeds of the island
being in general the same as are found elsewhere throughout the East,
already well described, I shall do little more than furnish a list of
those which have occurred to my notice; adding a few observations on such
as may appear to require them.

BUFFALO.

The karbau, or buffalo, constituting a principal part of the food of the
natives, and, being the only animal employed in their domestic labours,
it is proper that I should enter into some detail of its qualities and
uses; although it may be found not to differ materially from the buffalo
of Italy, and to be the same with that of Bengal. The individuals of the
species, as is the case with other domesticated cattle, differ extremely
from each other in their degree of perfection, and a judgment is not to
be formed of the superior kinds, from such as are usually furnished as
provision to the ships from Europe. They are distinguished into two
sorts; the black and the white. Both are equally employed in work, but
the latter is seldom killed for food, being considered much inferior in
quality, and by many as unwholesome, occasioning the body to break out in
blotches. If such be really the effect, it may be presumed that the light
flesh-colour is itself the consequence of some original disorder, as in
the case of those of the human species who are termed white negroes. The
hair upon this sort is extremely thin, scarcely serving to cover the
hide; nor have the black buffaloes a coat like the cattle of England. The
legs are shorter than those of the ox, the hoofs larger, and the horns
are quite peculiar, being rather square or flat than round, excepting
near the extremities; and whether pointing backward, as in general, or
forwards, as they often do, are always in the plane of the forehead, and
not at an angle, as those of the cow-kind. They contain much solid
substance, and are valuable in manufacture. The tail hangs down to the
middle joint of the leg only, is small, and terminates in a bunch of
hair. The neck is thick and muscular, nearly round, but somewhat flatted
at top, and has little or no dewlap dependant from it. The organ of
generation in the male has an appearance as if the extremity were cut
off. It is not a salacious animal. The female goes nine months with calf,
which it suckles during six, from four teats. When crossing a river it
exhibits the singular sight of carrying its young one on its back. It has
a weak cry, in a sharp tone, very unlike the lowing of oxen. The most
part of the milk and butter required for the Europeans (the natives not
using either) is supplied by the buffalo, and its milk is richer than
that of the cow, but not yielded in equal quantity. What these latter
produce is also very small compared with the dairies of Europe. At
Batavia, likewise, we are told that their cows are small and lean, from
the scantiness of good pasture, and do not give more than about an
English quart of milk, sixteen of which are required to make a pound of
butter.

The inland people, where the country is tolerably practicable, avail
themselves of the strength of this animal to draw timber felled in the
woods: the Malays and other people on the coast train them to the draft,
and in many places to the plough. Though apparently of a dull, obstinate,
capricious nature, they acquire from habit a surprising docility, and are
taught to lift the shafts of the cart with their horns, and to place the
yoke, which is a curved piece of wood attached to the shafts, across
their necks; needing no further harness than a breast-band, and a string
that is made to pass through the cartilage of the nostrils. They are
also, for the service of Europeans, trained to carry burdens suspended
from each side of a packsaddle, in roads, or rather paths, where
carriages cannot be employed. It is extremely slow, but steady in its
work. The labour it performs, however, falls short of what might be
expected from its size and apparent strength, any extraordinary fatigue,
particularly during the heat of the day, being sufficient to put a period
to its life, which is at all times precarious. The owners frequently
experience the loss of large herds, in a short space of time, by an
epidemic distemper, called bandung (obstruction), that seizes them
suddenly, swells their bodies, and occasions, as it is said, the serum of
the blood to distil through the tubes of the hairs.

The luxury of the buffalo consists in rolling itself in a muddy pool,
which it forms, in any spot, for its convenience, during the rainy
season. This it enjoys in a high degree, dexterously throwing with its
horn the water and slime, when not of a sufficient depth to cover it,
over its back and sides. Their blood is perhaps of a hot temperature,
which may render this indulgence, found to be quite necessary to their
health, so desirable to their feelings; and the mud, at the same time,
forming a crust upon their bodies, preserves them from the attack of
insects, which otherwise prove very troublesome. Their owners light fires
for them in the evening, in order that the smoke may have the same
effect, and they have the instinctive sagacity to lay themselves down to
leeward, that they may enjoy its full benefit.

Although common in every part of the country, they are not understood to
exist in the proper wild or indigenous state, those found in the woods
being termed karbau jalang, or stray buffaloes, and considered as the
subject of property; or if originally wild, they may afterwards, from
their use in labour and food, have been all caught and appropriated by
degrees. They are gregarious, and usually found in large numbers
together, but sometimes met with singly, when they are more dangerous to
passengers. Like the turkey and some other animals they have an antipathy
to a red colour, and are excited by it to mischief. When in a state of
liberty they run with great swiftness, keeping pace with the speed of an
ordinary horse. Upon an attack or alarm they fly to a short distance, and
then suddenly face about and draw up in battle-array with surprising
quickness and regularity; their horns being laid back, and their muzzles
projecting. Upon the nearer approach of the danger that presses on them
they make a second flight, and a second time halt and form; and this
excellent mode of retreat, which but few nations of the human race have
attained to such a degree of discipline as to adopt, they continue till
they gain the fastnesses of a neighbouring wood. Their principal foe,
next to man, is the tiger; but only the weaker sort, and the females fall
a certain prey to this ravager, as the sturdy male buffalo can support
the first vigorous stroke from the tiger's paw, on which the fate of the
battle usually turns.

COW.

The cow, called sapi (in another dialect sampi) and jawi, is obviously a
stranger to the country, and does not appear to be yet naturalized. The
bull is commonly of what is termed the Madagascar breed, with a large
hump upon the shoulders, but from the general small size of the herds I
apprehend that it degenerates, from the want of good pasture, the
spontaneous production of the soil being too rank.

THE HORSE.

The horse, kuda: the breed is small, well made, and hardy. The country
people bring them down in numbers for sale in nearly a wild state;
chiefly from the northward. In the Batta country they are eaten as food;
which is a custom also amongst the people of Celebes.

SHEEP, ETC.

Sheep, biri-biri and domba: small breed, introduced probably from Bengal.


(PLATE 11a. n.2.
1. SKULL OF THE KAMBING-UTAN.
2. SKULL OF THE KIJANG.
W. Bell delt. A. Cardon sc.)


(PLATE 14. n.1. THE KAMBING-UTAN, OR WILD-GOAT.
W. Bell delt.)


Goat, kambing: beside the domestic species, which is in general small and
of a light brown colour, there is the kambing utan, or wild goat. One
which I examined was three feet in height, and four in the length of the
body. It had something of the gazelle in its appearance, and, with the
exception of the horns, which were about six inches long and turned back
with an arch, it did not much resemble the common goat. The hinder parts
were shaped like those of a bear, the rump sloping round off from the
back; the tail was very small, and ended in a point; the legs clumsy; the
hair along the ridge of the back rising coarse and strong, almost like
bristles; no beard; over the shoulder was a large spreading tuft of
greyish hair; the rest of the hair black throughout; the scrotum
globular. Its disposition seemed wild and fierce, and it is said by the
natives to be remarkably swift.

Hog, babi: that breed we call Chinese.

The wild hog, babi utan.

Dog, anjing: those brought from Europe lose in a few years their
distinctive qualities, and degenerate at length into the cur with erect
ears, kuyu, vulgarly called the pariah dog. An instance did not occur of
any one going mad during the period of my residence. Many of them are
affected with a kind of gonorrhoea.


(PLATE 11. n.1. THE ANJING-AYER, Mustela lutra.
W. Bell delt. A. Cardon fc.)


(PLATE 13a. n.2. THE ANJING-AYER.
Sinensis delt. A. Cardon fc.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)


Otter, anjing ayer (Mustela lutra).

Cat, kuching: these in every respect resemble our common domestic cat,
excepting that the tails of all are more or less imperfect, with a knob
or hardness at the end, as if they had been cut or twisted off. In some
the tail is not more than a few inches in length, whilst in others it is
so nearly perfect that the defect can be ascertained only by the touch.

Rat, tikus: of the grey kind.

Mouse, tikus kechil.

ELEPHANT.

Elephant, gajah: these huge animals abound in the woods, and from their
gregarious habits usually traversing the country in large troops
together, prove highly destructive to the plantations of the inhabitants,
obliterating the traces of cultivation by merely walking through the
grounds; but they are also fond of the produce of their gardens,
particularly of plantain-trees and the sugar-cane, which they devour with
eagerness. This indulgence of appetite often proves fatal to them, for
the owners, knowing their attachment to these vegetables, have a practice
of poisoning some part of the plantation, by splitting the canes and
putting yellow arsenic into the clefts which the animal unwarily eats of,
and dies. Not being by nature carnivorous, the elephants are not fierce,
and seldom attack a man but when fired at or otherwise provoked.
Excepting a few kept for state by the king of Achin, they are not tamed
in any part of the island.

RHINOCEROS.

The rhinoceros, badak, both that with a single horn and the double-horned
species, are natives of these woods. The latter has been particularly
described by the late ingenious Mr. John Bell (one of the pupils of Mr.
John Hunter) in a paper printed in Volume 83 of the Philosophical
Transactions for 1793. The horn is esteemed an antidote against poison,
and on that account formed into drinking cups. I do not know anything to
warrant the stories told of the mutual antipathy and the desperate
encounters of these two enormous beasts.

HIPPOPOTAMUS.

Hippopotamus, kuda ayer: the existence of this quadruped in the island of
Sumatra having been questioned by M. Cuvier, and not having myself
actually seen it, I think it necessary to state that the immediate
authority upon which I included it in the list of animals found there was
a drawing made by Mr. Whalfeldt, an officer employed on a survey of the
coast, who had met with it at the mouth of one of the southern rivers,
and transmitted the sketch along with his report to the government, of
which I was then secretary. Of its general resemblance to that well-known
animal there could be no doubt. M. Cuvier suspects that I may have
mistaken for it the animal called by naturalists the dugong, and vulgarly
the sea-cow, which will be hereafter mentioned; and it would indeed be a
grievous error to mistake for a beast with four legs, a fish with two
pectoral fins serving the purposes of feet; but, independently of the
authority I have stated, the kuda ayer, or river-horse, is familiarly
known to the natives, as is also the duyong (from which Malayan word the
dugong of naturalists has been corrupted); and I have only to add that,
in a register given by the Philosophical Society of Batavia in the first
Volume of their Transactions for 1799, appears the article "couda aijeer,
rivier paard, hippopotamus" amongst the animals of Java.

BEAR, ETC.

Bear, bruang: generally small and black: climbs the coconut-trees in
order to devour the tender part or cabbage.


(PLATE 12. n.1. THE PALANDOK, A DIMINUTIVE SPECIES OF MOSCHUS.
Sinensis delt. A. Cardon fc.)


(PLATE 12a. n.2. THE KIJANG OR ROE, Cervus muntjak.
W. Bell delt. A. Cardon sc.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)


Of the deer kind there are several species: rusa, the stag, of which some
are very large; kijang, the roe, with unbranched horns, the emblem of
swiftness and wildness with the Malayan poets; palandok, napu, and
kanchil, three varieties, of which the last is the smallest, of that most
delicate animal, termed by Buffon the chevrotin, but which belong to the
moschus. Of a kanchil measured at Batavia the extreme length was sixteen
inches, and the height ten behind, and eight at the shoulder.

Babi-rusa, or hog-deer: an animal of the hog kind, with peculiar tusks
resembling horns. Of this there is a representation in Valentyn, Volume 3
page 268 fig. c., and also in the very early travels of Cosmas, published
in Thevenot's Collect. Volume 1 page 2 of the Greek Text.

The varieties of the monkey tribe are innumerable: among them the best
known are the muniet, karra, bru, siamang (or simia gibbon of Buffon),
and lutong. With respect to the appellation of orang utan, or wild man,
it is by no means specific, but applied to any of these animals of a
large size that occasionally walks erect, and bears the most resemblance
to the human figure.

Sloth, ku-kang, ka-malas-an (Lemur tardigradus).

Squirrel, tupei; usually small and dark-coloured.

Teleggo, stinkard.

TIGER.

Tiger, arimau, machang: this beast is here of a very large size, and
proves a destructive foe to man as well as to most other animals. The
heads being frequently brought in to receive the reward given by the East
India Company for killing them, I had an opportunity of measuring one,
which was eighteen inches across the forehead. Many circumstances
respecting their ravages, and the modes of destroying them, will occur in
the course of the work.

Tiger-cat, kuching-rimau (said to feed on vegetables as well as flesh).

Civet-cat, tanggalong (Viverra civetta): the natives take the civet, as
they require it for use, from a peculiar receptacle under the tail of the
animal. It appears from the Ayin Akbari (Volume 1 page 103) that the
civet used at Delhi was imported from Achin.


(PLATE 9a. THE MUSANG, A SPECIES OF VIVERRA.
W. Bell delt. A. Cardon fc.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)


Polecat, musang (Viverra fossa, or a new species).


(PLATE 13. n.1. THE LANDAK, Hystrix longicauda.
Sinensis delt. A. Cardon fc.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)


Porcupine (Hystrix longicauda) landak, and, for distinction, babi landak.

Hedgehog (erinaceus) landak.


(PLATE 10. THE TANGGILING OR PENG-GOLING-SISIK, A SPECIES OF MANIS.
W. Bell delt. A. Cardon fct.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)


PENG-GOLING.

Peng-goling, signifying the animal which rolls itself up; or pangolin of
Buffon: this is distinguished into the peng-goling rambut, or hairy sort
(myrmophaga), and the peng-goling sisik, or scaly sort, called more
properly tanggiling (species of manis); the scales of this are esteemed
by the natives for their medicinal properties. See Asiatic Researches
Volume 1 page 376 and Volume 2 page 353.


(PLATE 9. A SPECIES OF Lemur volans, SUSPENDED FROM THE RAMBEH-TREE.
Sinensis delt. N. Cardon fct.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)


BATS.

Of the bat kind there is an extraordinary variety: the churi-churi is the
smallest species, called vulgarly burong tikus, or the mouse-bird; next
to these is the kalalawar; then the kalambit; and the kaluwang (noctilio)
is of considerable size; of these I have observed very large flights
occasionally passing at a great height in the air, as if migrating from
one country to another, and Captain Forrest notices their crossing the
Straits of Sunda from Java Head to Mount Pugong; they are also seen
hanging by hundreds upon trees. The flying-foxes and flying-squirrels
(Lemur volans), which by means of a membrane extending from what may be
termed the forelegs to those behind, are enabled to take short flights,
are also not uncommon.

ALLIGATORS AND OTHER LIZARDS.

Alligators, buaya (Crocodilus biporcatus of Cuvier), abound in most of
the rivers, grow to a large Size, and do much mischief.

The guana, or iguana, biawak (Lacerta iguana) is another animal of the
lizard kind, about three or four feet in length, harmless, excepting to
the poultry and young domestic cattle, and sometimes itself eaten as
food. The bingkarong is next in size, has hard, dark scales on the back,
and is often found under heaps of decayed timber; its bite venomous.

The koke, goke, or toke, as it is variously called, is a lizard, about
ten or twelve inches long, frequenting old buildings, and making a very
singular noise. Between this and the small house-lizard (chichak) are
many gradations in size, chiefly of the grass-lizard kind, which is
smooth and glossy. The former are in length from about four inches down
to an inch or less, and are the largest reptiles that can walk in an
inverted situation: one of these, of size sufficient to devour a
cockroach, runs on the ceiling of a room, and in that situation seizes
its prey with the utmost facility. This they seem to be enabled to do
from the rugose structure of their feet, with which they adhere strongly
to the smoothest surface. Sometimes however, on springing too eagerly at
a fly, they lose their hold, and drop to the floor, on which occasions a
circumstance occurs not undeserving of notice. The tail being frequently
separated from the body by the shock (as it may be at any of the
vertebrae by the slightest force, without loss of blood or evident pain
to the animal, and sometimes, as it would seem, from the effect of fear
alone) within a little time, like the mutilated claw of a lobster, begins
to renew itself. They are produced from eggs about the size of the
wren's, of which the female carries two at a time, one in the lower, and
one in the upper part of the abdomen, on opposite sides; they are always
cold to the touch, and yet the transparency of their bodies gives an
opportunity of observing that their fluids have as brisk a circulation as
those of warm-blooded animals: in none have I seen the peristaltic motion
so obvious as in these. It may not be useless to mention that these
phenomena were best observed at night when the lizard was on the outside
of a pane of glass, with a candle on the inside. There is, I believe, no
class of living creatures in which the gradations can be traced with such
minuteness and regularity as in this; where, from the small animal just
described, to the huge alligator or crocodile, a chain may be traced
containing almost innumerable links, of which the remotest have a
striking resemblance to each other, and seem, at first view, to differ
only in bulk.

CHAMELEON.

The chameleon, gruning: these are about a foot and half long, including
the tail; the colour, green with brown spots, as I had it preserved; when
alive in the woods they are generally green, but not from the reflection
of the leaves, as some have supposed. When first caught they usually turn
brown, apparently the effect of fear or anger, as men become pale or red;
but if undisturbed soon resume a deep green on the back, and a yellow
green on the belly, the tail remaining brown. Along the spine, from the
head to the middle of the back, little membranes stand up like the teeth
of a saw. As others of the genus of lacerta they feed on flies and
grasshoppers, which the large size of their mouths and peculiar structure
of their bony tongues are well adapted for catching.


(PLATE 14a. n.2. THE KUBIN, Draco volans.
Sinensis delt. A. Cardon sc.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)


The flying lizard, kubin, or chachak terbang (Draco volans), is about
eight inches in its extreme length, and the membranes which constitute
the wings are about two or three inches in extent. These do not connect
with the fore and hind legs, as in the bat tribe, but are supported by an
elongation of the alternate ribs, as pointed out by my friend Mr. Everard
Home. They have flapped ears, and a singular kind of pouch or alphorges,
under the jaws. In other respects they much resemble the chameleon in
appearance. They do not take distant flights, but merely from tree to
tree, or from one bough to another. The natives take them by springs
fastened to the stems.

FROGS. SNAKES.

With animals of the frog kind (kodok) the swamps everywhere teem; and
their noise upon the approach of rain is tremendous. They furnish prey to
the snakes, which are found here of all sizes and in great variety of
species; the larger proportion harmless, but of some, and those generally
small and dark-coloured, the bite is mortal. If the cobra capelo, or
hooded snake, be a native of the island, as some assert, it must be
extremely rare. The largest of the boa kind (ular sauh) that I had an
opportunity of observing was no more than twelve feet long. This was
killed in a hen-house where it was devouring the poultry. It is very
surprising, but not less true, that snakes will swallow animals of twice
or three times their own apparent circumference; having in their jaws or
throat a compressive force that gradually and by great efforts reduces
the prey to a convenient dimension. I have seen a small snake (ular sini)
with the hinder legs of a frog sticking out of its mouth, each of them
nearly equal to the smaller parts of its own body, which in the thickest
did not exceed a man's little finger. The stories told of their
swallowing deer, and even buffaloes, in Ceylon and Java, almost choke
belief, but I cannot take upon me to pronounce them false; for if a snake
of three inches diameter can gorge a fowl of six, one of thirty feet in
length and proportionate bulk and strength might well be supposed capable
of swallowing a beast of the size of a goat; and I have respectable
authority for the fact that the fawn of a kijang or roe was cut out of
the body of a very large snake killed at one of the southern settlements.
The poisonous kinds are distinguished by the epithet of ular bisa, among
which is the biludak or viper. The ular garang, or sea-snake, is coated
entirely with scales, both on the belly and tail, not differing from
those on the back, which are small and hexagonal; the colour is grey,
with here and there shades of brown. The head and about one-third of the
body from thence is the smallest part, and it increases in bulk towards
the tail, which resembles that of the eel. It has not any dog-fangs.

TORTOISE.

The tortoise, kura-kura, and turtle, katong, are both found in these
seas; the former valuable for its scales, and the latter as food; the
land­tortoise (Testudo graeca) is brought from the Seychelles Islands.

There is also an extensive variety of shellfish. The crayfish, udang laut
(Cancer homarus or ecrevisse-de-mer), is as large as the lobster, but
wants its biting claws. The small freshwater crayfish, the prawns and
shrimps (all named udang, with distinctive epithets), are in great
perfection.

The crab, kapiting and katam (cancer), is not equally fine, but exhibits
many extraordinary varieties.

The kima, or gigantic cockle (chama), has been already mentioned.

The oysters, tiram, are by no means so good as those of Europe. The
smaller kind are generally found adhering to the roots of the mangrove,
in the wash of the tide.

The mussel, kupang (mytilus), rimis (donax), kapang (Teredo navalis),
sea­egg, bulu babi (echinus), bia papeda (nautilus), ruma gorita
(argonauta), bia unam (murex), bia balang (cuprea), and many others may
be added to the list. The beauty of the madrepores and corallines, of
which the finest specimens are found in the recesses of the Bay of
Tappanuli, is not to be surpassed in any country. Of these a superb
collection is in the possession of Mr. John Griffiths, who has given, in
Volume 96 of the Philosophical Transactions, the Description of a rare
species of Worm-Shells, discovered at an island lying off the North-west
coast of Sumatra. In the same volume is also a Paper by Mr. Everard Home,
containing Observations on the Shell of the Sea Worm found on the Coast
of Sumatra, proving it to belong to a species of Teredo; with an Account
of the Anatomy of the Teredo navalis. The former he proposes to call the
Teredo gigantea. The sea-grass, or ladang laut, concerning which Sir
James Lancaster tells some wonderful stories, partakes of the nature of a
sea-worm and of a coralline; in its original state it is soft and shrinks
into the sand from the touch; but when dry it is quite hard, straight,
and brittle.

FISH.

The duyong is a very large sea-animal or fish, of the order of mammalia,
with two large pectoral fins serving the purposes of feet. By the early
Dutch voyagers it was, without any obvious analogy, called the sea-cow;
and from the circumstance of the head being covered with a kind of shaggy
hair, and the mammae of the female being placed immediately under the
pectus, it has given rise to the stories of mermaids in the tropical
seas. The tusks are applied to the same uses as ivory, especially for the
handles of krises, and being whiter are more prized. It has much general
resemblance to the manatee or lamantin of the West Indies, and has been
confounded with it; but the distinction between them has been ascertained
by M. Cuvier, Annales du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle 22 cahier page 308.*

(*Footnote. "Some time ago (says Captain Forrest) a large fish, with
valuable teeth, being cast ashore in the Illana districts, there arose a
dispute who should have the teeth, but the Magindanoers carried it."
Voyage to New Guinea page 272. See also Valentyn Volume 3 page 341.)

WHALE.

The grampus whale (species of delphinus) is well known to the natives by
the names of pawus and gajah mina; but I do not recollect to have heard
any instance of their being thrown upon the coast.

VOILIER.

Of the ikan layer (genus novum schombro affine) a grand specimen is
preserved in the British Museum, where it was deposited by Sir Joseph
Banks;* and a description of it by the late M. Brousonet, under the name
of le Voilier, is published in the Mem. de l'Acad. de Scien. de Paris for
1786 page 450 plate 10. It derives its appellation from the peculiarity
of its dorsal fin, which rises so high as to suggest the idea of a sail;
but it is most remarkable for what should rather be termed its snout than
its horn, being an elongation of the frontal bone, and the prodigious
force with which it occasionally strikes the bottoms of ships, mistaking
them, as we may presume, for its enemy or prey. A large fragment of one
of these bones, which had transfixed the plank of an East India ship, and
penetrated about eighteen inches, is likewise preserved in the same
national collection, together with the piece of plank, as it was cut out
of the ship's bottom upon her being docked in England. Several accidents
of a similar nature are known to have occurred. There is an excellent
representation of this fish, under the name of fetisso, in Barbot's
Description of the Coasts of Guinea, plate 18, which is copied in
Astley's Collection of Voyages, Volume 2 plate 73.

(*Footnote. This fish was hooked by Mr. John Griffiths near the southern
extremity of the west coast of Sumatra, and was given to Captain Cumming
of the Britannia indiaman, by whom it was presented to Sir Joseph Banks.)

VARIOUS FISH.

To attempt an enumeration of the species of fish with which these seas
abound would exceed my power, and I shall only mention briefly some of
the most obvious; as the shark, hiyu (squalus); skate, ikan pari (raya);
ikan mua (muraena); ikan chanak (gymnotus); ikan gajah (cepole); ikan
karang or bonna (chaetodon), described by Mr. John Bell in Volume 82 of
the Philosophical Transactions. It is remarkable for certain tumours
filled with oil, attached to its bones. There are also the ikan krapo, a
kind of rock-cod or sea-perch; ikan marrang or kitang (teuthis), commonly
named the leather fish, and among the best brought to table; jinnihin, a
rock-fish shaped like a carp; bawal or pomfret (species of chaetodon);
balanak, jumpul, and marra, three fish of the mullet kind (mugil); kuru
(polynemus); ikan lidah, a kind of sole; tingeri, resembles the mackerel;
gagu, catfish; summa, a river fish, resembling the salmon; ringkis,
resembles the trout, and is noted for the size of its roe; ikan tambarah,
I believe the shad of Siak River; ikan gadis, good river fish, about the
size of a carp; ikan bada, small, like white bait; ikan gorito, sepia;
ikan terbang, flying-fish (exocoetus). The little seahorse (Syngnathus
hippocampus) is commonly found here.

BIRDS.

Of birds the variety is considerable, and the following list contains but
a small portion of those that might be discovered in the island by a
qualified person who should confine his researches to that branch of
natural history.

KUWAU.

The kuwau, or Sumatran pheasant (Phasianus argus), is a bird of uncommon
magnificence and beauty; the plumage being perhaps the most rich, without
any mixture of gaudiness, of all the feathered race. It is found
extremely difficult to keep it alive for any considerable time after
catching it in the woods, yet it has in one instance been brought to
England; but, having lost its fine feathers by the voyage, it did not
excite curiosity, and died unnoticed. There is now a good specimen in the
Liverpool Museum. It has in its natural state an antipathy to the light,
and in the open day is quite moped and inanimate. When kept in a darkened
place it seems at its ease, and sometimes makes use of the note or call
from which it takes its name, and which is rather plaintive than harsh.
The flesh, of which I have eaten, perfectly resembles that of the common
pheasant (tugang), also found in the woods, but the body is of much
larger size. I have reason to believe that it is not, as supposed, a
native of the North or any part of China. From the Malayan Islands, of
which it is the boast, it must be frequently carried thither.

PEACOCK, ETC.

The peacock, burong marak (pavo), appears to be well known to the
natives, though I believe not common.

I should say the same of the eagle and the vulture (coracias), to the one
or the other of which the name of raja wali is familiarly applied.

The kite, alang (falco), is very common, as is the crow, gadak (corvus),
and jackdaw, pong (gracula), with several species of the woodpecker.

The kingfisher (alcedo) is named burong buaya, or the alligator-bird.

The bird-of-paradise, burong supan, or elegant-bird, is known here only
in the dried state, as brought from the Moluccas and coast of New Guinea
(tanah papuah).


(PLATE 15. BEAKS OF THE BUCEROS OR HORN-BILL.
M. de Jonville delt. Swaine sc.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)


The rhinoceros bird, hornbill, or calao (buceros), called by the natives
anggang and burong taun, is chiefly remarkable for what is termed the
horn, which in the most common species extends halfway down the upper
mandible of its large beak, and then turns up; but the varieties of shape
are numerous. The length of one I measured whilst alive was ten inches
and a half; the breadth, including the horn, six and a half; length from
beak to tail four feet; wings four feet six inches; height one foot;
length of neck one foot; the beak whitish; the horn yellow and red; the
body black; the tail white ringed with black; rump, and feathers on the
legs down to the heel, white; claws three before and one behind; the iris
red. In a hen chick there was no appearance of a horn, and the iris was
whitish. They eat either boiled rice or tender fresh meat. Of the use of
such a singular cavity I could not learn any plausible conjecture. As a
receptacle for water, it must be quite unnecessary in the country of
which it is a native.

STORK, ETC.

Of the stork kind there are several species, some of great height and
otherwise curious, as the burong kambing and burong ular, which frequent
the rice plantations in wet ground.

We find also the heron, burong kuntul (ardea); the snipe, kandidi
(scolopax); the coot, or water-hen, ayam ayer (fulica); and the plover,
cheruling (charadrius).

The cassowary, burong rusa, is brought from the island of Java.

The domestic hen is as common as in most other countries. In some the
bones (or the periostea) are black, and these are at least equally good
as food. The hen of the woods, ayam barugo, or ayam utan (which latter
name is in some places applied to the pheasant), differs little from the
common sort, excepting in the uniformity of its brown colour. In the
Lampong country of Sumatra and western part of Java lying opposite to it
there is a very large breed of fowls, called ayam jago; of these I have
seen a cock peck from off of a common dining table; when inclined to rest
they sit on the first joint of the leg and are then taller than the
ordinary fowls. It is singular if the same country produces likewise the
diminutive breed that goes by the name of bantam.

A species of partridge is called ayam gunong, or mountain hen.

DOVES.

Beside the pigeon, merapeti and burong darah (columba), and two common
species of doves, the one of a light brown or dove-colour, called ballum,
and the other green, called punei, there are of the latter some most
exquisite varieties: the punei jambu is smaller than the usual size of
doves; the back, wings, and tail are green; the breast and crop are
white, but the front of the latter has a slight shade of pink; the
forepart of the head is of a deep pink, resembling the blossom of the
jambu fruit, from whence its name; the white of the breast is continued
in a narrow streak, having the green on one side and the pink on the
other, half round the eye, which is large, full, and yellow; of which
colour is also the beak. It will live upon boiled rice and padi; but its
favourite food, when wild, is the berry of the rumpunnei (Ardisia
coriacea), perhaps from this circumstance so called. The selaya, or punei
andu, another variety, has the body and wings of deep crimson, with the
head, and extremity of its long indented tail, white; the legs red. It
lives on the worms generated in the decayed part of old trees, and is
about the size of a blackbird. Of the same size is the burong sawei, a
bird of a bluish black colour, with a dove-tail, from which extend two
very long feathers, terminating circularly. It seems to be what is called
the widow-bird, and is formidable to the kite.

The burong pipit resembles the sparrow in its appearance, habits,
numbers, and the destruction it causes to the grain.

The quail, puyuh (coturnix); but whether a native or a bird of passage, I
cannot determine.

The starling (sturnus), of which I know not the Malayan name.

The swallow, layang-layang (hirundo), one species of which, called layang
buhi, from its being supposed to collect the froth of the sea, is that
which constructs the edible nests.

The mu­rei, or dial-bird, resembling a small magpie, has a pretty but
short note. There is not any bird in the country that can be said to
sing. The ti­yong, or mino, a black bird with yellow gills, has the
faculty of imitating human speech in greater perfection than any other of
the feathered tribe. There is also a yellow species, but not loquacious.

Of the parrot kind the variety is not so great as might be expected, and
consists chiefly of those denominated parakeets. The beautiful luri,
though not uncommon, is brought from the eastward. The kakatua is an
inhabitant chiefly of the southern extremity of the island.

The Indian goose, angsa and gangsa (anser); the duck, bebek and itik
(anas); and the teal, belibi, are common.

INSECTS.

With insects the island may truly be said to swarm; and I doubt whether
there is any part of the world where greater variety is to be found. Of
these I shall only attempt to enumerate a few:

The kunang, or firefly, larger than the common fly, (which it resembles),
with the phosphoric matter in the abdomen, regularly and quickly
intermitting its light, as if by respiration; by holding one of them in
my hand I could see to read at night;

Lipas, the cockroach (blatta); chingkarek, the cricket (gryllus);

Lebah, taun, the bee (apis), whose honey is gathered in the woods;
kumbang, a species of apis, that bores its nest in timber, and thence
acquires the name of the carpenter;

Sumut, the ant (formica), the multitudes of which overrun the country,
and its varieties are not less extraordinary than its numbers. The
following distinctions are the most obvious: the krangga, or great red
ant, about three-fourths of an inch long, bites severely, and usually
leaves its head, as a bee its sting, in the wound; it is found mostly on
trees and bushes, and forms its nest by fastening together, with a
glutinous matter, a collection of the leaves of a branch, as they grow;
the common red ant; the minute red ant; the large black ant, not equal in
size to the krangga, but with a head of disproportioned bulk; the common
black ant; and the minute black ant: they also differ from each other in
a circumstance which I believe has not been attended to; and that is the
sensation with which they affect the taste when put into the mouth, as
frequently happens unintentionally: some are hot and acrid, some bitter,
and some sour. Perhaps this will be attributed to the different kinds of
food they have accidentally devoured; but I never found one which tasted
sweet, though I have caught them in the fact of robbing a sugar or
honey-pot. Each species of ant is a declared enemy of the other, and
never suffers a divided empire. Where one party effects a settlement the
other is expelled; and in general they are powerful in proportion to
their bulk, with the exception of the white-ant, sumut putih (termes),
which is beaten from the field by others of inferior size; and for this
reason it is a common expedient to strew sugar on the floor of a
warehouse in order to allure the formicae to the spot, who do not fail to
combat and overcome the ravaging but unwarlike termites. Of this insect
and its destructive qualities I had intended to give some description,
but the subject is so elaborately treated (though with some degree of
fancy) by Mr. Smeathman, in Volume 71 of the Philosophical Transactions
for 1781, who had an opportunity of observing them in Africa, that I omit
it as superfluous.

Of the wasp kind there are several curious varieties. One of them may be
observed building its nest of moistened clay against a wall, and
inclosing in each of its numerous compartments a living spider; thus
revenging upon this bloodthirsty race the injuries sustained by harmless
flies, and providently securing for its own young a stock of food.

Lalat, the common fly (musca); lalat kuda (tabanus); lalat karbau
(oestrus);

Niamok, agas, the gnat or mosquito (culex), producing a degree of
annoyance equal to the sum of all the other physical plagues of a hot
climate, but even to these I found that habit rendered me almost
indifferent;

Kala-jingking, the scorpion (scorpio), the sting of which is highly
inflammatory and painful, but not dangerous;

Sipasan, centipede (scholopendra), not so venomous as the preceding;

Alipan (jules);

Alintah, water-leech (hirudo); achih, small land-leech, dropping from the
leaves of trees whilst moist with dew, and troublesome to travellers in
passing through the woods.

To this list I shall only add the suala, tripan, or sea-slug
(holothurion), which, being collected from the rocks and dried in the
sun, is exported to China, where it is an article of food.


CHAPTER 7.

VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS OF THE ISLAND CONSIDERED AS ARTICLES OF COMMERCE.
PEPPER.
CULTIVATION OF PEPPER.
CAMPHOR.
BENZOIN.
CASSIA, ETC.


(PLATE 1. THE PEPPER-PLANT, PIPER NIGRUM.
E.W. Marsden delt. Engraved by J. Swaine, Queen Street, Golden Square.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)


PEPPER.

OF those productions of Sumatra, which are regarded as articles of
commerce, the most important and most abundant is pepper. This is the
object of the East India Company's trade thither, and this alone it keeps
in its own hands; its servants, and merchants under its protection, being
free to deal in every other commodity.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TRADE.

Many of the princes or chiefs in different parts of the island having
invited the English to form settlements in their respective districts,
factories were accordingly established, and a permanency and regularity
thereby given to the trade, which was very uncertain whilst it depended
upon the success of occasional voyages to the coast; disappointments
ensuing not only from failure of adequate quantities of pepper to furnish
cargoes when required, but also from the caprices and chicanery of the
chiefs with whom the disposal of it lay, the motives of whose conduct
could not be understood by those who were unacquainted with the language
and manners of the people. These inconveniencies were obviated when the
agents of the Company were enabled, by their residence on the spot, to
obtain an influence in the country, to inspect the state of the
plantations, secure the collection of the produce, and make an estimate
of the tonnage necessary for its conveyance to Europe.

In order to bind the chiefs to the observance of their original promises
and professions, and to establish a plausible and legal claim, in
opposition to the attempts of rival European powers to interfere in the
trade of the same country, written contracts, attended with much form and
solemnity, were entered into with the former; by which they engaged to
oblige all their dependants to cultivate pepper, and to secure to us the
exclusive purchase of it; in return for which they were to be protected
from their enemies, supported in the rights of sovereignty, and to be
paid a certain allowance or custom on the produce of their respective
territories.

PRICE.

The price for many years paid to the cultivators for their produce was
ten Spanish dollars or fifty shillings per bahar of five hundredweight or
five hundred and sixty pounds. About the year 1780, with a view to their
encouragement and the increase of investment, as it is termed, the sum
was augmented to fifteen dollars. To this cost is to be added the custom
above mentioned, varying in different districts according to specific
agreements, but amounting in general to one dollar and a half, or two
dollars on each bahar, which is distributed amongst the chiefs at an
annual entertainment; and presents are made at the same time to planters
who have distinguished themselves by their industry. This low price, at
which the natives submit to cultivate the plantations, affording to each
man an income of not more than from eight to twelve dollars yearly, and
the undisturbed monopoly we have so long possessed of the trade, from
near Indrapura northward to Flat Point southward, are doubtless in a
principal degree to be attributed to the peculiar manner in which this
part of the island is shut up, by the surfs which prevail along the
south-west coast, from communication with strangers, whose competition
would naturally produce the effect of enhancing the price of the
commodity. The general want of anchorage too, for so many leagues to the
northward of the Straits of Sunda, has in all ages deterred the Chinese
and other eastern merchants from attempting to establish an intercourse
that must be attended with imminent risk to unskilful navigators; indeed
I understand it to be a tradition among the natives who border on the
sea-coast that it is not many hundred years since these parts began to be
inhabited, and they speak of their descent as derived from the more
inland country. Thus it appears that those natural obstructions, which we
are used to lament as the greatest detriment to our trade, are in fact
advantages to which it in a great measure owes its existence. In the
northern countries of the island, where the people are numerous and their
ports good, they are found to be more independent also, and refuse to
cultivate plantations upon any other terms than those on which they can
deal with private traders.

CULTIVATION OF PEPPER.

In the cultivation of pepper (Piper nigrum, L.)* the first circumstance
that claims attention, and on which the success materially depends, is
the choice of a proper site for the plantation. A preference is usually
given to level ground lying along the banks of rivers or rivulets,
provided they are not so low as to be inundated, both on account of the
vegetable mould commonly found there, and the convenience of
water-carriage for the produce. Declivities, unless very gentle, are to
be avoided, because the soil loosened by culture is liable in such
situations to be washed away by heavy rains. When these plains however
are naked, or covered with long grass only, they will not be found to
answer without the assistance of the plough and of manure, their
fertility being exhausted by exposure to the sun. How far the returns in
general might be increased by the introduction of these improvements in
agriculture I cannot take upon me to determine; but I fear that, from the
natural indolence of the natives, and their want of zeal in the business
of pepper-planting, occasioned by the smallness of the advantage it
yields to them, they will never be prevailed upon to take more pains than
they now do. The planters therefore, depending more upon the natural
qualities of the soil than on any advantage it might receive from their
cultivation, find none to suit their purpose better than those spots
which, having been covered with old woods and long fertilized by decaying
foliage and trunks, have recently been cleared for ladangs or
padi-fields, in the manner already described; where it was also observed
that, being allured by the certainty of abundant produce from a virgin
soil, and having land for the most part at will, they renew their toil
annually, and desert the ground so laboriously prepared after occupying
it for one, or at the furthest for two, seasons. Such are the most usual
situations chosen for the pepper plantations (kabun) or gardens, as they
are termed; but, independently of the culture of rice, land is very
frequently cleared for the pepper in the first instance by felling and
burning the trees.

(*Footnote. See Remarks on the Species of Pepper (and on its Cultivation)
at Prince of Wales Island, by Dr. William Hunter, in the Asiatic
Researches Volume 9 page 383.)

FORMATION OF THE GARDEN.

The ground is then marked out in form of a regular square or oblong, with
intersections throughout at the distance of six feet (being equal to five
cubits of the measure of the country), the intended interval between the
plants, of which there are commonly either one thousand or five hundred
in each garden; the former number being required from those who are heads
of families (their wives and children assisting them in their work), and
the latter from single men. Industrious or opulent persons sometimes have
gardens of two or three thousand vines. A border twelve feet in width,
within which limit no tree is suffered to grow, surrounds each garden,
and it is commonly separated from others by a row of shrubs or irregular
hedge. Where the nature of the country admits of it the whole or greater
part of the gardens of a dusun or village lie adjacent to each other,
both for the convenience of mutual assistance in labour and mutual
protection from wild beasts; single gardens being often abandoned from
apprehension of their ravages, and where the owner has been killed in
such a situation none will venture to replace him.

VEGETATING PROPS.

After lining out the ground and marking the intersections by slight
stakes the next business is to plant the trees that are to become props
to the pepper, as the Romans planted elms, and the modern Italians more
commonly plant poplars and mulberries, for their grape-vines. These are
cuttings of the chungkariang (Erythrina corallodendron), usually called
chinkareens, put into the ground about a span deep, sufficiently early to
allow time for a shoot to be strong enough to support the young
pepper-plant when it comes to twine about it. The cuttings are commonly
two feet in length, but sometimes a preference is given to the length of
six feet, and the vine is then planted as soon as the chinkareen has
taken root: but the principal objections to this method are that in such
state they are very liable to fail and require renewal, to the prejudice
of the garden; and that their shoots are not so vigorous as those of the
short cuttings, frequently growing crooked, or in a lateral instead of a
perpendicular direction. The circumstances which render the chinkareen
particularly proper for this use are its readiness and quickness of
growth, even after the cuttings have been kept some time in bundles,* if
put into the ground with the first rains; and the little thorns with
which it is armed enabling the vine to take a firmer hold. They are
distinguished into two sorts, the white and red, not from the colour of
the flowers (as might be supposed) for both are red, but from the tender
shoots of the one being whitish and of the other being of a reddish hue.
The bark of the former is of a pale ash colour, of the latter brown; the
former is sweet, and the food of elephants, for which reason it is not
much used in parts frequented by those animals; the latter is bitter and
unpalatable to them; but they are not deterred by the short prickles
which are common to the branches of both sorts.

(*Footnote. It is a common and useful practice to place these bundles of
cuttings in water about two inches deep and afterwards to reject such of
them as in that state do not show signs of vegetation.)

Trial has frequently been made of other trees, and particularly of the
bangkudu or mangkudu (Morinda citrifolia), but none have been found to
answer so well for these vegetating props. It has been doubted indeed
whether the growth and produce of the pepper-vine are not considerably
injured by the chinkareen, which may rob it of its proper nourishment by
exhausting the earth; and on this principle, in other of the eastern
islands (Borneo, for instance), the vine is supported by poles in the
manner of hops in England. Yet it is by no means clear to me that the
Sumatran method is so disadvantageous in the comparison as it may seem;
for, as the pepper-plant lasts many years, whilst the poles, exposed to
sun and rain, and loaded with a heavy weight, cannot be supposed to
continue sound above two seasons, there must be a frequent renewal,
which, notwithstanding the utmost care, must lacerate and often destroy
the vines. It is probable also that the shelter from the violence of the
sun's rays afforded by the branches of the vegetating prop, and which,
during the dry monsoon, is of the utmost consequence, may counterbalance
the injury occasioned by their roots; not to insist on the opinion of a
celebrated writer that trees, acting as siphons, derive from the air and
transmit to the earth as much of the principle of vegetation as is
expended in their nourishment.

When the most promising shoot of the chinkareen reserved for rearing has
attained the height of twelve to fifteen feet (which latter it is not to
exceed), or in the second year of its growth, it must be headed or
topped; and the branches that then extend themselves laterally, from the
upper part only, so long as their shade is required, are afterwards
lopped annually at the commencement of the rainy season (about November),
leaving little more than the stem; from whence they again shoot out to
afford their protection during the dry weather. By this operation also
the damage to the plant that would ensue from the droppings of rain from
the leaves is avoided.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PEPPER-VINE.

The pepper-vine is, in its own climate, a hardy plant, growing readily
from cuttings or layers, rising in several knotted stems, twining round
any neighbouring support, and adhering to it by fibres that shoot from
every joint at intervals of six to ten inches, and from which it probably
derives a share of its nourishment. If suffered to run along the ground
these fibres would become roots; but in this case (like the ivy) it would
never exhibit any appearance of fructification, the prop being necessary
for encouraging it to throw out its bearing shoots. It climbs to the
height of twenty or twenty-five feet, but thrives best when restrained to
twelve or fifteen, as in the former case the lower part of the vine bears
neither leaves nor fruit, whilst in the latter it produces both from
within a foot of the ground. The stalk soon becomes ligneous, and in time
acquires considerable thickness. The leaves are of a deep green and
glossy surface, heart-shaped, pointed, not pungent to the taste, and have
but little smell. The branches are short and brittle, not projecting
above two feet from the stem, and separating readily at the joints. The
blossom is small and white, the fruit round, green when young and
full­grown, and turning to a bright red when ripe and in perfection. It
grows abundantly from all the branches in long small clusters of twenty
to fifty grains, somewhat resembling bunches of currants, but with this
difference, that every grain adheres to the common stalk, which occasions
the cluster of pepper to be more compact, and it is also less pliant.

MODES OF PROPAGATING IT.

The usual mode of propagating the pepper is by cuttings, a foot or two in
length, of the horizontal shoots that run along the ground from the foot
of the old vines (called lado sulur), and one or two of these are planted
within a few inches of the young chinkareen at the same time with it if
of the long kind, or six months after if of the short kind, as before
described. Some indeed prefer an interval of twelve months; as in good
soil the luxuriancy of the vine will often overpower and bear down the
prop, if it has not first acquired competent strength. In such soil the
vine rises two or three feet in the course of the first year, and four or
five more in the second, by which time, or between the second and third
year of its growth, it begins to show its blossom (be-gagang), if in fact
it can be called such, being nothing more than the germ of the future
bunch of fruit, of a light straw colour, darkening to green as the fruit
forms. These germs or blossoms are liable to fall untimely (gugur) in
very dry weather, or to be shaken off in high winds (although from this
accident the gardens are in general well sheltered by the surrounding
woods), when, after the fairest promise, the crop fails.

TURNING DOWN THE VINES.

In the rainy weather that succeeds the first appearance of the fruit the
whole vine is loosened from the chinkareen and turned down again into the
earth, a hole being dug to receive it, in which it is laid circularly or
coiled, leaving only the extremity above ground, at the foot of the
chinkareen, which it now reascends with redoubled vigour, attaining in
the following season the height of eight or ten feet, and bearing a full
crop of fruit. There is said to be a great nicety in hitting the exact
time proper for this operation of turning down; for if it be done too
soon, the vines have been known not to bear till the third year, like
fresh plants; and on the other hand the produce is ultimately retarded
when they omit to turn them down until after the first fruit has been
gathered; to which avarice of present, at the expense of future
advantage, sometimes inclines the owners. It is not very material how
many stems the vine may have in its first growth, but now one only, if
strong, or two at the most, should be suffered to rise and cling to the
prop: more would be superfluous and only weaken the whole. The
supernumerary shoots however are usefully employed, being either
conducted through narrow trenches to adjacent chinkareens whose vines
have failed, or taken off at the root and transplanted to others more
distant, where, coiled round and buried as the former, they rise with the
same vigour, and the garden is completed of uniform growth, although many
of its original vines have not succeeded. With these offsets or layers
(called anggor and tettas) new gardens may be at once formed; the
necessary chinkareens being previously planted, and of sufficient growth
to receive them.

This practice of turning down the vines, which appears singular but
certainly contributes to the duration as well as strength of the plants,
may yet amount to nothing more than a substitute for transplantation. Our
people observing that vegetables often fail to thrive when permitted to
grow up in the same beds where they were first set or sown, find it
advantageous to remove them, at a certain period of their growth, to
fresh situations. The Sumatrans observing the same failure have had
recourse to an expedient nearly similar in its principle but effected in
a different and perhaps more judicious mode.

In order to lighten the labour of the cultivator, who has also the
indispensable task of raising grain for himself and his family, it is a
common practice, and not attended with any detriment to the gardens, to
sow padi in the ground in which the chinkareens have been planted, and
when this has become about six inches high, to plant the cuttings of the
vines, suffering the shoots to creep along the ground until the crop has
been taken off, when they are trained to the chinkareens, the shade of
the corn being thought favourable to the young plants.

PROGRESS OF BEARING.

The vines, as has been observed, generally begin to bear in the course of
the third year from the time of planting, but the produce is retarded for
one or two seasons by the process just described; after which it
increases annually for three years, when the garden (about the seventh or
eighth year) is esteemed in its prime, or at its utmost produce; which
state it maintains, according to the quality of the soil, from one to
four years, when it gradually declines for about the same period until it
is no longer worth the labour of keeping it in order. From some, in good
ground, fruit has been gathered at the age of twenty years; but such
instances are uncommon. On the first appearance of decline it should be
renewed, as it is termed; but, to speak more properly, another garden
should be planted to succeed it, which will begin to bear before the old
one ceases.

MODE OF PRUNING.

The vine having acquired its full growth, and being limited by the height
of the chinkareen, sometimes grows bushy and overhangs at top, which,
being prejudicial to the lower parts, must be corrected by pruning or
thinning the top branches, and this is done commonly by hand, as they
break readily at every joint. Suckers too, or superfluous side­shoots
(charang), which spring luxuriantly, are to be plucked away. The ground
of the garden must be kept perfectly clear of weeds, shrubs, and whatever
might injure or tend to choke the plants. During the hot months of June,
July, and August the finer kinds of grass may be permitted to cover the
ground, as it contributes to mitigate the effects of the sun's power, and
preserves for a longer time the dews, which at that season fall
copiously; but the rank species, called lalang, being particularly
difficult to eradicate, should not be suffered to fix itself, if it can
be avoided. As the vines increase in size and strength less attention to
the ground is required, and especially as their shade tends to check the
growth of weeds. In lopping the branches of the chinkareens preparatory
to the rains, some dexterity is required that they may fall clear of the
vine, and the business is performed with a sharp prang or bill that
generally separates at one stroke the light pithy substance of the bough.
For this purpose, as well as that of gathering the fruit, light
triangular ladders made of bamboo are employed.

TIME OF GATHERING.

As soon as any of the berries or corns redden, the bunch is reckoned fit
for gathering, the remainder being then generally full-grown, although
green; nor would it answer to wait for the whole to change colour, as the
most mature would drop off.

MODE OF DRYING AND CLEANSING.

It is collected in small baskets slung over the shoulder, and with the
assistance of the women and children conveyed to a smooth level spot of
clean hard ground near the garden or the village, where it is spread,
sometimes upon mats, to dry in the sun, but exposed at the same time to
the vicissitudes of the weather, which are not much regarded nor thought
to injure it. In this situation it becomes black and shrivelled, as we
see it in Europe, and as it dries is hand-rubbed occasionally to separate
the grains from the stalk. It is then winnowed in large round shallow
sieves called nyiru, and put in large vessels made of bark (kulitkayu)
under their houses until the whole of the crop is gathered, or a
sufficient quantity for carrying (usually by water) to the European
factory or gadong at the mouth of the river. That which has been gathered
at the properest stage of maturity will shrivel the least; but, if
plucked too soon, it will in a short time, by removal from place to
place, become mere dust. Of this defect trial may be made by the hand;
but as light pepper may have been mixed with the sound it becomes
necessary that the whole should be garbled at the scale by machines
constructed for the purpose. Pepper that has fallen to the ground
overripe and been gathered from thence will be known by being stripped of
its outer coat, and in that state is an inferior kind of white pepper.

WHITE PEPPER.

This was for centuries supposed in Europe to be the produce of a
different plant, and to possess qualities superior to those of the common
black pepper; and accordingly it sold at a considerably higher price. But
it has lost in some measure that advantage since it has been known that
the secret depended merely upon the art of blanching the grains of the
other sort, by depriving it of the exterior pellicle. For this purpose
the ripest red grains are picked out and put in baskets to steep, either
in running water (which is preferred), in pits dug for the occasion near
the banks of rivers, or in stagnant pools. Sometimes it is only buried in
the ground. In any of these situations it swells, and in the course of a
week or ten days bursts its tegument, from which it is afterwards
carefully separated by drying in the sun, rubbing between the hands, and
winnowing. It has been much disputed, and is still undetermined, to which
sort the preference ought to be given. The white pepper has this obvious
recommendation, that it can be made of no other than the best and
soundest grains, taken at their most perfect stage of maturity: but on
the other hand it is argued that, by being suffered to remain the
necessary time in water, its strength must be considerably diminished;
and that the outer husk, which is lost by the process, has a peculiar
flavour distinct from that of the heart, and though not so pungent, more
aromatic. For the white pepper the planter receives the fourth part of a
dollar, or fifteen pence, per bamboo or gallon measure, equal to about
six pounds weight. At the sales in England the prices are at this time in
the proportion of seventeen to ten or eleven, and the quantity imported
has for some years been inconsiderable.

APPEARANCE OF THE GARDENS.

The gardens being planted in even rows, running parallel, and at right
angles with each other, their symmetrical appearance is very beautiful,
and rendered more striking by the contrast they exhibit to the wild
scenes of nature which surround them. In highly cultivated countries such
as England, where landed property is all lined out and bounded and
intersected with walls and hedges, we endeavour to give our gardens and
pleasure-grounds the charm of variety and novelty by imitating the
wildness of nature, in studied irregularities. Winding walks, hanging
woods, craggy rocks, falls of water, are all looked upon as improvements;
and the stately avenues, the canals, and rectangular lawns of our
ancestors, which afforded the beauty of contrast in ruder times are now
exploded. This difference of taste is not merely the effect of caprice,
nor entirely of refinement, but results from the change of circumstances.
A man who should attempt to exhibit in Sumatra the modern or irregular
style of laying out grounds would attract but little attention, as the
unimproved scenes adjoining on every side would probably eclipse his
labours. Could he, on the contrary, produce, amidst its magnificent
wilds, one of those antiquated parterres, with its canals and fountains,
whose precision he has learned to despise, his work would create
admiration and delight. A pepper-garden cultivated in England would not
in point of external appearance be considered as an object of
extraordinary beauty, and would be particularly found fault with for its
uniformity; yet in Sumatra I never entered one, after travelling many
miles, as is usually the case, through the woods, that I did not find
myself affected with a strong sensation of pleasure. Perhaps the simple
view of human industry, so scantily presented in that island, might
contribute to this pleasure, by awakening those social feelings that
nature has inspired us with, and which make our breasts glow on the
perception of whatever indicates the prosperity and happiness of our
fellow-creatures.

SURVEYS.

Once in every year a survey of all the pepper-plantations is taken by the
Company's European servants resident at the various settlements, in the
neighbourhood of which that article is cultivated. The number of vines in
each particular garden is counted; accurate observation is made of its
state and condition; orders are given where necessary for further care,
for completion of stipulated quantity, renewals, changes of situation for
better soil; and rewards and punishments are distributed to the planters
as they appear, from the degree of their industry or remissness,
deserving of either. Minutes of all these are entered in the survey-book,
which, beside giving present information to the chief, and to the
governor and council, to whom a copy is transmitted, serves as a guide
and check for the survey of the succeeding year. An abstract of the form
of the book is as follows. It is divided into sundry columns, containing
the name of the village; the names of the planters; the number of
chinkareens planted; the number of vines just planted; of young vines,
not in a bearing state, three classes or years; of young vines in a
bearing state, three classes; of vines in prime; of those on decline; of
those that are old, but still productive; the total number; and lastly
the quantity of pepper received during the year. A space is left for
occasional remarks, and at the conclusion is subjoined a comparison of
the totals of each column, for the whole district or residency, with
those of the preceding year. This business the reader will perceive to be
attended with considerable trouble, exclusive of the actual fatigue of
the surveys, which from the nature of the country must necessarily be
performed on foot, in a climate not very favourable to such excursions.
The journeys in few places can be performed in less than a month, and
often require a much longer time.

The arrival of the Company's Resident at each dusun is considered as a
period of festivity. The chief, together with the principal inhabitants,
entertain him and his attendants with rustic hospitality, and when he
retires to rest, his slumbers are soothed, or interrupted, by the songs
of young females, who never fail to pay this compliment to the respected
guest; and receive in return some trifling ornamental and useful presents
(such as looking-glasses, fans, and needles) at his departure.

SUCCESSION OF GARDENS.

The inhabitants, by the original contracts of the headmen with the
Company, are obliged to plant a certain number of vines; each family one
thousand, and each young unmarried man five hundred; and, in order to
keep up the succession of produce, so soon as their gardens attain to
their prime state, they are ordered to prepare others, that they may
begin to bear as the old ones fall off; but as this can seldom be
enforced till the decline becomes evident, and as young gardens are
liable to various accidents which older ones are exempt from, the
succession is rendered incomplete, and the consequence is that the annual
produce of each district fluctuates, and is greater or less in the
proportion of the quantity of bearing vines to the whole number. To enter
minutely into the detail of this business will not afford much
information or entertainment to the generality of readers, who will
however be surprised to hear that pepper-planting, though scarcely an
art, so little skill appears to be employed in its cultivation, has
nevertheless been rendered an abstruse science by the investigations
which able men have bestowed upon the subject. These took their rise from
censures conveyed for supposed mismanagement, when the investment, or
annual provision of pepper, decreased in comparison with preceding years,
and which was not satisfactorily accounted for by unfavourable seasons.
To obviate such charges it became necessary for those who superintended
the business to pay attention to and explain the efficient causes which
unavoidably occasioned this fluctuation, and to establish general
principles of calculation by which to determine at any time the probable
future produce of the different residencies. These will depend upon a
knowledge of the medium produce of a determinate number of vines, and the
medium number to which this produce is to be applied; both of which are
to be ascertained only from a comprehensive view of the subject, and a
nice discrimination. Nothing general can be determined from detached
instances. It is not the produce of one particular plantation in one
particular stage of bearing and in one particular season, but the mean
produce of all the various classes of bearing vines collectively, drawn
from the experience of several years, that can alone be depended on in
calculations of this nature. So in regard to the median number of vines
presumed to exist at any residency in a future year, to which the medium
produce of a certain number, one thousand, for instance, is to be
applied, the quantity of young vines of the first, second, and third year
must not be indiscriminately advanced, in their whole extent, to the next
annual stage, but a judicious allowance founded on experience must be
made for the accidents to which, in spite of a resident's utmost care,
they will be exposed. Some are lost by neglect or death of the owner;
some are destroyed by inundations, others by elephants and wild
buffaloes, and some by unfavourable seasons, and from these several
considerations the number of vines will ever be found considerably
decreased by the time they have arrived at a bearing state. Another
important object of consideration in these matters is the comparative
state of a residency at any particular period with what may be justly
considered as its medium state. There must exist a determinate proportion
between any number of bearing vines and such a number of young as are
necessary to replace them when they go off and keep up a regular
succession. This will depend in general upon the length of time before
they reach a bearing state and during which they afterwards continue in
it. If this certain proportion happens at any time to be disturbed the
produce must become irregular. Thus, if at any period the number of
bearing vines shall be found to exceed their just proportion to the total
number, the produce at such period is to be considered as above the mean,
and a subsequent decrease may with certainty be predicted, and vice
versa. If then this proportion can be known, and the state of population
in a residency ascertained, it becomes easy to determine the true medium
number of bearing vines in that residency.

There are, agreeably to the form of the survey book, eleven stages or
classes of vines, each advanced one year. Of these classes six are
bearing and five young. If therefore the gardens were not liable to
accidents, but passed on from column to column undiminished, the true
proportion of the bearing vines to the young would be as six to five, or
to the total, as six to eleven. But the various contingencies above
hinted at must tend to reduce this proportion; while, on the other hand,
if any of the gardens should continue longer than is necessary to pass
through all the stages on the survey-book, or should remain more than one
year in a prime state, these circumstances would tend to increase the
proportion. What then is the true medium proportion can only be
determined from experience, and by comparing the state of a residency at
various successive periods. In order to ascertain this point a very
ingenious gentleman and able servant of the East India Company, Mr. John
Crisp, to whom I am indebted for the most part of what I have laid before
the reader on this part of the subject, drew out in the year 1777 a
general comparative view of Manna residency, from the surveys of twelve
years, annexing the produce of each year. From the statement it appeared
that the proportion of the bearing vines to the whole number in that
district was no more than 5.1 to 11, instead of 6 to 11, which would be
the proportion if not reduced by accidents; and further that, when the
whole produce of the twelve years was diffused over the whole number of
bearing vines during that period, the produce of one thousand vines came
out to be four hundred and fifty-three pounds, which must therefore be
estimated as the medium produce of that residency. The same principle of
calculation being applied to the other residencies, it appeared that the
mean annual produce of one thousand vines, in all the various stages of
bearing, taken collectively throughout the country, deduced from the
experience of twelve years, was four hundred and four pounds. It likewise
became evident from the statements drawn out by that gentleman that the
medium annual produce of the Company's settlements on the west coast of
Sumatra ought to be estimated at twelve hundred tons, of sixteen hundred
weight; which is corroborated by an average of the actual receipts for
any considerable number of years.

Thus much will be sufficient to give the reader an idea of
pepper-planting as a kind of science. How far in a commercial light this
produce answers the Company's views in supporting the settlements, is
foreign from my purpose to discuss, though it is a subject on which not a
little might be said. It is the history of the island and its
inhabitants, and not of the European interests, that I attempt to lay
before the public.

SPECIES OF PEPPER.

The natives distinguish three species of pepper, which are called at
different places by different names. At Laye, in the Rejang country, they
term them lado kawur, lado manna, and lado jambi, from the parts where
each sort is supposed to prevail, or from whence it was first brought to
them. The lado kawur, or Lampong pepper, is the strongest plant, and
bears the largest leaf and fruit; is slower in coming to perfection than
the second, but of much longer duration. The leaf and fruit of the lado
manna are somewhat smaller, and it has this peculiarity, that it bears
soon and in large quantities, but seldom passes the third or fourth
year's crop. The jambi, which has deservedly fallen into disrepute, is of
the smallest leaf and fruit, very short-lived, and not without difficulty
trained to the chinkareen. In some places to the southward they
distinguish two kinds only, lado sudul and lado jambi. Lado sulur and
lado anggor are not distinctions of species; the former denoting the
cuttings of young creeping shoots commonly planted, in opposition to the
latter, which is the term for planting by layers.

SEASONS.

The season of the pepper-vines bearing, as well as that of most other
fruit-trees on Sumatra, is subject to great irregularities, owing perhaps
to the uncertainty of the monsoons, which are not there so strictly
periodical as on the western side of India. Generally speaking however
the pepper produces two crops in the year; one called the greater crop
(pupul agung) between the months of October and March; the other called
the lesser or half crop (buah sello) between the months of April and
September, which is small in proportion as the former has been
considerable, and vice versa. Sometimes in particular districts they will
be employed in gathering it in small quantities during the whole year
round, whilst perhaps in others the produce of that year is confined to
one crop; for, although the regular period between the appearance of the
blossom and maturity is about four months, the whole does not ripen at
once, and blossoms are frequently found on the same vine with green and
ripe fruit. In Laye residency the principal harvest of pepper in the year
1766 was gathered between the months of February and May; in 1767 and
1768 about September and October; in 1778 between June and August; and
for the four succeeding years was seldom received earlier than November
and December. Long-continued droughts, which sometimes happen, stop the
vegetation of the vines and retard the produce. This was particularly
experienced in the year 1775, when, for a period of about eight months,
scarcely a shower of rain fell to moisten the earth. The vines were
deprived of their foliage, many gardens perished and a general
destruction was expected. But this apparent calamity was attended with a
consequence not foreseen, though analogous to the usual operations of
nature in that climate. The natives, when they would force a tree that is
backward to produce fruit, strip it of its leaves, by which means the
nutritive juices are reserved for that more important use, and the
blossoms soon begin to show themselves in abundance. A similar effect was
displayed in the pepper gardens by the inclemency of the season. The
vines, as soon as the rains began to descend, threw out blossoms in a
profusion unknown before; old gardens which had been unprolific for two
or three years began to bear; and accordingly the crop of 1776/1777
considerably surpassed that of many preceding years.

TRANSPORTATION OF PEPPER.

The pepper is mostly brought down from the country on rafts (rakit),
which are sometimes composed of rough timbers, but usually of large
bamboos, with a platform of split bamboos to keep the cargo dry. They are
steered at both head and stern, in the more rapid rivers with a kind of
rudder, or scull rather, having a broad blade fixed in a fork or crutch.
Those who steer are obliged to exert the whole strength of the body in
those places especially where the fall of water is steep, and the course
winding; but the purchase of the scull is of so great power that they can
move the raft bodily across the river when both ends are acted upon at
the same time. But, notwithstanding their great dexterity and their
judgment in choosing the channel, they are liable to meet with
obstruction in large trees and rocks, which, from the violence of the
stream, occasion their rafts to be overset, and sometimes dashed to
pieces.

It is a generally received opinion that pepper does not sustain any
damage by an immersion in seawater; a circumstance that attends perhaps a
fourth part of the whole quantity shipped from the coast. The surf,
through which it is carried in an open boat, called a sampan lonchore,
renders such accidents unavoidable. This boat, which carries one or two
tons, being hauled up on the beach and there loaded, is shoved off, with
a few people in it, by a number collected for that purpose, who watch the
opportunity of a lull or temporary intermission of the swell. A
tambangan, or long narrow vessel, built to contain from ten to twenty
tons, (peculiar to the southern part of the coast), lies at anchor
without to receive the cargoes from the sampans. At many places, where
the kwallas, or mouths of the rivers, are tolerably practicable, the
pepper is sent out at once in the tambangans over the bar; but this,
owing to the common shallowness of the water and violence of the surfs,
is attended with considerable risk. Thus the pepper is conveyed either to
the warehouses at the head-settlement or to the ship from Europe lying
there to receive it. About one-third part of the quantity of black pepper
collected, but none of the white, is annually sent to China. Of the
extent and circumstances of the trade in pepper carried on by private
merchants (chiefly American) at the northern ports of Nalabu, Susu, and
Mukki, where it is managed by the subjects of Achin, I have not any
accurate information, and only know that it has increased considerably
during the last twelve years.

NUTMEGS AND CLOVES.

It is well known with what jealousy and rigour the Batavian government
has guarded against the transplantation of the trees producing nutmegs
and cloves from the islands of Banda and Amboina to other parts of India.
To elude its vigilance many attempts have been made by the English, who
considered Sumatra to be well adapted, from its local circumstances, to
the cultivation of these valuable spices; but all proved ineffectual,
until the reduction of the eastern settlements in 1796 afforded the
wished for opportunity, which was eagerly seized by Mr. Robert Broff, at
that period chief of the Residency of Fort Marlborough. As the culture is
now likely to become of importance to the trade of this country, and the
history of its introduction may hereafter be thought interesting, I shall
give it in Mr. Broff's own words:

The acquisition of the nutmeg and clove plants became an object of my
solicitude the moment I received by Captain Newcombe, of his Majesty's
ship Orpheus, the news of the surrender of the islands where they are
produced; being convinced, from the information I had received, that the
country in the neighbourhood of Bencoolen, situated as it is in the same
latitude with the Moluccas, exposed to the same periodical winds, and
possessing the same kind of soil, would prove congenial to their culture.
Under this impression I suggested to the other members of the Board the
expediency of freighting a vessel for the twofold purpose of sending
supplies to the forces at Amboina, for which they were in distress, and
of bringing in return as many spice-plants as could be conveniently
stowed. The proposition was acceded to, and a vessel, of which I was the
principal owner (no other could be obtained), was accordingly dispatched
in July 1806; but the plan was unfortunately frustrated by the imprudent
conduct of a person on the civil establishment to whom the execution was
entrusted. Soon afterwards however I had the good fortune to be more
successful, in an application I made to Captain Hugh Moore, who commanded
the Phoenix country ship, to undertake the importation, stipulating with
him to pay a certain sum for every healthy plant he should deliver.

FIRST INTRODUCTION.

Complete success attended the measure: he returned in July 1798, and I
had the satisfaction of planting myself, and distributing for that
purpose, a number of young nutmeg and a few clove trees in the districts
of Bencoolen and Silebar, and other more distant spots, in order to
ascertain from experience the situations best adapted to their growth. I
particularly delivered to Mr. Charles Campbell, botanist, a portion to be
under his own immediate inspection; and another to Mr. Edward Coles, this
gentleman having in his service a family who were natives of a spice
island and had been used to the cultivation. When I quitted the coast in
January 1799 I had the gratification of witnessing the prosperous state
of the plantations, and of receiving information from the quarters where
they had been distributed of their thriving luxuriantly; and since my
arrival in England various letters have reached me to the same effect. To
the merit therefore of introducing this important article, and of forming
regulations for its successful culture, I put in my exclusive claim; and
am fully persuaded that if a liberal policy is adopted it will become of
the greatest commercial advantage to the Company and to the nation.

...

Further light will be thrown upon this subject and the progress of the
cultivation by the following extract of a letter to me from Mr. Campbell,
dated in November 1803:

Early in the year 1798 Mr. Broff, to whom the highest praise is due for
his enterprising and considerative scheme of procuring the spice trees
from our newly-conquered islands (after experiencing much disappointment
and want of support) overcame every obstacle, and we received, through
the agency of Mr. Jones, commercial resident at Amboina, five or six
hundred nutmeg plants, with about fifty cloves; but these latter were not
in a vigorous state. They were distributed and put generally under my
inspection. Their culture was attended with various success, but Mr.
Coles, from the situation of his farm, near Silebar River but not too
close to the seashore, and from, I believe, bestowing more personal
attention than any of us, has outstripped his competitors. Some trees
which I planted as far inland as the Sugar-loaf Mountain blossomed with
his, but the fruit was first perfected in his ground. The plants were
dispatched from Amboina in March 1798, just bursting from the shell, and
two months ago I plucked the perfect fruit, specimens of which I now send
you; being a period of five years and nine months only; whereas in their
native land eight years at least are commonly allowed. Having early
remarked the great promise of the trees I tried by every means in my
power to interest the Bengal government in our views, and at length, by
the assistance of Dr. Roxburgh, I succeeded.

SECOND IMPORTATION OF PLANTS.

A few months ago his son arrived here from Amboina, with twenty-two
thousand nutmeg plants, and upwards of six thousand cloves, which are
already in my nurseries, and flourishing like those which preceded them.
About the time the nutmegs fruited one clove tree flowered. Only three of
the original importation had survived their transit and the accidents
attending their planting out. Its buds are now filling, and I hope to
transmit specimens of them also. The Malay chiefs have eagerly engaged in
the cultivation of their respective shares. I have retained eight
thousand nutmegs as a plantation from which the fruit may hereafter be
disseminated. Every kind of soil and every variety of situation has been
tried. The cloves are not yet widely dispersed, for, being a tender
plant, I choose to have them under my own eye.

...

Since the death of Mr. Campbell Mr. Roxburgh has been appointed to the
superintendence, and the latest accounts from thence justify the sanguine
expectations formed of the ultimate importance of the trade; there being
at that period upwards of twenty thousand nutmeg trees in full bearing,
capable of yielding annually two hundred thousand pounds weight of
nutmegs, and fifty thousand pounds of mace. The clove plants have proved
more delicate, but the quality of their spice equal to any produced in
the Moluccas.

CULTURE LEFT TO INDIVIDUALS.

It is understood that the Company has declined the monopoly of the trade
and left the cultivation to individual exertion; directing however that
its own immediate plantations be kept up by the labour of convicts from
Bengal, and reserving to itself an export duty of ten per cent on the
value of the spices.

CAMPHOR.

Among the valuable productions of the island as articles of commerce a
conspicuous place belongs to the camphor.

This peculiar substance, called by the natives kapur-barus,* and
distinguished by the epithet of native camphor from another sort which
shall be mentioned hereafter, is a drug for which Sumatra and Borneo have
been celebrated from the earliest times, and with the virtues of which
the Arabian physicians appear to have been acquainted. Chemists formerly
entertained opinions extremely discordant in regard to the nature and the
properties of camphor; and even at this day they seem to be but
imperfectly known. It is considered however as a sedative and powerful
diaphoretic: but my province is to mention such particulars of its
history as have come within my knowledge, leaving to others to
investigate its most beneficial uses.

(*Footnote. The word kapur appears to be derived from the Sanskrit
karpura, and the Arabic and Persian kafur (from whence our camphor) to
have been adopted from the language of the country where the article is
produced. Barus is the name of a place in Sumatra.)

PLACE OF GROWTH.

The tree is a native of the northern parts of the island only, not being
found to the southward of the line, nor yet beyond the third degree of
north latitude. It grows without cultivation in the woods lying near to
the sea-coast, and is equal in height and bulk to the largest timber
trees, being frequently found upwards of fifteen feet in circumference.

WOOD.

For carpenters' purposes the wood is in much esteem, being easy to work,
light, durable, and not liable to be injured by insects, particularly by
the kumbang, a species of the bee, whose destructive perforations have
been already mentioned; but is also said to be more affected than most
others by the changes of the atmosphere. The leaf is small, of a roundish
oval, the fibres running straight and parallel to each other, and
terminates in a remarkably long and slender point. The flower has not yet
been brought to England. The fruit is described by C.F. Gaertner (De
Seminibus Volume 3 page 49 tab. 186) by the name of Dryobalanops
aromatica, from specimens in the collection of Sir Joseph Banks; but he
has unaccountably mistaken it for the cinnamon tree, and spoken of it as
a native of Ceylon. It is also described, from the same specimens, by M.
Correa de Serra (Annales du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle Tome 10 page 159
plate 8) by the name of Pterigium teres; without any reference whatever
to the nature of the tree as yielding this valuable drug. A beautiful
engraving of its very peculiar foliage has been made under the direction
of Mr. A.B. Lambert.

CAMPHOR FOUND IN THE FISSURES.

The camphor is found in the concrete state in which we see it, in natural
fissures or crevices of the wood, but does not exhibit any exterior
appearance by which its existence can be previously ascertained, and the
persons whose employment it is to collect it usually cut down a number of
trees, almost at random, before they find one that contains a sufficient
quantity to repay their labour, although always assisted in their
research by a professional conjurer, whose skill must be chiefly employed
in concealing or accounting for his own mistakes. It is said that not a
tenth part of the number felled is productive either of camphor or of
camphor-oil (meniak kapur), although the latter is less rare; and that
parties of men are sometimes engaged for two or three months together in
the forests, with very precarious success. This scarcity tends to enhance
the price. The tree when cut down is divided transversely into several
blocks, and these again are split with wedges into small pieces, from the
interstices of which the camphor, if any there be, is extracted. That
which comes away readily in large flakes, almost transparent, is esteemed
the prime sort or head; the smaller, clean pieces are considered as
belly, and the minute particles, chiefly scraped from the wood, and often
mixed with it, are called foot; according to the customary terms adopted
in the assortment of drugs. The mode of separating it from these and
other impurities is by steeping and washing it in water, and sometimes
with the aid of soap. It is then passed through sieves or screens of
different apertures in order to make the assortment, so far as that
depends upon the size of the grains; but much of the selection is also
made by hand, and particular care is taken to distinguish from the more
genuine kinds that which is produced by an artificial concretion of the
essential oil.

CAMPHOR OIL.

The inquiries I formerly made on the subject (not having been myself in
the district where the tree grows) led me to believe with confidence that
the oil and the dry crystallized resin were not procured from the same
individual tree; but in this I was first undeceived by Mr. R. Maidman,
who in June 1788 wrote to me from Tappanuli, where he was resident, to
the following effect:

I beg your acceptance of a piece of camphor-wood, the genuine quality of
which I can answer for, being cut by one of my own people, who was
employed in making charcoal, of which the best for smiths' work is made
from this wood. On cutting deep into a pretty large tree the fine oil
suddenly gushed out and was lost for want of a receiver. He felled the
tree, and, having split it, brought me three or four catties (four or
five pounds) of the finest camphor I ever saw, and also this log, which
is very rich. My reason for being thus particular is that the country
people have a method of pouring oil of inferior camphor-trees into a log
of wood that has natural cracks, and, by exposing this to the sun every
day for a week, it appears like genuine camphor; but is the worst sort.

...

This coexistence of the two products has been since confirmed to me by
others, and is particularly stated by Mr. Macdonald in his ingenious
paper on certain Natural Productions of Sumatra, published in the Asiatic
Researches Volume 4 Calcutta 1795. It seems probable on the whole that,
as the tree advances in age, a greater proportion of this essential oil
takes a concrete form, and it has been observed to me that, when the
fresh oil has been allowed to stand and settle, a sediment of camphor is
procured; but the subject requires further examination by well-informed
persons on the spot.

PRICE.

Head camphor is usually purchased from those who procure it at the rate
of six Spanish dollars the pound, or eight dollars the catty, and sells
in the China market at Canton for nine to twelve dollars the pound, or
twelve to fifteen hundred dollars the pekul of a hundred catties or one
hundred thirty-three pounds and a third, avoirdupois. When of superior
quality it sells for two thousand dollars, and I have been assured that
some small choice samples have produced upwards of thirty dollars per
catty.* It is estimated that the whole quantity annually brought down for
sale on the western side of the island does not exceed fifty pekul. The
trade is chiefly in the hands of the Achinese settled at Sinkell, who buy
the article from the Batta people and dispose of it to the Europeans and
Chinese settlers.

(*Footnote. See Price Currents of the China trade. Camphor was purchased
in Sumatra by Commodore Beaulieu in 1622 at the rate of fifteen Spanish
dollars for twenty-eight ounces, which differs but little from the modern
price. In the Transactions of the Society at Batavia it appears that the
camphor of Borneo sells in their market for 3200 rix dollars, and that of
Japan for 50 rix dollars the pekul.)

JAPAN CAMPHOR.

It has been commonly supposed that the people of China or Japan prepare a
factitious substance resembling native camphor, and impregnated with its
virtues by the admixture of a small quantity of the genuine, which is
sold to the Dutch factory for thirty or forty dollars the pekul, sent to
Holland, and afterwards refined to the state in which we see it in our
shops, where it is sold at eight to twelve shillings the pound. It
appears however an extraordinary circumstance that any article could
possibly be so adulterated, bearing at the same time the likeness and
retaining the sensible qualities of its original, as that the dealers
should be enabled, with profit to themselves to resell it for the
fiftieth part of the price they gave. But, upon inquiry of an ingenious
person long resident in China, I learned that the Japan camphor is by no
means a factitious substance, but the genuine produce of a tree growing
in abundance in the latter country, different in every character from
that of Sumatra or Borneo, and well known to our botanists by the name of
Laurus camphora, L. He further informed me that the Chinese never mix the
Sumatran camphor with that from Japan, but purchase the former for their
own use, at the before-mentioned extravagant price, from an idea of its
efficacy, probably superstitious, and export the latter as a drug not
held in any particular estimation. Thus we buy the leaves of their
tea-plant at a high rate and neglect herbs, the natives of our own soil,
possessing perhaps equal virtues. It is known also that the Japan
camphor, termed factitious, will evaporate till it wholly disappears, and
at all stages of its diminution retain its full proportion of strength;
which does not seem the property of an adulterated or compounded body.
Kaempfer informs us that it is prepared from a decoction of the wood and
roots of the tree cut into small pieces; and the form of the lumps in
which it is brought to us shows that it has undergone a process. The
Sumatran sort, though doubtless from its extreme volatility it must be
subject to decrease, does not lose any very sensible quantity from being
kept, as I find from the experience of many years that it has been in my
possession. It probably may not be very easy to ascertain its superiority
over the other in the materia medica, not being brought for sale to this
country, nor generally administered; but from a medical person who
practised at Bencoolen I learned that the usual dose he gave was from
half a grain to one or two grains at the most. The oil, although hitherto
of little importance as an article of commerce, is a valuable domestic
medicine, and much used by the natives as well as Europeans in cases of
strains, swellings, and rheumatic pains; its particles, from their
extreme subtlety, readily entering the pores. It undergoes no
preparation, and is used in the state in which, upon incision, it has
distilled from the tree. The kayu putih (Melaleuca leucadendron) oil,
which is somewhat better known in England, is obtained in the same
manner; but to procure the meniak kayu or common wood-oil, used for
preserving timber or boards exposed to the weather, from decay, and for
boiling with dammar to pay the bottoms of ships and boats, the following
method is practised. They make a transverse incision into the tree to the
depth of some inches, and then cut sloping down from the notch, till they
leave a flat superficies. This they hollow out to a capacity to receive
about a quart. They then put into the hollow a bit of lighted reed, and
let it remain for about ten minutes, which, acting as a stimulus, draws
the fluid to that part. In the space of a night the liquor fills the
receptacle prepared for it, and the tree continues to yield a lesser
quantity for three successive nights, when the fire must be again
applied: but on a few repetitions it is exhausted.

BENZOIN.

Benzoin or Benjamin (Styrax benzoin*) called by the Malays kami­nian, is,
like the camphor, found almost exclusively in the Batta country, to the
northward of the equator, but not in the Achinese dominions immediately
beyond that district. It is also met with, though rarely, south of the
line, but there, either from natural inferiority or want of skill in
collecting it, the small quantity produced is black and of little value.
The tree does not grow to any considerable size, and is of no value as
timber. The seeds or nuts, which are round, of a brown colour, and about
the size of a moderate bolus, are sown in the padi-fields and afterwards
require no other cultivation than to clear away the shrubs from about the
young plants. In some places, especially near the sea-coast, large
plantations of it are formed, and it is said that the natives, sensible
of the great advantage accruing to them from the trade, in a national
point of view, oblige the proprietors, by legal regulation, to keep up
the succession.

(*Footnote. See a Botanical Description of this tree by my friend Mr.
Jonas Dryander, with a plate, in Volume 77 page 307 of the Philosophical
Transactions for the year 1787.)

MODE OF PROCURING IT.

When the trees have attained the age of about seven years, and are six or
eight inches in diameter, incisions are made in the bark, from whence the
balsam or gum (as it is commonly termed, although being soluble in
spirits and not in water, it is rather a resin) exudes, which is
carefully pared off. The purest of the gum, or Head benzoin, is that
which comes from these incisions during the first three years, and is
white, inclining to yellow, soft, and fragrant; after which it gradually
changes to the second sort, which is of a reddish yellow, degenerating to
brown; and at length when the tree, which will not bear a repetition of
the process for more than ten or twelve years, is supposed to be worn
out, they cut it down, and when split in pieces procure, by scraping, the
worst sort, or Foot benzoin, which is dark coloured, hard, and mixed more
or less with parings of the wood and other impurities. The Head is
further distinguished into Europe and India-head, of which the first is
superior, and is the only sort adapted to the home market: the latter,
with most of the inferior sorts, is exported to Arabia,* Persia, and some
parts of India, where it is burned to perfume with its smoke their
temples and private houses, expel troublesome insects, and obviate the
pernicious effects of unwholesome air or noxious exhalations; in addition
to which uses, in the Malayan countries, it is always considered as a
necessary part of the apparatus in administering an oath. It is brought
down from the country for sale in large cakes, called tampang, covered
with mats; and these, as a staple commodity, are employed in their
dealings for a standard of value, to which the price of other things have
reference, as in most parts of the world to certain metals. In order to
pack it in chests it is necessary to soften the coarser sorts with
boiling water; for the finer it is sufficient to break the lumps and to
expose it to the heat of the sun. The greater part of the quantity
brought to England is re-exported from thence to countries where the
Roman Catholic and Mahometan religions prevail, to be there burnt as
incense in the churches and temples.** The remainder is chiefly employed
in medicine, being much esteemed as an expectorant and styptic, and
constitutes the basis of that valuable balsam distinguished by the name
of Turlington, whose very salutary effects, particularly in healing green
and other wounds, is well known to persons abroad who cannot always
obtain surgical assistance. It is also employed, if I am not misinformed,
in the preparation of court sticking-plaster. The gum or resin called
dulang is named by us scented benzoin from its peculiar fragrance. The
rasamala (Lignum papuanum of Rumphius, and Altingia excelsa of the
Batavian Transactions) is a sort of wild benzoin, of little value, and
not, in Sumatra, considered as an object of commerce.

(*Footnote. Les Arabes tirent beaucoup d'autres sortes d'encens de
l'Habbesch, de Sumatra, Siam, Java, etc. et parmi celles-la une qu'ils
appellent Bachor (bakhor) Java, et que les Anglois nomment Benzoin, est
tres semblable a l'Oliban. On en exporte en grande quantite en Turquie
parles golfes d'Arabie et de Perse, et la moindre des trois especes de
Benzoin, que les marchands vendent, est estimee meilleure que l'Oliban
d'Arabie. Niebuhr, Description de l'Arabie page 126.)

(**Footnote. According to Mr. Jackson the annual importation of Benzoin
at Mogodor from London is about 13,000 pounds annually.)

CASSIA.

Cassia or kulit manis (Laurus cassia) is a coarse species of cinnamon
which flourishes chiefly, as well as the two foregoing articles, in the
northern part of the island; but with this difference, that the camphor
and benzoin grow only near the coast, whereas the cassia is a native of
the central parts of the country. It is mostly procured in those
districts which lie inland of Tapanuli, but it is also found in Musi,
where Palembang River takes its rise. The leaves are about four inches
long, narrower than the bay (to which tribe it belongs) and more pointed;
deep green; smooth surface, and plain edge. The principal fibres take
their rise from the peduncle. The young leaves are mostly of reddish hue.
The blossoms grow six in number upon slender foot­stalks, close to the
bottom of the leaf. They are monopetalous, small, white, stellated in six
points. The stamina are six, with one stile, growing from the germen,
which stands up in three brownish segments, resembling a cup. The trees
grow from fifty to sixty feet high, with large, spreading, horizontal
branches, almost as low as the earth. The root is said to contain much
camphor that may be obtained by boiling or other processes unknown on
Sumatra. No pains is bestowed on the cultivation of the cassia. The bark,
which is the part in use, is commonly taken from such of the trees as are
a foot or eighteen inches diameter, for when they are younger it is said
to be so thin as to lose all its qualities very soon. The difference of
soil and situation alters considerably the value of the bark. Those trees
which grow in a high rocky soil have red shoots, and the bark is superior
to that which is produced in a moist clay, where the shoots are green. I
have been assured by a person of extensive knowledge that the cassia
produced on Sumatra is from the same tree which yields the true cinnamon,
and that the apparent difference arises from the less judicious manner of
quilling it. Perhaps the younger and more tender branches should be
preferred; perhaps the age of the tree or the season of the year ought to
be more nicely attended to; and lastly I have known it to be suggested
that the mucilaginous slime which adheres to the inside of the fresh
peeled rind does, when not carefully wiped off, injure the flavour of the
cassia and render it inferior to that of the cinnamon. I am informed that
it has been purchased by Dutch merchants at our India sales, where it
sometimes sold to much loss, and afterwards by them shipped for Spain as
cinnamon, being packed in boxes which had come from Ceylon with that
article. The price it bears in the island is about ten or twelve dollars
the pecul.

RATTANS.

Rattans or rotan (Calamus rotang) furnish annually many large cargoes,
chiefly from the eastern side of the island, where the Dutch buy them to
send to Europe; and the country traders for the western parts of India.
Walking-canes, or tongkat, of various kinds, are also produced near the
rivers which open to the straits of Malacca.

COTTON.

In almost every part of the country two species of cotton are cultivated,
namely, the annual sort named kapas (Gossypium herbaceum), and the shrub
cotton named kapas besar (Gossypium herboreum). The cotton produced from
both appears to be of very good quality, and might, with encouragement,
be procured in any quantities; but the natives raise no more than is
necessary for their own domestic manufactures. The silk cotton or kapok
(bombax) is also to be met with in every village. This is, to appearance,
one of the most beautiful raw materials the hand of nature has presented.
Its fineness, gloss, and delicate softness render it, to the sight and
touch, much superior to the labour of the silkworm; but owing to the
shortness and brittleness of the staple it is esteemed unfit for the reel
and loom, and is only applied to the unworthy purpose of stuffing pillows
and mattresses. Possibly it has not undergone a fair trial in the hands
of our ingenious artists, and we may yet see it converted into a valuable
manufacture. It grows in pods, from four to six inches long, which burst
open when ripe. The seeds entirely resemble the black pepper, but are
without taste. The tree is remarkable from the branches growing out
perfectly straight and horizontal, and being always three, forming equal
angles, at the same height: the diminutive shoots likewise grow flat; and
the several gradations of branches observe the same regularity to the
top. Some travellers have called it the umbrella tree, but the piece of
furniture called a dumb-waiter exhibits a more striking picture of it.

BETEL-NUT.

The betel-nut or pinang (Areca catechu) before mentioned is a
considerable article of traffic to the coast of Coromandel or Telinga,
particularly from Achin.

COFFEE.

The coffee-trees are universally planted, but the fruit produced here is
not excellent in quality, which is probably owing entirely to the want of
skill in the management of them. The plants are disposed too close to
each other, and are so much overshaded by other trees that the sun cannot
penetrate to the fruit; owing to which the juices are not well ripened,
and the berries, which become large, do not acquire a proper flavour. Add
to this that the berries are gathered whilst red, which is before they
have arrived at a due degree of maturity, and which the Arabs always
permit them to attain to, esteeming it essential to the goodness of the
coffee. As the tree is of the same species with that cultivated in Arabia
there is little doubt but with proper care this article might be produced
of a quality equal, perhaps superior, to that imported from the West
Indies; though probably the heavy rains on Sumatra may prevent its
attaining to the perfection of the coffee of Mocha.*

(*Footnote. For these observations on the growth of the coffee, as well
as many others on the vegetable productions of the island, I am indebted
to the letters of Mr. Charles Miller, entered on the Company's records at
Bencoolen, and have to return him my thanks for many communications since
his return to England. On the subject of this article of produce I have
since received the following interesting information from the late Mr.
Charles Campbell in a letter dated November 1803. "The coffee you
recollect on this coast I found so degenerated from want of culture and
care as not to be worth the rearing. But this objection has been removed,
for more than three years ago I procured twenty-five plants from Mocha;
they produced fruit in about twenty months, are now in their second crop,
and loaded beyond any fruit-trees I ever saw. The average produce is
about eight pounds a tree; but so much cannot be expected in extensive
plantations, nor in every soil. The berries are in no respect inferior in
flavour to those of the parent country." This cultivation, I am happy to
hear, has since been carried to a great extent.)


(PLATE 2. THE DAMMAR, A SPECIES OF PINUS.
Sinensis delt. Swaine Sc.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)


DAMMAR.

The dammar is a kind of turpentine or resin from a species of pine, and
used for the same purposes to which that and pitch are applied. It is
exported in large quantities to Bengal and elsewhere. It exudes, or
flows rather, spontaneously from the tree in such plenty that there is no
need of making incisions to procure it. The natives gather it in lumps
from the ground where it has fallen, or collect it from the shores of
bays and rivers whither it has floated. It hangs from the bough of the
tree which produces it in large pieces, and hardening in the air it
becomes brittle and is blown off by the first high wind. When a quantity
of it has fallen in the same place it appears like a rock, and thence,
they say, or more probably from its hardness, it is called dammar batu;
by which name it is distinguished from the dammar kruyen. This is another
species of turpentine, yielded by a tree growing in Lampong, called
kruyen, the wood of which is white and porous. It differs from the common
sort, or dammar batu, in being soft and whitish, having the consistence
and somewhat the appearance of putty. It is in much estimation for paying
the bottoms of vessels, for which use, to give it firmness and duration,
it ought to be mixed with some of the hard kind, of which it corrects the
brittleness. The natives, in common, do not boil it, but rub or smear it
on with their hands; a practice which is probably derived from indolence,
unless, as I have been informed, that boiling it, without oil, renders it
hard. To procure it, an incision is made in the tree.

DRAGONS-BLOOD.

Dragons-blood, Sanguis draconis, or jaranang, is a drug obtained from a
large species of rattan, called rotan jaranang, growing abundantly in the
countries of Palembang and Jambi, where it is manufactured and exported,
in the first instance to Batavia, and from thence to China, where it is
held in much estimation; but whether it be precisely the drug of our
shops, so named, I cannot take upon me to determine. I am informed that
it is prepared in the following manner: the stamina and other parts of
fructification of this plant, covered with the farina, are mixed with a
certain proportion of white dammar, and boiled in water until the whole
is well incorporated, and the water evaporated; by which time the
composition has acquired a red colour, and, when rubbed between the
fingers, comes off in a dry powder. Whilst soft, it is usually poured
into joints of small bamboo, and shipped in that state. According to this
account, which I received from my friend Mr. Philip Braham, who had an
opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of the process, the resinous quality
of the drug belongs only to the dammar, and not to the rotan.

GAMBIR.

Gambir, or gatah gambir, is a juice extracted from the leaves of a plant
of that name, inspissated by decoction, strained, suffered to cool and
harden, and then cut into cakes of different shapes, or formed into
balls. It is very generally eaten by the natives with their sirih or
betel, and is supposed to have the property of cleansing and sweetening
the mouth; for which reason it is also rubbed to the gums of infants. For
a minute detail of the culture and manufacture of this article at Malacca
see the Batavian Transactions Volume 2 page 356, where the plant is
classed between the portlandia and roella of L. In other places it is
obtained from a climbing or trailing plant, evidently the Funis uncatus
of Rumphius.* See also Observations on the Nauclea Gambir, by Mr. W.
Hunter, in the Linnean Transactions Volume 9 page 218. At Siak, Kampar,
and Indragiri, on the eastern side of Sumatra, it is an important article
of commerce.

(*Footnote. Hoc unum adhuc addendum est, in Sumatra nempe ac forte in
Java aliam quoque esse plantam repentem gatta gambir akar dictam, qum
forte unae eaedemque erunt plantae; ac verbum akar Malaiensibus denotat
non tantum radicem, sed repentem quoque fruticem. Volume 5 page 64.)

LIGNUM ALOES.

The agallochin, agila-wood, or lignum aloes, called by the natives
kalambak and kayu gahru, is highly prized in all parts of the East, for
the fragrant scent it emits in burning. I find these two names used
indiscriminately in Malayan writings, and sometimes coupled together; but
Valentyn pronounces the gahru to be an inferior species, and the Batavian
Catalogue describes it as the heart of the rasamala, and different from
the genuine kalambak. This unctuous substance, which burns like a resin,
is understood to be the decayed, and probably disordered, part of the
tree. It is described by Kaempfer (Amaenit page 903) under the Chinese
name of sinkoo, and by Dr. Roxburgh under that of Aquillaria agallocha.

TIMBER.

The forests contain an inexhaustible store and endless variety of timber
trees, many sorts of which are highly valuable and capable of being
applied to ship-building and other important purposes. On the western
coast the general want of navigable rivers has materially hindered both
the export and the employment of timber; but those on the eastern side,
particularly Siak, have heretofore supplied the city of Batavia with
great abundance, and latterly the naval arsenal at Pulo Pinang with what
is required for the construction of ships of war.

TEAK.

The teak however, the pride of Indian forests, called by the Malays jati
(Tectona grandis, L.), does not appear to be indigenous to this island,
although flourishing to the northward and southward of it, in Pegu and
Java; and I believe it is equally a stranger to the Malayan peninsula.
Attempts have been made by the servants of the Company to promote its
cultivation. Mr. Robert Hay had a plantation near Bencoolen, but the
situation seemed unfavourable. Mr. John Marsden, when resident of Laye in
the year 1776, sowed some seeds of it, and distributed a quantity amongst
the inhabitants of his district. The former, at least, throve
exceedingly, as if in their natural soil. The appearance of the tree is
stately, the leaves are broad and large, and they yield, when squeezed, a
red juice. The wood is well known to be, in many respects, preferable to
oak, working more kindly, surpassing it in durability, and having the
peculiar property of preserving the iron bolts driven into it from rust;
a property that may be ascribed to the essential oil or tar contained in
it, and which has lately been procured from it in large quantities by
distillation at Bombay. Many ships built at that place have continued to
swim so long that none could recollect the period at which they were
launched.

POON, ETC.

For masts and yards the wood preferred is the red bintangur (a species of
uvaria), which in all the maritime parts of India has obtained the name
of poon or puhn, from the Malayan word signifying tree in general; as
puhn upas, the poison-tree, puhn kayu, a timber-tree, etc.

The camphor-wood, so useful for carpenters' purposes, has been already
mentioned.

Kayu pindis or kapini (species of metrosideros), is named also kayu besi,
or iron-wood, on account of its extraordinary hardness, which turns the
edge of common tools.

Marbau (Metrosideros amboinensis, R.) grows to a large size, and is used
for beams both in ship and house­building, as well as for other purposes
to which oak is applied in Europe. Pinaga is valuable as crooked timber,
and used for frames and knees of ships, being also very durable. It
frequently grows in the wash of the sea.

Juar, ebony, called in the Batavian Catalogue kayu arang, or
charcoal-wood, is found here in great plenty.

Kayu gadis, a wood possessing the flavour and qualities of the sassafras,
and used for the same purposes in medicine, but in the growth of the tree
resembling rather our elm than the laurus (to which latter tribe the
American sassafras belongs), is very common in the plains near Bencoolen.

Kayu arau (Casuarina littorea) is often termed a bastard-pine, and as
such gave name to the Isle of Pines discovered by Captain Cook. By the
Malays it is usually called kayu chamara, from the resemblance of its
branches to the ornamental cowtails of Upper India. It has been already
remarked of this tree, whose wood is not particularly useful, that it
delights in a low sandy soil, and is ever the first that springs up from
land relinquished by the sea.

The rangas or rungi, commonly supposed to be the manchineel of the West
Indies, but perhaps only from the noxious quality of its juices, is the
Arbor vernicis of Rumphius, and particularly described in the Batavian
Transactions Volume 5 under the name of Manga deleteria sylvestris,
fructu parvo cordiformi. In a list of plants in the same volume, by F.
Norona, it is termed Anacardium encardium. The wood has some resemblance
to mahogany, is worked up into articles of furniture, and resists the
destructive ravages of the white ant, but its hardness and acrid sap,
which blisters the hands of those employed about it, are objections to
its general use. I am not aware of the natives procuring a varnish from
this tree.

Of the various sorts of tree producing dammar, some are said to be
valuable as timber, particularly the species called dammar laut, not
mentioned by Rumphius, which is employed at Pulo Pinang for frame timbers
of ships, beams, and knees.

Kamuning (camunium, R. chalcas paniculata, Lour.) is a light-coloured
wood, close, and finely grained, takes an exquisite polish, and is used
for the sheaths of krises. There is also a red-grained sort, in less
estimation. The appearance of the tree is very beautiful, resembling in
its leaves the larger myrtle, with a white flower.

The langsani likewise is a wood handsomely veined, and is employed for
cabinet and carved work.

Beside these the kinds of wood most in use are the madang, ballam,
maranti, laban, and marakuli. The variety is much greater, but many, from
their porous nature and proneness to decay, are of very little value, and
scarcely admit of seasoning before they become rotten.

I cannot quit the vegetable kingdom without noticing a tree which,
although of no use in manufacture or commerce, not peculiar to the
island, and has been often described, merits yet, for its extreme
singularity, that it should not be passed over in silence. This is the
jawi-jawi and ulang-ulang of the Malays, the banyan tree of the
continent, the Grossularia domestica of Rumphius, and the Ficus indica or
Ficus racemosa of Linnaeus. It possesses the uncommon property of
dropping roots or fibres from certain parts of its boughs, which, when
they touch the earth, become new stems, and go on increasing to such an
extent that some have measured, in circumference of the branches, upwards
of a thousand feet, and have been said to afford shelter to a troop of
horse.* These fibres, that look like ropes attached to the branches, when
they meet with any obstruction in their descent conform themselves to the
shape of the resisting body, and thus occasion many curious
metamorphoses. I recollect seeing them stand in the perfect shape of a
gate long after the original posts and cross piece had decayed and
disappeared; and I have been told of their lining the internal
circumference of a large bricked well, like the worm in a distiller's
tub; there exhibiting the view of a tree turned inside out, the branches
pointing to the centre, instead of growing from it. It is not more
extraordinary in its manner of growth than whimsical and fantastic in its
choice of situations. From the side of a wall or the top of a house it
seems to spring spontaneously. Even from the smooth surface of a wooden
pillar, turned and painted, I have seen it shoot forth, as if the
vegetative juices of the seasoned timber had renewed their circulation
and begun to produce leaves afresh. I have seen it flourish in the centre
of a hollow tree of a very different species, which however still
retained its verdure, its branches encompassing those of the adventitious
plant whilst its decayed trunk enclosed the stem, which was visible, at
interstices, from nearly the level of the plain on which they grew. This
in truth appeared so striking a curiosity that I have often repaired to
the spot to contemplate the singularity of it. How the seed from which it
is produced happens to occupy stations seemingly so unnatural is not
easily determined. Some have imagined the berries carried thither by the
wind, and others, with more appearance of truth, by the birds; which,
cleansing their bills where they light, or attempt to light, leave, in
those places, the seeds adhering by the viscous matter which surrounds
them. However this be, the jawi-jawi, growing on buildings without earth
or water, and deriving from the genial atmosphere its principle of
nourishment, proves in its increasing growth highly destructive to the
fabric where it is harboured; for the fibrous roots, which are at first
extremely fine, penetrate common cements, and, overcoming as their size
enlarges the most powerful resistance, split, with the force of the
mechanic wedge, the most substantial brickwork. When the consistence is
such as not to admit the insinuation of the fibres the root extends
itself along the outside, and to an extraordinary length, bearing not
unfrequently to the stem the proportion of eight to one when young. I
have measured the former sixty inches, when the latter, to the extremity
of the leaf, which took up a third part, was no more than eight inches. I
have also seen it wave its boughs at the apparent height of two hundred
feet, of which the roots, if we may term them such, occupied at least one
hundred; forming by their close combination the appearance of a venerable
gothic pillar. It stood near the plains of Krakap, but, like other
monuments of antiquity, it had its period of existence, and is now no
more.

(*Footnote. The following is an account of the dimensions of a remarkable
banyan or burr tree, near Manjee, twenty miles west of Patna in Bengal.
Diameter 363 to 375 feet. Circumference of shadow at noon 1116 feet.
Circumference of the several stems, in number fifty or sixty, 921 feet.
Under this tree sat a naked Fakir, who had occupied that situation for
twenty-five years; but he did not continue there the whole year through,
for his vow obliged him to lie, during the four cold months, up to his
neck in the waters of the river Ganges.)


(PLATE 18. ENTRANCE OF PADANG RIVER.
With Buffaloes.)


(PLATE 18A. VIEW OF PADANG HILL.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)



CHAPTER 8.

GOLD, TIN, AND OTHER METALS.
BEESWAX.
IVORY.
BIRDS-NEST, ETC.
IMPORT-TRADE.

GOLD.

Beside those articles of trade afforded by the vegetable kingdom Sumatra
produces many others, the chief of which is gold. This valuable metal is
found mostly in the central parts of the island; none (or with few
exceptions) being observed to the southward of Limun, a branch of Jambi
River, nor to the northward of Nalabu, from which port Achin is
principally supplied. Menangkabau has always been esteemed the richest
seat of it; and this consideration probably induced the Dutch to
establish their head factory at Padang, in the immediate neighbourhood of
that kingdom. Colonies of Malays from thence have settled themselves in
almost all the districts where gold is procured, and appear to be the
only persons who dig for it in mines, or collect it in streams; the
proper inhabitants or villagers confining their attention to the raising
of provisions, with which they supply those who search for the metal.
Such at least appears to be the case in Limun, Batang Asei, and Pakalang
jambu, where a considerable gold trade is carried on.

It has been generally understood at the English settlements that earth
taken up from the beds of rivers, or loosened from the adjacent banks,
and washed by means of rivulets diverted towards the newly-opened ground,
furnishes the greater proportion of the gold found in the island, and
that the natives are not accustomed to venture upon any excavation that
deserves the name of mining; but our possession, during the present war,
of the settlements that belonged to the Dutch, has enabled us to form
juster notions on the subject, and the following account, obtained from
well-informed persons on the spot, will show the methods pursued in both
processes, and the degree of enterprise and skill employed by the
workmen.

In the districts situated inland of Padang, which is the principal mart
for this article, little is collected otherwise than from mines (tambang)
by people whose profession it is to work them, and who are known by the
appellation of orang gulla. The metal brought down for sale is for the
most part of two sorts, distinguished by the terms amas supayang and amas
sungei-abu, from the names of places where they are respectively
procured. The former is what we usually call rock-gold, consisting of
pieces of quartz more or less intermixed with veins of gold, generally of
fine quality, running through it in all directions, and forming beautiful
masses, which, being admired by Europeans, are sometimes sold by weight
as if the whole were solid metal. The mines yielding this sort are
commonly situated at the foot of a mountain, and the shafts are driven
horizontally to the extent of from eight to twenty fathoms. The gold to
which sungei-abu gives name is on the contrary found in the state of
smooth solid lumps, in shape like gravel, and of various sizes, the
largest lump that I have seen weighing nine ounces fifteen grains, and
one in my possession (for which I am indebted to Mr. Charles Holloway)
weighing eight grains less than nine ounces. This sort is also termed
amas lichin or smooth gold, and appears to owe that quality to its having
been exposed, in some prior state of the soil or conformation of the
earth, to the action of running water, and deprived of its sharp and
rough edges by attrition. This form of gravel is the most common in which
gold is discovered. Gold-dust or amas urei is collected either in the
channels of brooks running over ground rich in the metal, in standing
pools of water occasioned by heavy rains, or in a number of holes dug in
a situation to which a small rapid stream can be directed.

The tools employed in working the mines are an iron crow three feet in
length, called tabah, a shovel called changkul, and a heavy iron mallet
or hammer, the head of which is eighteen inches in length and as thick as
a man's leg, with a handle in the middle. With this they beat the lumps
of rock till they are reduced to powder, and the pounded mass is then put
into a sledge or tray five or six feet long and one and a half broad, in
the form of a boat, and thence named bidu. To this vessel a rope of iju
is attached, by which they draw it when loaded out of the horizontal mine
to the nearest place where they can meet with a supply of water, which
alone is employed to separate the gold from the pulverized quartz.

In the perpendicular mines the smooth or gravel-gold is often found near
the surface, but in small quantities, improving as the workmen advance,
and again often vanishing suddenly. This they say is most likely to be
the case when after pursuing a poor vein they suddenly come to large
lumps. When they have dug to the depth of four, six, or sometimes eight
fathoms (which they do at a venture, the surface not affording any
indications on which they can depend), they work horizontally, supporting
the shaft with timbers; but to persons acquainted with the berg-werken of
Germany or Hungary, these pits would hardly appear to merit the
appellation of mines.* In Siberia however, as in Sumatra, the hills yield
their gold by slightly working them. Sand is commonly met with at the
depth of three or four fathoms, and beneath this a stratum of napal or
steatite, which is considered as a sign that the metal is near; but the
least fallible mark is a red stone, called batu kawi, lying in detached
pieces. It is mostly found in red and white clay, and often adhering to
small stones, as well as in homogeneous lumps. The gold is separated from
the clay by means of water poured on a hollow board, in the management of
which the persons employed are remarkably expert.

(*Footnote. It has been observed to me that it is not so much the want of
windlasses or machines (substitutes for which they are ready enough at
contriving) that prevents excavation to a great depth as the apprehension
of earthquakes, the effect of which has frequently been to overwhelm them
before they could escape even from their shallow mines.)

In these perpendicular mines the water is drawn off by hand in pails or
buckets. In the horizontal they make two shafts or entries in a direction
parallel to each other, as far as they mean to extend the work, and there
connect them by a cross trench. One of these, by a difference in their
respective levels, serves as a drain to carry off the water, whilst the
other is kept dry. They work in parties of from four or five to forty or
fifty in number; the proprietor of the ground receiving one half of the
produce and the undertakers the other; and it does not appear that the
prince receives any established royalty. The hill people affect a kind of
independence or equality which they express by the term of sama rata.

It may well be imagined that mines of this description are very numerous,
and in the common estimation of the natives they amount to no fewer than
twelve hundred in the dominions of Menangkabau. A considerable proportion
of their produce (perhaps one half) never comes into the hands of
Europeans but is conveyed to the eastern side of the island, and yet I
have been assured on good authority that from ten to twelve thousand
ounces have annually been received, on public and private account, at
Padang alone; at Nalabu about two thousand, Natal eight hundred, and
Moco-moco six hundred. The quality of the gold collected in the Padang
districts is inferior to that purchased at Natal and Moco-moco, in
consequence of the practice of blending together the unequal produce of
such a variety of mines which in other parts it is customary to keep
distinct. The gold from the former is of the fineness of from nineteen to
twenty-one, and from the latter places is generally of from twenty-two to
twenty-three carats. The finest that has passed through my hands was
twenty-three carats, one grain and a half, assayed at the Tower of
London. Gold of an inferior touch, called amas muda from the paleness of
its colour, is found in the same countries where the other is produced. I
had some assayed which was two carats three grains worse than standard,
and contained an alloy of silver, but not in a proportion to be affected
by the acids. I have seen gold brought from Mampawah in Borneo which was
in the state of a fine uniform powder, high-coloured, and its degree of
fineness not exceeding fifteen or sixteen carats. The natives suppose
these differences to proceed from an original essential inferiority of
the metal, not possessing the art of separating it from the silver or
copper. In this island it is never found in the state of ore, but is
always completely metallic. A very little pale gold is now and then found
in the Lampong country.

Of those who dig for it the most intelligent, distinguished by the name
of sudagar or merchants, are intrusted by the rest with their
collections, who carry the gold to the places of trade on the great
eastern rivers, or to the settlements on the west coast, where they
barter it for iron (of which large quantities are consumed in tools for
working the mines), opium, and the fine piece-goods of Madras and Bengal
with which they return heavily loaded to their country. In some parts of
the journey they have the convenience of water-carriage on lakes and
rivers; but in others they carry on their backs a weight of about eighty
pounds through woods, over streams, and across mountains, in parties
generally of one hundred or more, who have frequent occasion to defend
their property against the spirit of plunder and extortion which prevails
among the poorer nations through whose districts they are obliged to
pass. Upon the proposal of striking out any new road the question always
asked by these intermediate people is, apa ontong kami, what is to be our
advantage?

PRICE.

When brought to our settlements it was formerly purchased at the rate of
eighteen Spanish dollars the tail, or about three pounds five shillings
the ounce, but in later times it has risen to twenty-one dollars, or to
three pounds eighteen shillings the ounce. Upon exportation to Europe
therefore it scarcely affords a profit to the original buyer, and others
who employ it as a remittance incur a loss when insurance and other
incidental charges are deducted. A duty of five per cent which it had
been customary to charge at the East India-house was, about twenty years
ago, most liberally remitted by the Company upon a representation made by
me to the Directors of the hardship sustained in this respect by its
servants at Fort Marlborough, and the public benefit that would accrue
from giving encouragement to the importation of bullion. The long
continuance of war and peculiar risk of Indian navigation resulting from
it may probably have operated to counteract these good effects.

It has generally been thought surprising that the European Companies who
have so long had establishments in Sumatra should not have considered it
an object to work these mines upon a regular system, with proper
machinery, and under competent inspection; but the attempt has in fact
been made, and experience and calculation may have taught them that it is
not a scheme likely to be attended with success, owing among other causes
to the dearness of labour, and the necessity it would occasion for
keeping up a force in distant parts of the country for the protection of
the persons engaged and the property collected. Europeans cannot be
employed upon such work in that climate, and the natives are unfit for
(nor would they submit to) the laborious exertion required to render the
undertaking profitable. A detailed and in many respects interesting
account of the working a gold mine at Sileda, with a plate representing a
section of the mine, is given by Elias Hesse,* who in the year 1682
accompanied the Bergh-Hoofdman, Benj. Olitzsch, and a party of miners
from Saxony, sent out by the Dutch East India Company for that purpose.
The superintendent, with most of his people, lost their lives, and the
undertaking failed. It is said at Padang that the metal proved to be
uncommonly poor. Many years later trial was made of a vein running close
to that settlement; but the returns not being adequate to the expense it
was let to farm, and in a few years fell into such low repute as to be at
length disposed of by public auction at a rent of two Spanish dollars.**
The English company, also having intelligence of a mine said to be
discovered near Fort Marlborough, gave orders for its being worked; but
if it ever existed no trace now remains.

(*Footnote. Ost-Indische Reise-beschreibung oder Diarium. Leipzig 1690
octavo. See also J.W. Vogel's Ost-Indianische Reise-beschreibung.
Altenburg 1704 octavo.)

(**Footnote. The following is an extract of a letter from Mr. James
Moore, a servant of the Company, dated from Padang in 1778. "They have
lately opened a vein of gold in the country inland of this place, from
which the governor at one time received a hundred and fifty tials (two
hundred ounces). He has procured a map to be made of a particular part of
the gold country, which points out the different places where they work
for it; and also the situation of twenty-one Malay forts, all inhabited
and in repair. These districts are extremely populous compared to the
more southern part of the island. They collect and export annually to
Batavia about two thousand five hundred tials of gold from this place:
the quantity never exceeds three thousand tials nor falls short of two
thousand." This refers to the public export on the Company's account,
which agrees with what is stated in the Batavian Transactions. "In een
goed Jaar geeven de Tigablas cottas omtrent 3000 Thail, zynde 6 Thail een
Mark, dus omtrent 500 Mark Goud, van 't gchalte van 19 tot 20 carat.")

Before the gold dust is weighed for sale, in order to cleanse it from all
impurities and heterogeneous mixtures, whether natural or fraudulent,
(such as filings of copper or of iron) a skilful person is employed who,
by the sharpness of his eye and long practice, is able to effect this to
a surprising degree of nicety. The dust is spread out on a kind of wooden
platter, and the base particles (lanchong) are touched out from the mass
and put aside one by one with an instrument, if such it may be termed,
made of cotton cloth rolled up to a point. If the honesty of these
gold­cleaners can be depended upon their dexterity is almost infallible;
and as some check upon the former it is usual to pour the contents of
each parcel when thus cleansed into a vessel of aqua-fortis, which puts
their accuracy to the test. The parcels or bulses in which the gold is
packed up are formed of the integument that covers the heart of the
buffalo. This has the appearance of bladder, but is both tougher and more
pliable. In those parts of the country where the traffic in the article
is considerable it is generally employed as currency instead of coin;
every man carries small scales about him, and purchases are made with it
so low as to the weight of a grain or two of padi. Various seeds are used
as gold weights, but more especially these two: the one called rakat or
saga-timbangan (Glycine abrus L. or Abrus maculatus of the Batavian
Transactions) being the well-known scarlet pea with a black spot,
twenty-four of which constitute a mas, and sixteen mas a tail: the other
called saga­puhn and kondori batang (Adenanthera pavonia, L.), a scarlet
or rather coral bean, much larger than the former and without the black
spot. It is the candarin-weight of the Chinese, of which a hundred make a
tail, and equal, according to the tables published by Stevens, to 5.7984
gr. troy; but the average weight of those in my possession is 10.50
grains. The tail differs however in the northern and southern parts of
the island, being at Natal twenty-four pennyweights nine grains, and at
Padang, Bencoolen, and elsewhere, twenty-six pennyweights twelve grains.
At Achin the bangkal of thirty pennyweights twenty-one grains, is the
standard. Spanish dollars are everywhere current, and accounts are kept
in dollars, sukus (imaginary quarter-dollars) and kepping or copper cash,
of which four hundred go to the dollar. Beside these there are silver
fanams, single, double, and treble (the latter called tali) coined at
Madras, twenty-four fanams or eight talis being equal to the Spanish
dollar, which is always valued in the English settlements at five
shillings sterling. Silver rupees have occasionally been struck in Bengal
for the use of the settlements on the coast of Sumatra, but not in
sufficient quantities to become a general currency; and in the year 1786
the Company contracted with the late Mr. Boulton of Soho for a copper
coinage, the proportions of which I was desired to adjust, as well as to
furnish the inscriptions; and the same system, with many improvements
suggested by Mr. Charles Wilkins, has since been extended to the three
Presidencies of India. At Achin small thin gold and silver coins were
formerly struck and still are current; but I have not seen any of the
pieces that bore the appearance of modern coinage; nor am I aware that
this right of sovereignty is exercised by any other power in the island.

TIN.

Tin, called timar, is a very considerable article of trade, and many
cargoes of it are yearly carried to China, where the consumption is
chiefly for religious purposes. The mines are situated in the island of
Bangka, lying near Palembang, and are said to have been accidentally
discovered there in 1710, by the burning of a house. They are worked by a
colony of Chinese (said in the Batavian Transactions to consist of
twenty-five thousand persons) under the nominal direction of the king of
Palembang, but for the account and benefit of the Dutch Company, which
has endeavoured to monopolize the trade, and actually obtained two
millions of pounds yearly; but the enterprising spirit of private
merchants, chiefly English and American, finds means to elude the
vigilance of its cruisers, and the commerce is largely participated by
them. It is exported for the most part in small pieces or cakes called
tampang, and sometimes in slabs. M. Sonnerat reports that this tin (named
calin by the French writers), was analysed by M. Daubenton, who found it
to be the same metal as that produced in England; but it sells something
higher than our grain-tin. In different parts of Sumatra, there are
indications of tin-earth, or rather sand, and it is worked at the
mountain of Sungei-pagu, but not to any great extent. Of this sand, at
Bangka, a pikul, or 133 pounds is said to yield about 75 pounds of the
metal.

COPPER.

A rich mine of copper is worked at Mukki near Labuan-haji, by the
Achinese. The ore produces half its original weight in pure metal, and is
sold at the rate of twenty dollars the pikul. A lump which I deposited in
the Museum of the East India Company is pronounced to be native copper.
The Malays are fond of mixing this metal with gold in equal quantities,
and using the composition, which they name swasa, in the manufacture of
buttons, betel-boxes, and heads of krises. I have never heard silver
spoken of as a production of this part of the East.

IRON.

Iron ore is dug at a place named Turawang, in the eastern part of
Menangkabau, and there smelted, but not, I apprehend, in large
quantities, the consumption of the natives being amply supplied with
English and Swedish bar-iron, which they are in the practice of
purchasing by measure instead of weight.

SULPHUR.

Sulphur (balerang), as has been mentioned, is abundantly procured from
the numerous volcanoes, and especially from that very great one which is
situated about a day's journey inland from Priaman. Yellow Arsenic
(barangan) is also an article of traffic.

SALTPETRE.

In the country of Kattaun, near the head of Urei River, there are
extensive caves (goha) from the soil of which saltpetre (mesiyu mantah)
is extracted. M. Whalfeldt, who was employed as a surveyor, visited them
in March 1773. Into one he advanced seven hundred and forty­three feet,
when his lights were extinguished by the damp vapour. Into a second he
penetrated six hundred feet, when, after getting through a confined
passage about three feet wide and five in height, an opening in the rock
led to a spacious place forty feet high. The same caves were visited by
Mr. Christopher Terry and Mr. Charles Miller. They are the habitation of
innumerable birds, which are perceived to abound the more the farther you
proceed. Their nests are formed about the upper parts of the cave, and it
is thought to be their dung simply that forms the soil (in many places
from four to six feet deep, and from fifteen to twenty broad) which
affords the nitre. A cubic foot of this earth, measuring seven gallons,
produced on boiling seven pounds fourteen ounces of saltpetre, and a
second experiment gave a ninth part more. This I afterwards saw refined
to a high degree of purity; but I conceive that its value would not repay
the expense of the process.

BIRDS-NEST.

The edible birds-nest, so much celebrated as a peculiar luxury of the
table, especially amongst the Chinese, is found in similar caves in
different parts of the island, but chiefly near the sea-coast, and in the
greatest abundance at its southern extremity. Four miles up the river
Kroi there is one of considerable size. The birds are called
layang-layang, and resemble the common swallow, or perhaps rather the
martin. I had an opportunity of giving to the British Museum some of
these nests with the eggs in them. They are distinguished into white and
black, of which the first are by far the more scarce and valuable, being
found in the proportion of one only to twenty-five. The white sort sells
in China at the rate of a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars the pikul
(according to the Batavian Transactions for nearly its weight in silver),
the black is usually disposed of at Batavia at about twenty or thirty
dollars for the same weight, where I understand it is chiefly converted
into a kind of glue. The difference between the two sorts has by some
been supposed to be owing to the mixture of the feathers of the birds
with the viscous substance of which the nests are formed; and this they
deduce from the experiment of steeping the black nests for a short time
in hot water, when they are said to become white to a certain degree.
Among the natives I have heard a few assert that they are the work of a
different species of bird. It was also suggested to me that the white
might probably be the recent nests of the season in which they were
taken, and the black such as had been used for several years
successively. This opinion appearing plausible, I was particular in my
inquiries as to that point, and learned what seems much to corroborate
it. When the natives prepare to take the nests they enter the cave with
torches, and, forming ladders of bamboos notched according to the usual
mode, they ascend and pull down the nests, which adhere in numbers
together, from the sides and top of the rock. I was informed that the
more regularly the cave is thus stripped the greater proportion of white
nests they are sure to find, and that on this experience they often make
a practice of beating down and destroying the old nests in larger
quantities than they trouble themselves to carry away, in order that they
may find white nests the next season in their room. The birds, I am
assured, are seen, during the building time, in large flocks upon the
beach, collecting in their beaks the foam thrown up by the surf, of which
there appears little doubt of their constructing their gelatinous nests,
after it has undergone, perhaps, some preparation from commixture with
their saliva or other secretion in the beak or the craw; and that this is
the received opinion of the natives appears from the bird being very
commonly named layang-buhi, the foam-swallow. Linnaeus however has
conjectured, and with much plausibility, that it is the animal substance
frequently found on the beach which fishermen call blubber or jellies,
and not the foam of the sea, that these birds collect; and it is proper
to mention that, in a Description of these Nests by M. Hooyman, printed
in Volume 3 of the Batavian Transactions, he is decidedly of opinion that
the substance of them has nothing to do with the sea-foam but is
elaborated from the food of the bird. Mr. John Crisp informed me that he
had seen at Padang a common swallow's nest, built under the eaves of a
house, which was composed partly of common mud and partly of the
substance that constitutes the edible nests. The young birds themselves
are said to be very delicate food, and not inferior in richness of
flavour to the beccafico.

TRIPAN.

The swala, tripan, or sea-slug (holothurion), is likewise an article of
trade to Batavia and China, being employed, as birds-nest or vermicelli,
for enriching soups and stews, by a luxurious people. It sells at the
former place for forty-five dollars per pikul, according to the degree of
whiteness and other qualities.

WAX.

Beeswax is a commodity of great importance in all the eastern islands,
from whence it is exported in large oblong cakes to China, Bengal, and
other parts of the continent. No pains are taken with the bees, which are
left to settle where they list (generally on the boughs of trees) and are
never collected in hives. Their honey is much inferior to that of Europe,
as might be expected from the nature of the vegetation.

GUM-LAC.

Gum-lac, called by the natives ampalu or ambalu, although found upon
trees and adhering strongly to the branches, is known to be the work of
insects, as wax is of the bee. It is procured in small quantities from
the country inland of Bencoolen; but at Padang is a considerable article
of trade. Foreign markets however are supplied from the countries of Siam
and Camboja. It is chiefly valued in Sumatra for the animal part, found
in the nidus of the insect, which is soluble in water, and yields a very
fine purple dye, used for colouring their silks and other webs of
domestic manufacture. Like the cochineal it would probably, with the
addition of a solution of tin, become a good scarlet. I find in a Bisayan
dictionary that this substance is employed by the people of the
Philippine Islands for staining their teeth red. For an account of the
lac insect see in the Philosophical Transactions Volume 71 page 374 a
paper by Mr. James Kerr.

IVORY.

The forests abounding with elephants, ivory (gading) is consequently
found in abundance, and is carried both to the China and Europe markets.
The animals themselves were formerly the objects of a considerable
traffic from Achin to the coast of Coromandel, or kling country, and
vessels were built expressly for their transport; but it has declined, or
perhaps ceased altogether, from the change which the system of warfare
has undergone, since the European tactics have been imitated by the
princes of India.

FISH-ROES.

The large roes of a species of fish (said to be like the shad, but more
probably of the mullet-kind) taken in great quantities at the mouth of
Siak River, are salted and exported from thence to all the Malayan
countries, where they are eaten with boiled rice, and esteemed a
delicacy. This is the botarga of the Italians, and here called trobo and
telur-trobo.

IMPORT-TRADE.

The most general articles of import-trade are the following:

From the coast of Coromandel various cotton goods, as long-cloth, blue
and white, chintz, and coloured handkerchiefs, of which those
manufactured at Pulicat are the most prized; and salt.

From Bengal muslins, striped and plain, and several other kinds of cotton
goods, as cossaes, baftaes, hummums, etc., taffetas and some other silks;
and opium in considerable quantities.

From the Malabar coast various cotton goods, mostly of a coarse raw
fabric.

From China coarse porcelain, kwalis or iron pans, in sets of various
sizes, tobacco shred very fine, gold thread, fans, and a number of small
articles.

From Celebes (known here by the names of its chief provinces, Mangkasar,
Bugis, and Mandar), Java, Balli, Ceram, and other eastern islands, the
rough, striped cotton cloth called kain-sarong, or vulgarly
bugis-clouting, being the universal body-dress of the natives; krises and
other weapons, silken kris-belts, tudongs or hats, small pieces of
ordnance, commonly of brass, called rantaka, spices, and also salt of a
large grain, and sometimes rice, chiefly from Balli.

From Europe silver, iron, steel, lead, cutlery, various sorts of
hardware, brass wire, and broadcloths, especially scarlet.

It is not within my plan to enlarge on this subject by entering into a
detail of the markets for, or prices of, the several articles, which are
extremely fluctuating, according to the more or less abundant or scanty
supply. Most of the kinds of goods above enumerated are incidentally
mentioned in other parts of the work, as they happen to be connected with
the account of the natives who purchase them.


CHAPTER 9.

ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.
ART OF MEDICINE.
SCIENCES.
ARITHMETIC.
GEOGRAPHY.
ASTRONOMY.
MUSIC, ETC.

ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.

I shall now take a view of those arts and manufactures which the
Sumatrans are skilled in, and which are not merely domestic but
contribute rather to the conveniences, and in some instances to the
luxuries, than to the necessaries of life. I must remind the reader that
my observations on this subject are mostly drawn from the Rejangs, or
those people of the island who are upon their level of improvement. We
meet with accounts in old writers of great foundries of cannon in the
dominion of Achin, and it is certain that firearms as well as krises are
at this day manufactured in the country of Menangkabau; but my present
description does not go to these superior exertions of art, which
certainly do not appear among those people of the island whose manners,
more immediately, I am attempting to delineate.

FILIGREE.

What follows, however, would seem an exception to this limitation; there
being no manufacture in that part of the world, and perhaps I might be
justified in saying, in any part of the world, that has been more admired
and celebrated than the fine gold and silver filigree of Sumatra. This
indeed is, strictly speaking, the work of the Malayan inhabitants; but as
it is in universal use and wear throughout the country, and as the
goldsmiths are settled everywhere along the coast, I cannot be guilty of
much irregularity in describing here the process of their art.

MODE OF WORKING IT.

There is no circumstance that renders the filigree a matter of greater
curiosity than the coarseness of the tools employed in the workmanship,
and which, in the hands of a European, would not be thought sufficiently
perfect for the most ordinary purposes. They are rudely and
inartificially formed by the goldsmith (pandei) from any old iron he can
procure. When you engage one of them to execute a piece of work his first
request is usually for a piece of iron hoop to make his wire-drawing
instrument; an old hammer head, stuck in a block, serves for an anvil;
and I have seen a pair of compasses composed of two old nails tied
together at one end. The gold is melted in a piece of a priuk or earthen
rice-pot, or sometimes in a crucible of their own making, of common clay.
In general they use no bellows but blow the fire with their mouths
through a joint of bamboo, and if the quantity of metal to be melted is
considerable three or four persons sit round their furnace, which is an
old broken kwali or iron pot, and blow together. At Padang alone, where
the manufacture is more considerable, they have adopted the Chinese
bellows. Their method of drawing the wire differs but little from that
used by European workmen. When drawn to a sufficient fineness they
flatten it by beating it on their anvil; and when flattened they give it
a twist like that in the whalebone handle of a punch-ladle, by rubbing it
on a block of wood with a flat stick. After twisting they again beat it
on the anvil, and by these means it becomes flat wire with indented
edges. With a pair of nippers they fold down the end of the wire, and
thus form a leaf or element of a flower in their work, which is cut off.
The end is again folded and cut off till they have got a sufficient
number of leaves, which are all laid on singly. Patterns of the flowers
or foliage, in which there is not very much variety, are prepared on
paper, of the size of the gold plate on which the filigree is to be laid.
According to this they begin to dispose on the plate the larger
compartments of the foliage, for which they use plain flat wire of a
larger size, and fill them up with the leaves before mentioned. To fix
their work they employ a glutinous substance made of the small red pea
with a black spot before mentioned, ground to a pulp on a rough stone.
This pulp they place on a young coconut about the size of a walnut, the
top and bottom being cut off. I at first imagined that caprice alone
might have directed them to the use of the coconut for this purpose; but
I have since reflected on the probability of the juice of the young fruit
being necessary to keep the pulp moist, which would otherwise speedily
become dry and unfit for the work. After the leaves have been all placed
in order and stuck on, bit by bit, a solder is prepared of gold filings
and borax, moistened with water, which they strew or daub over the plate
with a feather, and then putting it in the fire for a short time the
whole becomes united. This kind of work on a gold plate they call karrang
papan: when the work is open, they call it karrang trus. In executing the
latter the foliage is laid out on a card, or soft kind of wood covered
with paper, and stuck on, as before described, with the paste of the red
seed; and the work, when finished, being strewed over with their solder,
is put into the fire, when, the card or soft wood burning away, the gold
remains connected. The greatest skill and attention is required in this
operation as the work is often made to run by remaining too long or in
too hot a fire. If the piece be large they solder it at several times.
When the work is finished they give it that fine high colour they so much
admire by an operation which they term sapoh. This consists in mixing
nitre, common salt, and alum, reduced to powder and moistened, laying the
composition on the filigree and keeping it over a moderate fire until it
dissolves and becomes yellow. In this situation the piece is kept for a
longer or shorter time according to the intensity of colour they wish the
gold to receive. It is then thrown into water and cleansed. In the
manufacture of baju buttons they first make the lower part flat, and,
having a mould formed of a piece of buffalo's horn, indented to several
sizes, each like one half of a bullet mould, they lay their work over one
of these holes, and with a horn punch they press it into the form of the
button. After this they complete the upper part. The manner of making the
little balls with which their works are sometimes ornamented is as
follows. They take a piece of charcoal, and, having cut it flat and
smooth, they make in it a small hole, which they fill with gold dust, and
this melted in the fire becomes a little ball. They are very inexpert at
finishing and polishing the plain parts, hinges, screws, and the like,
being in this as much excelled by the European artists as these fall
short of them in the fineness and minuteness of the foliage. The Chinese
also make filigree, mostly of silver, which looks elegant, but wants
likewise the extraordinary delicacy of the Malayan work. The price of the
workmanship depends upon the difficulty or novelty of the pattern. In
some articles of usual demand it does not exceed one-third of the value
of the gold; but, in matters of fancy, it is generally equal to it. The
manufacture is not now (1780) held in very high estimation in England,
where costliness is not so much the object of luxury as variety; but, in
the revolution of taste, it may probably be again sought after and
admired as fashionable.

IRON MANUFACTURES.

But little skill is shown amongst the country people in forging iron.
They make nails however, though not much used by them in building, wooden
pins being generally substituted; also various kinds of tools, as the
prang or bill, the banchi, rembe, billiong, and papatil, which are
different species of adzes, the kapak or axe, and the pungkur or hoe.
Their fire is made with charcoal; the fossil coal which the country
produces being rarely, if ever, employed, except by the Europeans; and
not by them of late years, on the complaint of its burning away too
quickly: yet the report made of it in 1719 was that it gave a surer heat
than the coal from England. The bed of it (described rather as a large
rock above ground) lies four days' journey up Bencoolen River, from
whence quantities are washed down by the floods. The quality of coal is
rarely good near the surface. Their bellows are thus constructed: two
bamboos, of about four inches diameter and five feet in length, stand
perpendicularly near the fire, open at the upper end and stopped below.
About an inch or two from the bottom a small joint of bamboo is inserted
into each, which serve as nozzles, pointing to, and meeting at, the fire.
To produce a stream of air bunches of feathers or other soft substance,
being fastened to long handles, are worked up and down in the upright
tubes, like the piston of a pump. These, when pushed downwards, force the
air through the small horizontal tubes, and, by raising and sinking each
alternately, a continual current or blast is kept up; for which purpose a
boy is usually placed on a high seat or stand. I cannot retrain from
remarking that the description of the bellows used in Madagascar, as
given by Sonnerat, Volume 2 page 60, so entirely corresponds with this
that the one might almost pass for a copy of the other.

CARPENTER'S WORK.

The progress they have made in carpenter's work has been already pointed
out, where there buildings were described.

TOOLS.

They are ignorant of the use of the saw, excepting where we have
introduced it among them. Trees are felled by chopping at the stems, and
in procuring boards they are confined to those the direction of whose
grain or other qualities admit of their being easily split asunder. In
this respect the species called maranti and marakuli have the preference.
The tree, being stripped of its branches and its bark, is cut to the
length required, and by the help of wedges split into boards. These being
of irregular thickness are usually dubbed upon the spot. The tool used
for this purpose is the rembe, a kind of adze. Most of their smaller
work, and particularly on the bamboo, is performed with the papatil,
which resembles in shape as much as in name the patupatu of the New
Zealanders, but has the vast superiority of being made of iron. The
blade, which is fastened to the handle with a nice and curious kind of
rattan-work, is so contrived as to turn in it, and by that means can be
employed either as an adze or small hatchet. Their houses are generally
built with the assistance of this simple instrument alone. The billiong
is no other than a large papatil, with a handle of two or three feet in
length, turning, like that, in its socket.

CEMENTS.

The chief cement they employ for small work is the curd of buffalo­milk,
called prakat. It is to be observed that butter is made (for the use of
Europeans only; the words used by the Malays, for butter and cheese,
monteiga and queijo, being pure Portuguese) not as with us, by churning,
but by letting the milk stand till the butter forms of itself on the top.
It is then taken off with a spoon, stirred about with the same in a flat
vessel, and well washed in two or three waters. The thick sour milk left
at the bottom, when the butter or cream is removed, is the curd here
meant. This must be well squeezed, formed into cakes, and left to dry,
when it will grow nearly as hard as flint. For use you must scrape some
of it off, mix it with quick lime, and moisten it with milk. I think
there is no stronger cement in the world, and it is found to hold,
particularly in a hot and damp climate, much better than glue; proving
also effectual in mending chinaware. The viscous juice of the saga-pea
(abrus) is likewise used in the country as a cement.

INK.

Ink is made by mixing lamp-black with the white of egg. To procure the
former they suspend over a burning lamp an earthen pot, the bottom of
which is moistened, in order to make the soot adhere to it.

DESIGNING.

Painting and drawing they are quite strangers to. In carving, both in
wood and ivory, they are curious and fanciful, but their designs are
always grotesque and out of nature. The handles of the krises are the
most common subjects of their ingenuity in this art, which usually
exhibit the head and beak of a bird, with the folded arms of a human
creature, not unlike the representation of one of the Egyptian deities.
In cane and basketwork they are particularly neat and expert; as well as
in mats, of which some kinds are much prized for their extreme fineness
and ornamental borders.

LOOMS.

Silk and cotton cloths, of varied colours, manufactured by themselves,
are worn by the natives in all parts of the country; especially by the
women. Some of their work is very fine, and the patterns prettily
fancied. Their loom or apparatus for weaving (tunun) is extremely
defective, and renders their progress tedious. One end of the warp being
made fast to a frame, the whole is kept tight, and the web stretched out
by means of a species of yoke, which is fastened behind the body, when
the person weaving sits down. Every second of the longitudinal threads,
or warp, passes separately through a set of reeds, like the teeth of a
comb, and the alternate ones through another set. These cross each other,
up and down, to admit the woof, not from the extremities, as in our
looms, nor effected by the feet, but by turning edgeways two flat sticks
which pass between them. The shuttle (turak) is a hollow reed about
sixteen inches long, generally ornamented on the outside, and closed at
one end, having in it a small bit of stick, on which is rolled the woof
or shoot. The silk cloths have usually a gold head. They use sometimes
another kind of loom, still more simple than this, being no more than a
frame in which the warp is fixed, and the woof darned with a long
small-pointed shuttle. For spinning the cotton they make use of a machine
very like ours. The women are expert at embroidery, the gold and silver
thread for which is procured from China, as well as their needles. For
common work their thread is the pulas before mentioned, or else filaments
of the pisang (musa).

EARTHENWARE.

Different kinds of earthenware, I have elsewhere observed, are
manufactured in the island.

PERFUMES.

They have a practice of perfuming their hair with oil of benzoin, which
they distil themselves from the gum by a process doubtless of their own
invention. In procuring it a priuk, or earthen rice-pot, covered close,
is used for a retort. A small bamboo is inserted in the side of the
vessel, and well luted with clay and ashes, from which the oil drops as
it comes over. Along with the benzoin they put into the retort a mixture
of sugar-cane and other articles that contribute little or nothing to the
quantity or quality of the distillation; but no liquid is added. This oil
is valued among them at a high price, and can only be used by the
superior rank of people.

OIL.

The oil in general use is that of the coconut, which is procured in the
following manner. The fleshy part being scraped out of the nut, which for
this use must be old, is exposed for some time to the heat of the sun. It
is then put into a mat bag and placed in the press (kampahan) between two
sloping timbers, which are fixed together in a socket in the lower part
of the frame, and forced towards each other by wedges in a groove at top,
compressing by this means the pulp of the nut, which yields an oil that
falls into a trough made for its reception below. In the farther parts of
the country this oil also, owing to the scarcity of coconuts, is dear;
and not so much used for burning as that from other vegetables, and the
dammar or rosin, which is always at hand.

TORCHES.

When travelling at night they make use of torches or links, called suluh,
the common sort of which are nothing more than dried bamboos of a
convenient length, beaten at the joints till split in every part, without
the addition of any resinous or other inflammable substance. A superior
kind is made by filling with dammar a young bamboo, about a cubit long,
well dried, and having the outer skin taken off.

These torches are carried with a view, chiefly, to frighten away the
tigers, which are alarmed at the appearance of fire; and for the same
reason it is common to make a blaze with wood in different parts round
their villages. The tigers prove to the inhabitants, both in their
journeys and even their domestic occupations, most fatal and destructive
enemies. The number of people annually slain by these rapacious tyrants
of the woods is almost incredible. I have known instances of whole
villages being depopulated by them. Yet, from a superstitious prejudice,
it is with difficulty they are prevailed upon, by a large reward which
the India Company offers, to use methods of destroying them till they
have sustained some particular injury in their own family or kindred, and
their ideas of fatalism contribute to render them insensible to the risk.

TIGER-TRAPS.

Their traps, of which they can make variety, are very ingeniously
contrived. Sometimes they are in the nature of strong cages, with falling
doors, into which the beast is enticed by a goat or dog enclosed as a
bait; sometimes they manage that a large timber shall fall, in a groove,
across his back; he is noosed about the loins with strong rattans, or he
is led to ascend a plank, nearly balanced, which, turning when he is past
the centre, lets him fall upon sharp stakes prepared below. Instances
have occurred of a tiger being caught by one of the former modes, which
had many marks in his body of the partial success of this last expedient.
The escapes, at times, made from them by the natives are surprising, but
these accounts in general carry too romantic an air to admit of being
repeated as facts. The size and strength of the species which prevails on
this island are prodigious. They are said to break with a stroke of their
forepaw the leg of a horse or a buffalo; and the largest prey they kill
is without difficulty dragged by them into the woods. This they usually
perform on the second night, being supposed, on the first, to gratify
themselves with sucking the blood only. Time is by this delay afforded to
prepare for their destruction; and to the methods already enumerated,
beside shooting them, I should add that of placing a vessel of water,
strongly impregnated with arsenic, near the carcase, which is fastened to
a tree to prevent its being carried off: The tiger having satiated
himself with the flesh, is prompted to assuage his thirst with the
tempting liquor at hand, and perishes in the indulgence. Their chief
subsistence is most probably the unfortunate monkeys with which the woods
abound. They are described as alluring them to their fate, by a
fascinating power, similar to what has been supposed of the snake, and I
am not incredulous enough to treat the idea with contempt, having myself
observed that when an alligator, in a river, comes under an overhanging
bough of a tree, the monkeys, in a state of alarm and distraction, crowd
to the extremity, and, chattering and trembling, approach nearer and
nearer to the amphibious monster that waits to devour them as they drop,
which their fright and number renders almost unavoidable. These
alligators likewise occasion the loss of many inhabitants, frequently
destroying the people as they bathe in the river, according to their
regular custom, and which the perpetual evidence of the risk attending it
cannot deter them from. A superstitious idea of their sanctity also (or,
perhaps, of consanguinity, as related in the journal of the Endeavour's
voyage) preserves these destructive animals from molestation, although,
with a hook of sufficient strength, they may be taken without much
difficulty. A musket-ball appears to have no effect upon their
impenetrable hides.

FISHING.

Besides the common methods of taking fish, of which the seas that wash
the coasts of Sumatra afford an extraordinary variety and abundance, the
natives employ a mode, unpractised, I apprehend, in any part of Europe.
They steep the root of a certain climbing plant, called tuba, of strong
narcotic qualities, in the water where the fish are observed, which
produces such an effect that they become intoxicated and to appearance
dead, float on the surface of the water, and are taken with the hand.
This is generally made use of in the basins of water formed by the ledges
of coral rock which, having no outlet, are left full when the tide has
ebbed.* In the manufacture and employment of the casting-net they are
particularly expert, and scarcely a family near the sea-coast is without
one. To supply this demand great quantities of the pulas twine are
brought down from the hill-country to be there worked up; and in this
article we have an opportunity of observing the effect of that
conformation which renders the handiwork of orientals (unassisted by
machinery) so much more delicate than that of the western people. Mr.
Crisp possessed a net of silk, made in the country behind Padang, the
meshes of which were no wider than a small fingernail, that opened
sixteen feet in diameter. With such they are said to catch small fish in
the extensive lake situated on the borders of Menangkabau.

(*Footnote. In Captain Cook's second voyage is a plate representing a
plant used for the same purpose at Otaheite, which is the exact
delineation of one whose appearance I was well acquainted with in
Sumatra, and which abounds in many parts of the sea-beach, but which is a
different plant from the tuba-akar, but may be another kind, named
tuba-biji. In South America also, we are informed, the inhabitants
procure fish after this extraordinary manner, employing three different
kinds of plants; but whether any of them be the same with that of
Otaheite or Sumatra I am ignorant. I have lately been informed that this
practice is not unknown in England, but has been prohibited. It is termed
foxing: the drug made use of was the Coculus indicus.)

BIRD-CATCHING.

Birds, particularly the plover (cheruling) and quails (puyu) are caught
by snares or springs laid for them in the grass. These are of iju, which
resembles horsehair, many fathoms in length, and disposed in such a
manner as to entangle their feet; for which purpose they are gently
driven towards the snares. In some parts of the country they make use of
clasp-nets. I never observed a Sumatran to fire a shot at a bird, though
many of them, as well as the more eastern people, have a remarkably fine
aim; but the mode of letting off the matchlocks, which are the pieces
most habitual to them, precludes the possibility of shooting flying.

GUNPOWDER.

Gunpowder is manufactured in various parts of the island, but less in the
southern provinces than amongst the people of Menangkabau, the Battas,
and Achinese, whose frequent wars demand large supplies. It appears
however, by an agreement upon record, formed in 1728, that the
inhabitants of Anak-sungei were restricted from the manufacture, which
they are stated to have carried to a considerable extent. It is made, as
with us, of proportions of charcoal, sulphur, and nitre, but the
composition is very imperfectly granulated, being often hastily prepared
in small quantities for immediate use. The last article, though found in
the greatest quantity in the saltpetre-caves before spoken of, is most
commonly procured from goat's dung, which is always to be had in plenty.

SUGAR.

Sugar (as has already been observed) is commonly made for domestic use
from the juice of a species of palm, boiled till a consistence is formed,
but scarcely at all granulated, being little more than a thick syrup.
This spread upon leaves to dry, made into cakes, and afterwards folded up
in a peculiar vegetable substance called upih, which is the sheath that
envelopes the branch of the pinang tree where it is inserted in the stem.
In this state it is called jaggri, and, beside its ordinary uses as
sugar, it is mixed with chunam in making cement for buildings, and that
exquisite plaster for walls which, on the coast of Coromandel, equals
Parian marble in whiteness and polish. But in many parts of the island
sugar is also made from the sugar-cane. The rollers of the mill used for
this purpose are worked by the endless screw instead of cogs, and are
turned with the hand by means of a bar passing through one of the rollers
which is higher than the other. As an article of traffic amongst the
natives it is not considerable, nor have they the art of distilling
arrack, the basis of which is molasses, along with the juice of the anau
or of the coconut palm in a state of fermentation. Both however are
manufactured by Europeans.*

(*Footnote. Many attempts have been made by the English to bring to
perfection the manufacture of sugar and arrack from the canes; but the
expenses, particularly of the slaves, were always found to exceed the
advantages. Within these few years (about 1777) that the plantations and
works were committed to the management of Mr. Henry Botham, it has
manifestly appeared that the end is to be obtained by employing the
Chinese in the works of the field and allowing them a proportion of the
produce for their labour. The manufacture had arrived at considerable
perfection when the breaking out of war gave a check to its progress; but
the path is pointed out, and it may be worth pursuing. The sums of money
thrown into Batavia for arrack and sugar have been immense.)

SALT.

Salt is here, as in most other countries, an article of general
consumption. The demand for it is mostly supplied by cargoes imported,
but they also manufacture it themselves. The method is tedious. They
kindle a fire close to the sea-beach, and gradually pour upon it sea
water. When this has been continued for a certain time, the water
evaporating, and the salt being precipitated among the ashes, they gather
these in baskets, or in funnels made of the bark or leaves of trees, and
again pour seawater on them till the particles of salt are well
separated, and pass with the water into a vessel placed below to receive
them. This water, now strongly impregnated, is boiled till the salt
adheres in a thick crust to the bottom and sides of the vessel. In
burning a square fathom of firewood a skilful person procures about five
gallons of salt. What is thus made has so considerable a mixture of the
salt of the wood that it soon dissolves, and cannot be carried far into
the country. The coarsest grain is preferred.

ART OF MEDICINE.

The art of medicine among the Sumatrans consists almost entirely in the
application of simples, in the virtues of which they are well skilled.
Every old man and woman is a physician, and their rewards depend upon
their success; but they generally procure a small sum in advance under
the pretext of purchasing charms.* The mode of practice is either by
administering the juices of certain trees and herbs inwardly, or by
applying outwardly a poultice of leaves chopped small upon the breast or
part affected, renewing it as soon as it becomes dry. For internal pains
they rub oil on a large leaf of a stimulant quality, and, heating it
before the fire, clap it on the body of the patient as a blister, which
produces very powerful effects. Bleeding they never use, but the people
of the neighbouring island of Nias are famous for their skill in cupping,
which they practise in a manner peculiar to themselves.

(*Footnote. Charms are there hung about the necks of children, as in
Europe, and also worn by persons whose situations expose them to risk.
They are long narrow scrolls of paper, filled with incoherent scraps of
verse, which are separated from each other by a variety of fanciful
drawings. A charm against an ague I once accidentally met with, which
from circumstances I conclude to be a translation of such as are employed
by the Portuguese Christians in India. Though not properly belonging to
my subject, I present it to the reader. "(Sign of the cross). When Christ
saw the cross he trembled and shaked; and they said unto him hast thou an
ague? and he said unto them, I have neither ague nor fever; and whosoever
bears these words, either in writing or in mind, shall never be troubled
with ague or fever. So help thy servants, O Lord, who put their trust in
thee!" From the many folds that appear in the original I have reason to
apprehend that it had been worn, and by some Englishmen, whom frequent
sickness and the fond love of life had rendered weak and superstitious
enough to try the effects of this barbarous and ridiculous quackery.)

FEVERS.

In fevers they give a decoction of the herb lakun, and bathe the patient,
for two or three mornings, in warm water. If this does not prove
effectual, they pour over him, during the paroxysm, a quantity of cold
water, rendered more chilly by the daun sedingin (Cotyledon laciniata)
which, from the sudden revulsion it causes, brings on a copious
perspiration. Pains and swellings in the limbs are likewise cured by
sweating; but for this purpose they either cover themselves over with
mats and sit in the sunshine at noon, or, if the operation be performed
within doors, a lamp, and sometimes a pot of boiling herbs, is enclosed
in the covering with them.

LEPROSY.

There are two species of leprosy known in these parts. The milder sort,
or impetigo, as I apprehend it to be, is very common among the
inhabitants of Nias, great numbers of whom are covered with a white scurf
or scales that renders them loathsome to the sight. But this distemper,
though disagreeable from the violent itching and other inconveniences
with which it is attended, does not appear immediately to affect the
health, slaves in that situation being bought and sold for field and
other outdoor work. It is communicated from parents to their offspring,
but though hereditary it is not contagious. I have sometimes been induced
to think it nothing more than a confirmed stage of the serpigo or
ringworm, or it may be the same with what is elsewhere termed the
shingles. I have known a Nias man who has effected a temporary removal of
this scurf by the frequent application of the golinggang or daun kurap
(Cassia alata) and such other herbs as are used to cure the ringworm, and
sometimes by rubbing gunpowder and strong acids to his skin; but it
always returned after some time. The other species with which the country
people are in some instances affected is doubtless, from the description
given of its dreadful symptoms, that severe kind of leprosy which has
been termed elephantiasis, and is particularly described in the Asiatic
Researches Volume 2, the skin coming off in flakes, and the flesh falling
from the bones, as in the lues venerea. This disorder being esteemed
highly infectious, the unhappy wretch who labours under it is driven from
the village he belonged to into the woods, where victuals are left for
him from time to time by his relations. A prang and a knife are likewise
delivered to him, that he may build himself a hut, which is generally
erected near to some river or lake, continual bathing being supposed to
have some effect in removing the disorder, or alleviating the misery of
the patient. Few instances of recovery have been known. There is a
disease called the nambi which bears some affinity to this, attacking the
feet chiefly, the flesh of which it eats away. As none but the lowest
class of people seem to suffer from this complaint I imagine it proceeds
in a great degree from want of cleanliness.

SMALLPOX.

The smallpox (katumbuhan) sometimes visits the island and makes terrible
ravages. It is regarded as a plague, and drives from the country
thousands whom the infection spares. Their method of stopping its
progress (for they do not attempt a cure) is by converting into a
hospital or receptacle for the rest that village where lie the greatest
number of sick, whither they send all who are attacked by the disorder
from the country round. The most effectual methods are pursued to prevent
any person's escape from this village, which is burnt to the ground as
soon as the infection has spent itself or devoured all the victims thus
offered to it. Inoculation was an idea long unthought of, and, as it
could not be universal, it was held to be a dangerous experiment for
Europeans to introduce it partially, in a country where the disorder
makes its appearance at distant intervals only, unless those periods
could be seized and the attempts made when and where there might be
well-founded apprehension of its being communicated in the natural way.
Such an opportunity presented itself in 1780, when great numbers of
people (estimated at a third of the population) were swept away in the
course of that and the two following years; whilst upon those under the
immediate influence of the English and Dutch settlements inoculation was
practised with great success. I trust that the preventive blessing of
vaccination has or will be extended to a country so liable to be
afflicted with this dreadful scourge. A distemper called chachar, much
resembling the smallpox, and in its first stages mistaken for it, is not
uncommon. It causes an alarm but does not prove mortal, and is probably
what we term the chickenpox.

VENEREAL DISEASE.

The venereal disease, though common in the Malay bazaars, is in the
inland country almost unknown. A man returning to his village with the
infection is shunned by the inhabitants as an unclean and interdicted
person. The Malays are supposed to cure it with the decoction of a
china-root, called by them gadong, which causes a salivation.

INSANITY.

When a man is by sickness or otherwise deprived of his reason, or when
subject to convulsion fits, they imagine him possessed by an evil spirit,
and their ceremony of exorcism is performed by putting the unfortunate
wretch into a hut, which they set fire to about his ears, suffering him
to make his escape through the flames in the best manner he can. The
fright, which would go nigh to destroy the intellects of a reasonable
man, may perhaps have under contrary circumstances an opposite effect.

SCIENCES.

The skill of the Sumatrans in any of the sciences, is, as may be
presumed, very limited.

ARITHMETIC.

Some however I have met with who, in arithmetic, could multiply and
divide, by a single multiplier or divisor, several places of figures.
Tens of thousands (laksa) are the highest class of numbers the Malay
language has a name for. In counting over a quantity of small articles
each tenth, and afterwards each hundredth piece is put aside; which
method is consonant with the progress of scientific numeration, and
probably gave it origin. When they may have occasion to recollect at a
distance of time the tale of any commodities they are carrying to market,
or the like, the country people often assist their memory by tying knots
on a string, which is produced when they want to specify the number. The
Peruvian quipos were I suppose an improvement upon this simple invention.

MEASURES.

They estimate the quantity of most species of merchandise by what we call
dry measure, the use of weights, as applied to bulky articles, being
apparently introduced among them by foreigners; for the pikul and catti
are used only on the sea-coast and places which the Malays frequent. The
kulah or bamboo, containing very nearly a gallon, is the general standard
of measure among the Rejangs: of these eight hundred make a koyan: the
chupah is one quarter of a bamboo. By this measure almost all articles,
even elephants' teeth, are bought and sold; but by a bamboo of ivory they
mean so much as is equal in weight to a bamboo of rice. This still
includes the idea of weight, but is not attended with their principal
objection to that mode of ascertaining quantity which arises, as they
say, from the impossibility of judging by the eye of the justness of
artificial weights, owing to the various materials of which they may be
composed, and to which measurement is not liable. The measures of length
here, as perhaps originally among every people upon earth, are taken from
the dimensions of the human body. The deppa, or fathom, is the extent of
the arms from each extremity of the fingers: the etta, asta, or cubit, is
the forearm and hand; kaki is the foot; jungka is the span; and jarri,
which signifies a finger, is the inch. These are estimated from the
general proportions of middle-sized men, others making an allowance in
measuring, and not regulated by an exact standard.

GEOGRAPHY.

The ideas of geography among such of them as do not frequent the sea are
perfectly confined, or rather they entertain none. Few of them know that
the country they inhabit is an island, or have any general name for it.
Habit renders them expert in travelling through the woods, where they
perform journeys of weeks and months without seeing a dwelling. In places
little frequented, where they have occasion to strike out new paths (for
roads there are none), they make marks on trees for the future guidance
of themselves and others. I have heard a man say, "I will attempt a
passage by such a route, for my father, when living, told me that he had
left his tokens there." They estimate the distance of places from each
other by the number of days, or the proportion of the day, taken up in
travelling it, and not by measurement of the space. Their journey, or
day's walk, may be computed at about twenty miles; but they can bear a
long continuance of fatigue.

ASTRONOMY.

The Malays as well as the Arabs and other Mahometan nations fix the
length of the year at three hundred and fifty-four days, or twelve lunar
months of twenty-nine days and a half; by which mode of reckoning each
year is thrown back about eleven days. The original Sumatrans rudely
estimate their annual periods from the revolution of the seasons, and
count their years from the number of their crops of grain (taun padi); a
practice which, though not pretending to accuracy, is much more useful
for the general purposes of life than the lunar period, which is merely
adapted to religious observances. They as well as the Malays compute time
by lunations, but do not attempt to trace any relation or correspondence
between these smaller measures and the solar revolution. Whilst more
polished nations were multiplying mistakes and difficulties in their
endeavours to ascertain the completion of the sun's course through the
ecliptic, and in the meanwhile suffering their nominal seasons to become
almost the reverse of nature, these people, without an idea of
intercalation, preserved in a rude way the account of their years free
from essential, or at least progressive, error and the confusion which
attends it. The division of the month into weeks I believe to be unknown
except where it has been taught with Mahometanism; the day of the moon's
age being used instead of it where accuracy is required; nor do they
subdivide the day into hours. To denote the time of day at which any
circumstance they find it necessary to speak of happened, they point with
their finger to the height in the sky at which the sun then stood. And
this mode is the more general and precise as the sun, so near the
equator, ascends and descends almost perpendicularly, and rises and sets
at all seasons of the year within a few minutes of six o'clock. Scarcely
any of the stars or constellations are distinguished by them. They notice
however the planet Venus, but do not imagine her to be the same at the
different periods of her revolution when she precedes the rising, and
follows the setting sun. They are aware of the night on which the new
moon should make its appearance, and the Malays salute it with the
discharge of guns. They also know when to expect the returns of the
tides, which are at their height, on the south-western coast of the
island, when that luminary is in the horizon, and ebb as it rises. When
they observe a bright star near the moon (or rubbing against her, as they
express it), they are apprehensive of a storm, as European sailors
foretell a gale from the sharpness of her horns. These are both, in part,
the consequence of an unusual clearness in the air, which, proceeding
from an extraordinary alteration of the state of the atmosphere, may
naturally be followed by a violent rushing of the circumjacent parts to
restore the equilibrium, and thus prove the prognostic of high wind.
During an eclipse they make a loud noise with sounding-instruments to
prevent one luminary from devouring the other, as the Chinese, to
frighten away the dragon, a superstition that has its source in the
ancient systems of astronomy (particularly the Hindu) where the nodes of
the moon are identified with the dragon's head and tail. They tell of a
man in the moon who is continually employed in spinning cotton, but that
every night a rat gnaws his thread and obliges him to begin his work
afresh. This they apply as an emblem of endless and ineffectual labour,
like the stone of Sisyphus, and the sieves of the Danaides.

With history and chronology the country people are but little acquainted,
the memory of past events being preserved by tradition only.

MUSIC.

They are fond of music and have many instruments in use among them, but
few, upon inquiry, appear to be original, being mostly borrowed from the
Chinese and other more eastern people; particularly the kalintang, gong,
and sulin. The violin has found its way to them from the westward. The
kalintang resembles the sticcado and the harmonica; the more common ones
having the cross-pieces, which are struck with two little hammers, of
split bamboo, and the more perfect of a certain composition of metal
which is very sonorous. The gongs, a kind of bell, but differing much in
shape and struck on the outside, are cast in sets regularly tuned to
thirds, fourth, fifth, and octave, and often serve as a bass, or under
part, to the kalintang. They are also sounded for the purpose of calling
together the inhabitants of the village upon any particular occasion; but
the more ancient and still common instrument for this use is a hollowed
log of wood named katut. The sulin is the Malayan flute. The country
flute is called serdum. It is made of bamboo, is very imperfect, having
but few stops, and resembles much an instrument described as found among
the people of Otaheite. A single hole underneath is covered with the
thumb of the left hand, and the hole nearest the end at which it is
blown, on the upper side, with a finger of the same hand. The other two
holes are stopped with the right-hand fingers. In blowing they hold it
inclined to the right side. They have various instruments of the drum
kind, particularly those called tingkah, which are in pairs and beaten
with the hands at each end. They are made of a certain kind of wood
hollowed out, covered with dried goat-skins, and laced with split
rattans. It is difficult to obtain a proper knowledge of their division
of the scale, as they know nothing of it in theory. The interval we call
an octave seems to be divided with them into six tones, without any
intermediate semitones, which must confine their music to one key. It
consists in general of but few notes, and the third is the interval that
most frequently occurs. Those who perform on the violin use the same
notes as in our division, and they tune the instrument by fifths to a
great nicety. They are fond of playing the octave, but scarcely use any
other chord. The Sumatran tunes very much resemble, to my ear, those of
the native Irish, and have usually, like them, a flat third: the same has
been observed of the music of Bengal, and probably it will be found that
the minor key obtains a preference amongst all people at a certain stage
of civilization.


CHAPTER 10.

LANGUAGES.
MALAYAN.
ARABIC CHARACTER USED.
LANGUAGES OF THE INTERIOR PEOPLE.
PECULIAR CHARACTERS.
SPECIMENS OF LANGUAGES AND OF ALPHABETS.

LANGUAGES.

Before I proceed to an account of the laws, customs, and manners of the
people of the island it is necessary that I should say something of the
different languages spoken on it, the diversity of which has been the
subject of much contemplation and conjecture.

MALAYAN.

The Malayan language, which has commonly been supposed original in the
peninsula of Malayo, and from thence to have extended itself throughout
the eastern islands, so as to become the lingua franca of that part of
the globe, is spoken everywhere along the coasts of Sumatra, prevails
without the mixture of any other in the inland country of Menangkabau and
its immediate dependencies, and is understood in almost every part of the
island. It has been much celebrated, and justly, for the smoothness and
sweetness of its sound, which have gained it the appellation of the
Italian of the East. This is owing to the prevalence of vowels and
liquids in the words (with many nasals which may be thought an objection)
and the infrequency of any harsh combination of mute consonants. These
qualities render it well adapted to poetry, which the Malays are
passionately addicted to.

SONGS.

They amuse all their leisure hours, including the greater portion of
their lives, with the repetition of songs which are, for the most part,
proverbs illustrated, or figures of speech applied to the occurrences of
life. Some that they rehearse, in a kind of recitative, at their bimbangs
or feasts, are historical love tales like our old English ballads, and
are often extemporaneous productions. An example of the former species is
as follows:

Apa guna passang palita,
Kallo tidah dangan sumbu'nia?
Apa guna bermine matta,
Kalla tidah dangan sunggu'nia?

What signifies attempting to light a lamp,
If the wick be wanting?
What signifies playing with the eyes,
If nothing in earnest be intended?

It must be observed however that it often proves a very difficult matter
to trace the connexion between the figurative and the literal sense of
the stanza. The essentials in the composition of the pantun, for such
these little pieces are called, the longer being called dendang, are the
rhythmus and the figure, particularly the latter, which they consider as
the life and spirit of the poetry. I had a proof of this in an attempt
which I made to impose a pantun of my own composing on the natives as a
work of their countrymen. The subject was a dialogue between a lover and
a rich coy mistress: the expressions were proper to the occasion, and in
some degree characteristic. It passed with several, but an old lady who
was a more discerning critic than the others remarked that it was "katta
katta saja"--mere conversation; meaning that it was destitute of the
quaint and figurative expressions which adorn their own poetry. Their
language in common speaking is proverbial and sententious. If a young
woman prove with child before marriage they observe it is daulu buah,
kadian bunga--the fruit before the flower. Hearing of a person's death
they say, nen matti, matti; nen idup, bekraja: kallo sampi janji'nia, apa
buli buat?--Those who are dead, are dead; those who survive must work: if
his allotted time was expired, what resource is there? The latter phrase
they always make use of to express their sense of inevitability, and has
more force than any translation of it I can employ.

ARABIC CHARACTER USED BY MALAYS.

Their writing is in the Arabic character, with modifications to adapt
that alphabet to their language, and, in consequence of the adoption of
their religion from the same quarter, a great number of Arabic words are
incorporated with the Malayan. The Portuguese too have furnished them
with several terms, chiefly for such ideas as they have acquired since
the period of European discoveries to the eastward. They write on paper,
using ink of their own composition, with pens made of the twig of the
anau tree. I could never discover that the Malays had any original
written characters peculiar to themselves before they acquired those now
in use; but it is possible that such might have been lost, a fate that
may hereafter attend the Batta, Rejang, and others of Sumatra, on which
the Arabic daily makes encroachments. Yet I have had frequent occasion to
observe the former language written by inland people in the country
character; which would indicate that the speech is likely to perish
first. The Malayan books are very numerous, both in prose and verse. Many
of them are commentaries on the koran, and others romances or heroic
tales.

The purest or most elegant Malayan is said, and with great appearance of
reason, to be spoken at Malacca. It differs from the dialect used in
Sumatra chiefly in this, that words, in the latter, made to terminate in
"o," are in the former, sounded as ending in "a." Thus they pronounce
lada (pepper) instead of lado. Those words which end with "k" in writing,
are, in Sumatra, always softened in speaking, by omitting it; as tabbe
bannia, many compliments, for tabbek banniak; but the Malaccans, and
especially the more eastern people, who speak a very broad dialect, give
them generally the full sound. The personal pronouns also differ
materially in the respective countries.

Attempts have been made to compose a grammar of this tongue upon the
principles on which those of the European languages are formed. But the
inutility of such productions is obvious. Where there is no inflexion of
either nouns or verbs there can be no cases, declensions, moods, or
conjugations. All this is performed by the addition of certain words
expressive of a determinate meaning, which should not be considered as
mere auxiliaries, or as particles subservient to other words. Thus, in
the instance of rumah, a house; deri pada rumah signifies from a house;
but it would be talking without use or meaning to say that deri pada is
the sign of the ablative case of that noun, for then every preposition
should equally require an appropriate case, and as well as of, to, and
from, we should have a case for deatas rumah, on top of the house. So of
verbs: kallo saya buli jalan, If I could walk: this may be termed the
preter-imperfect tense of the subjunctive or potential mood of the verb
jalan; whereas it is in fact a sentence of which jalan, buli, etc. are
constituent words. It is improper, I say, to talk of the case of a noun
which does not change its termination, or the mood of a verb which does
not alter its form. A useful set of observations might be collected for
speaking the language with correctness and propriety, but they must be
independent of the technical rules of languages founded on different
principles.*

(*Footnote. I have ventured to make this attempt, and have also prepared
a Dictionary of the language which it is my intention to print with as
little delay as circUmstances will admit.)

INTERIOR PEOPLE USE LANGUAGES DIFFERENT FROM THE MALAYAN.

Beside the Malayan there are a variety of languages spoken in Sumatra
which however have not only a manifest affinity among themselves, but
also to that general language which is found to prevail in, and to be
indigenous to all the islands of the eastern sea; from Madagascar to the
remotest of Captain Cook's discoveries; comprehending a wider extent than
the Roman or any other tongue has yet boasted. Indisputable examples of
this connexion and similarity I have exhibited in a paper which the
Society of Antiquaries have done me the honour to publish in their
Archaeologia, Volume 6. In different places it has been more or less
mixed and corrupted, but between the most dissimilar branches an evident
sameness of many radical words is apparent, and in some, very distant
from each other in point of situation, as for instance the Philippines
and Madagascar, the deviation of the words is scarcely more than is
observed in the dialects of neighbouring provinces of the same kingdom.
To render this comparison of languages more extensive, and if possible to
bring all those spoken throughout the world into one point of view, is an
object of which I have never lost sight, but my hopes of completing such
a work are by no means sanguine.

PECULIAR WRITTEN CHARACTERS.

The principal of these Sumatran languages are the Botta, the Rejang, and
the Lampong, whose difference is marked not so much by the want of
correspondence in the terms as by the circumstance of their being
expressed in distinct and peculiar written characters. But whether this
apparent difference be radical and essential, or only produced by
accident and the lapse of time, may be thought to admit of doubt; and, in
order that the reader may be enabled to form his own judgment, a plate
containing the Alphabetical characters of each, with the mode of applying
the orthographical marks to those of the Rejang language in particular,
is annexed. It would indeed be extraordinary, and perhaps singular in the
history of human improvement, that divisions of people in the same
island, with equal claims to originality, in stages of civilization
nearly equal, and speaking languages derived from the same source, should
employ characters different from each other, as well as from the rest of
the world. It will be found however that the alphabet used in the
neighbouring island of Java (given by Corneille Le Brun), that used by
the Tagala people of the Philippines (given by Thevenot), and by the
Bugis people of Celebes (given by Captain Forrest), vary at least as much
from these and from each other as the Rejang from the Batta. The Sanskrit
scholar will at the same time perceive in several of them an analogy to
the rhythmical arrangement, terminating with a nasal, which distinguishes
the alphabet of that ancient language whose influence is known to have
been extensive in this quarter. In the country of Achin, where the
language differs considerably from the Malayan, the Arabic character has
nevertheless been adopted, and on this account it has less claim to
originality.

ON BARK OF TREES AND BAMBOO.

Their manuscripts of any bulk and importance are written with ink of
their own making on the inner bark of a tree cut into slips of several
feet in length and folded together in squares; each square or fold
answering to a page or leaf. For more common occasions they write on the
outer coat of a joint of bamboo, sometimes whole but generally split into
pieces of two or three inches in breadth, with the point of the weapon
worn at their side, which serves the purpose of a stylus; and these
writings, or scratchings rather, are often performed with a considerable
degree of neatness. Thus the Chinese also are said by their historians to
have written on pieces of bamboo before they invented paper. Of both
kinds of manuscript I have many specimens in my possession. The lines are
formed from the left hand towards the right, contrary to the practice of
the Malays and the Arabians.

In Java, Siam, and other parts of the East, beside the common language of
the country, there is established a court language spoken by persons of
rank only; a distinction invented for the purpose of keeping the vulgar
at a distance, and inspiring them with respect for what they do not
understand. The Malays also have their bhasa dalam, or courtly style,
which contains a number of expressions not familiarly used in common
conversation or writing, but yet by no means constituting a separate
language, any more than, in English, the elevated style of our poets and
historians. Amongst the inhabitants of Sumatra in general disparity of
condition is not attended with much ceremonious distance of behaviour
between the persons.

(TABLE OF SUMATRAN ALPHABETS.)

(TABLE OF SPECIMENS OF LANGUAGES SPOKEN IN SUMATRA.)


CHAPTER 11.

COMPARATIVE STATE OF THE SUMATRANS IN CIVIL SOCIETY.
DIFFERENCE OF CHARACTER BETWEEN THE MALAYS AND OTHER INHABITANTS.
GOVERNMENT.
TITLES AND POWER OF THE CHIEFS AMONG THE REJANGS.
INFLUENCE OF THE EUROPEANS.
GOVERNMENT IN PASSUMMAH.

COMPARATIVE STATE OF SUMATRANS IN SOCIETY.

Considered as a people occupying a certain rank in the scale or civil
society, it is not easy to determine the proper situation of the
inhabitants of this island. Though far distant from that point to which
the polished states of Europe have aspired, they yet look down, with an
interval almost as great, on the savage tribes of Africa and America.
Perhaps if we distinguish mankind summarily into five classes; but of
which each would admit of numberless subdivisions; we might assign a
third place to the more civilized Sumatrans, and a fourth to the
remainder. In the first class I should of course include some of the
republics of ancient Greece, in the days of their splendour; the Romans,
for some time before and after the Augustan age; France, England, and
other refined nations of Europe, in the latter centuries; and perhaps
China. The second might comprehend the great Asiatic empires at the
period of their prosperity; Persia, the Mogul, the Turkish, with some
European kingdoms. In the third class, along with the Sumatrans and a few
other states of the eastern archipelago, I should rank the nations on the
northern coast of Africa, and the more polished Arabs. The fourth class,
with the less civilized Sumatrans, will take in the people of the new
discovered islands in the South Sea; perhaps the celebrated Mexican and
Peruvian empires; the Tartar hordes, and all those societies of people in
various parts of the globe, who, possessing personal property, and
acknowledging some species of established subordination, rise one step
above the Caribs, the New Hollanders, the Laplanders, and the Hottentots,
who exhibit a picture of mankind in its rudest and most humiliating
aspect.

FEW IMPROVEMENTS ADOPTED FROM EUROPEANS.

As mankind are by nature so prone to imitation it may seem surprising
that these people have not derived a greater share of improvement in
manners an arts from their long connection with Europeans, particularly
with the English, who have now been settled among them for a hundred
years. Though strongly attached to their own habits they are nevertheless
sensible of their inferiority, and readily admit the preference to which
our attainments in science, and especially in mechanics, entitle us. I
have heard a man exclaim, after contemplating the structure and uses of a
house-clock, "Is it not fitting that such as we should be slaves to
people who have the ingenuity to invent, and the skill to construct, so
wonderful a machine as this?" "The sun," he added, "is a machine of this
nature." "But who winds it up?" said his companion. "Who but Allah," he
replied. This admiration of our superior attainments is however not
universal; for, upon an occasion similar to the above, a Sumatran
observed, with a sneer, "How clever these people are in the art of
getting money."

Some probable causes of this backwardness may be suggested. We carry on
few or no species of manufacture at our settlements; everything is
imported ready wrought to its highest perfection; and the natives
therefore have no opportunity of examining the first process, or the
progress of the work. Abundantly supplied with every article of
convenience from Europe, and prejudiced in their favour because from
thence, we make but little use of the raw materials Sumatra affords. We
do not spin its cotton; we do not rear its silkworms; we do not smelt its
metals; we do not even hew its stone: neglecting these, it is in vain we
exhibit to the people, for their improvement in the arts, our rich
brocades, our timepieces, or display to them in drawings the elegance of
our architecture. Our manners likewise are little calculated to excite
their approval and imitation. Not to insist on the licentiousness that
has at times been imputed to our communities; the pleasures of the table;
emulation in wine; boisterous mirth; juvenile frolics, and puerile
amusements, which do not pass without serious, perhaps contemptuous,
animadversion--setting these aside it appears to me that even our best
models are but ill adapted for the imitation of a rude, incurious, and
unambitious people. Their senses, not their reason, should be acted on,
to rouse them from their lethargy; their imaginations must be warmed; a
spirit of enthusiasm must pervade and animate them before they will
exchange the pleasures of indolence for those of industry. The
philosophical influence that prevails and characterizes the present age
in the western world is unfavourable to the producing these effects. A
modern man of sense and manners despises, or endeavours to despise,
ceremony, parade, attendance, superfluous and splendid ornaments in his
dress or furniture: preferring ease and convenience to cumbrous pomp, the
person first in rank is no longer distinguished by his apparel, his
equipage, or his number of servants, from those inferior to him; and
though possessing real power is divested of almost every external mark of
it. Even our religious worship partakes of the same simplicity. It is far
from my intention to condemn or depreciate these manners, considered in a
general scale of estimation. Probably, in proportion as the prejudices of
sense are dissipated by the light of reason, we advance towards the
highest degree of perfection our natures are capable of; possibly
perfection may consist in a certain medium which we have already stepped
beyond; but certainly all this refinement is utterly incomprehensible to
an uncivilized mind which cannot discriminate the ideas of humility and
meanness. We appear to the Sumatrans to have degenerated from the more
splendid virtues of our predecessors. Even the richness of their laced
suits and the gravity of their perukes attracted a degree of admiration;
and I have heard the disuse of the large hoops worn by the ladies
pathetically lamented. The quick, and to them inexplicable, revolutions
of our fashions, are subject of much astonishment, and they naturally
conclude that those modes can have but little intrinsic merit which we
are so ready to change; or at least that our caprice renders us very
incompetent to be the guides of their improvement. Indeed in matters of
this kind it is not to be supposed that an imitation should take place,
owing to the total incongruity of manners in other respects, and the
dissimilarity of natural and local circumstances. But perhaps I am
superfluously investigating minute and partial causes of an effect which
one general one may be thought sufficient to produce. Under the frigid,
and more especially the torrid zone, the inhabitants will naturally
preserve an uninterrupted similarity and consistency of manners, from the
uniform influence of their climate. In the temperate zones, where this
influence is equivocal, the manners will be fluctuating, and dependent
rather on moral than physical causes.

DIFFERENCE IN CHARACTER BETWEEN THE MALAYS AND OTHER SUMATRANS.

The Malays and the other native Sumatrans differ more in the features of
their mind than in those of their person. Although we know not that this
island, in the revolutions of human grandeur, ever made a distinguished
figure in the history of the world (for the Achinese, though powerful in
the sixteenth century, were very low in point of civilization) yet the
Malay inhabitants have an appearance of degeneracy, and this renders
their character totally different from that which we conceive of a
savage, however justly their ferocious spirit of plunder on the eastern
coast may have drawn upon them that name. They seem rather to be sinking
into obscurity, though with opportunities of improvement, than emerging
from thence to a state of civil or political importance. They retain a
strong share of pride, but not of that laudable kind which restrains men
from the commission of mean and fraudulent actions. They possess much low
cunning and plausible duplicity, and know how to dissemble the strongest
passions and most inveterate antipathy beneath the utmost composure of
features till the opportunity of gratifying their resentment offers.
Veracity, gratitude, and integrity are not to be found in the list of
their virtues, and their minds are almost strangers to the sentiments of
honour and infamy. They are jealous and vindictive. Their courage is
desultory, the effect of a momentary enthusiasm which enables them to
perform deeds of incredible desperation; but they are strangers to that
steady magnanimity, that cool heroic resolution in battle, which
constitutes in our idea the perfection of this quality, and renders it a
virtue.* Yet it must be observed that, from an apathy almost paradoxical,
they suffer under sentence of death, in cases where no indignant passions
could operate to buoy up the mind to a contempt of punishment, with
astonishing composure and indifference; uttering little more on these
occasions than a proverbial saying, common among them, expressive of the
inevitability of fate--apa buli buat? To this stoicism, their belief in
predestination, and very imperfect ideas of a future, eternal existence,
doubtless contribute.

(*Footnote. In the history of the Portuguese wars in this part of the
East there appear some exceptions to this remark, and particularly in the
character of Laksamanna (his title of commander-in-chief being mistaken
for his proper name), who was truly a great man and most consummate
warrior.)

Some writer has remarked that a resemblance is usually found between the
disposition and qualities of the beasts proper to any country and those
of the indigenous inhabitants of the human species, where an intercourse
with foreigners has not destroyed the genuineness of their character. The
Malay may thus be compared to the buffalo and the tiger. In his domestic
state he is indolent, stubborn, and voluptuous as the former, and in his
adventurous life he is insidious, bloodthirsty, and rapacious as the
latter. Thus also the Arab is said to resemble his camel, and the placid
Hindu his cow.

CHARACTER OF NATIVE SUMATRANS.

The Sumatran of the interior country, though he partakes in some degree
of the Malayan vices, and this partly from the contagion of example,
possesses many exclusive virtues; but they are more properly of the
negative than the positive kind. He is mild, peaceable, and forbearing,
unless his anger be roused by violent provocation, when he is implacable
in his resentments. He is temperate and sober, being equally abstemious
in meat and drink. The diet of the natives is mostly vegetable; water is
their only beverage; and though they will kill a fowl or a goat for a
stranger, whom perhaps they never saw before, nor ever expect to see
again, they are rarely guilty of that extravagance for themselves; nor
even at their festivals (bimbang), where there is a plenty of meat, do
they eat much of anything but rice. Their hospitality is extreme, and
bounded by their ability alone. Their manners are simple; they are
generally, except among the chiefs, devoid of the Malay cunning and
chicane; yet endued with a quickness of apprehension, and on many
occasions discovering a considerable degree of penetration and sagacity.
In respect to women they are remarkably continent, without any share of
insensibility. They are modest; particularly guarded in their
expressions; courteous in their behaviour; grave in their deportment,
being seldom or never excited to laughter; and patient to a great degree.
On the other hand, they are litigious; indolent; addicted to gaming;
dishonest in their dealings with strangers, which they esteem no moral
defect; suspicious; regardless of truth; mean in their transactions;
servile; though cleanly in their persons, dirty in their apparel, which
they never wash. They are careless and improvident of the future, because
their wants are few, for though poor they are not necessitous; nature
supplying, with extraordinary facility, whatever she has made requisite
for their existence. Science and the arts have not, by extending their
views, contributed to enlarge the circle of their desires; and the
various refinements of luxury, which in polished societies become
necessaries of life, are totally unknown to them. The Makassar and Bugis
people, who come annually in their praws from Celebes to trade at
Sumatra, are looked up to by the inhabitants as their superiors in
manners. The Malays affect to copy their style of dress, and frequent
allusions to the feats and achievements of these people are made in their
songs. Their reputation for courage, which certainly surpasses that of
all other people in the eastern seas, acquires them this flattering
distinction. They also derive part of the respect paid them from the
richness of the cargoes they import, and the spirit with which they spend
the produce in gaming, cock-fighting, and opium-smoking.

GOVERNMENT.

Having endeavoured to trace the character of these people with as much
fidelity and accuracy as possible, I shall now proceed to give an account
of their government, laws, customs, and manners; and, in order to convey
to the reader the clearest ideas in my power, I shall develop the various
circumstances in such order and connection as shall appear best to answer
this intent, without confining myself, in every instance, to a rigid and
scrupulous arrangement under distinct heads.

REJANGS DIVIDED INTO TRIBES.

The Rejang people, whom, for reasons before assigned, I have fixed upon
for a standard of description, but which apply generally to the orang
ulu, or inhabitants of the inland country, are distinguished into tribes,
the descendants of different ancestors. Of these there are four
principal, who are said to trace their origin to four brothers, and to
have been united from time immemorial in a league offensive and
defensive; though it may be presumed that the permanency of this bond of
union is to be attributed rather to considerations of expediency
resulting from their situation than to consanguinity or any formal
compact.

THEIR GOVERNMENT.

The inhabitants live in villages, called dusun, each under the government
of a headman or magistrate, styled dupati, whose dependants are termed
his ana-buah, and in number seldom exceed one hundred. The dupatis
belonging to each river (for here, the villages being almost always
situated by the waterside, the names we are used to apply to countries or
districts are properly those of the rivers) meet in a judicial capacity
at the kwalo, where the European factory is established, and are then
distinguished by the name of proattin.

PANGERAN.

The pangeran (a Javanese title), or feudal chief of the country, presides
over the whole. It is not an easy matter to describe in what consists the
fealty of a dupati to his pangeran, or of his ana-buah to himself, so
very little in either case is practically observed. Almost without arts,
and with but little industry, the state of property is nearly equal among
all the inhabitants, and the chiefs scarcely differ but in title from the
bulk of the people.

HIS AUTHORITY.

Their authority is no more than nominal, being without that coercive
power necessary to make themselves feared and implicitly obeyed. This is
the natural result of poverty among nations habituated to peace; where
the two great political engines of interest and military force are
wanting. Their government is founded in opinion, and the submission of
the people is voluntary. The domestic rule of a private family beyond a
doubt suggested first the idea of government in society, and, this people
having made but small advances in civil policy, theirs continues to
retain a strong resemblance of its original. It is connected also with
the principle of the feudal system, into which it would probably settle
should it attain to a greater degree of refinement. All the other
governments throughout the island are likewise a mixture of the
patriarchal and feudal; and it may be observed that, where a spirit of
conquest has reduced the inhabitants under the subjection of another
power, or has added foreign districts to their dominion, there the feudal
maxims prevail: where the natives, from situation or disposition, have
long remained undisturbed by revolutions, there the simplicity of
patriarchal rule obtains; which is not only the first and natural form of
government of all rude nations rising from imperceptible beginnings, but
is perhaps also the highest state of perfection at which they can
ultimately arrive. It is not in this art alone that we perceive the next
step from consummate refinement, leading to simplicity.

MUCH LIMITED.

The foundation of right to government among these people seems, as I
said, to be the general consent. If a chief exerts an undue authority, or
departs from their long established customs and usages, they conceive
themselves at liberty to relinquish their allegiance. A commanding
aspect, an insinuating manner, a ready fluency in discourse, and a
penetration and sagacity in unravelling the little intricacies of their
disputes, are qualities which seldom fail to procure to their possessor
respect and influence, sometimes perhaps superior to that of an
acknowledged chief. The pangean indeed claims despotic sway, and as far
as he can find the means scruples not to exert it; but, his revenues
being insufficient to enable him to keep up any force for carrying his
mandates into execution, his actual powers are very limited, and he has
seldom found himself able to punish a turbulent subject any otherwise
than by private assassination. In appointing the heads of dusuns he does
little more than confirm the choice already made among the inhabitants,
and, were he arbitrarily to name a person of a different tribe or from
another place, he would not be obeyed. He levies no tax, nor has any
revenue (what he derives from the India Company being out of the
question), or other emolument from his subjects than what accrues to him
from the determination of causes. Appeals lie to him in all cases, and
none of the inferior courts or assemblies of proattins are competent to
pronounce sentence of death. But, all punishments being by the laws of
the country commutable for fines, and the appeals being attended with
expense and loss of time, the parties generally abide by the first
decision. Those dusuns which are situated nearest to the residence of the
pangeran, at Sungey-lamo, acknowledge somewhat more of subordination than
the distant ones, which even in case of war esteem themselves at liberty
to assist or not, as they think proper, without being liable to
consequences. In answer to a question on this point, "we are his
subjects, not his slaves," replied one of the proattins. But from the
pangeran you hear a tale widely different. He has been known to say, in a
political conversation, "such and such dusuns there will be no trouble
with; they are my powder and shot;" explaining himself by adding that he
could dispose of the inhabitants, as his ancestors had done, to purchase
ammunition in time of war.

ORIGIN OF THE PANGERAN IN RAJANG.

The father of Pangeran Mangko Raja (whose name is preserved from oblivion
by the part he took in the expulsion of the English from Fort Marlborough
in the year 1719) was the first who bore the title of pangeran of
Sungey-lamo. He had before been simply Baginda Sabyam. Until about a
hundred years ago the southern coast of Sumatra as far as Urei River was
dependant on the king of Bantam, whose Jennang (lieutenant or deputy)
came yearly to Silebar or Bencoolen, collected the pepper and filled up
the vacancies by nominating, or rather confirming in their appointments,
the proattins. Soon after that time, the English having established a
settlement at Bencoolen, the jennang informed the chiefs that he should
visit them no more, and, raising the two headmen of Sungey-lamo and
Sungey-itam (the latter of whom is chief of the Lemba country in the
neighbourhood of Bencoolen River; on which however the former possesses
some villages, and is chief of the Rejang tribes), to the dignity of
pangeran, gave into their hands the government of the country, and
withdrew his master's claim. Such is the account given by the present
possessors of the origin of their titles, which nearly corresponds with
the recorded transactions of the period. It followed naturally that the
chief thus invested should lay claim to the absolute authority of the
king whom he represented, and on the other hand that the proattins should
still consider him but as one of themselves, and pay him little more than
nominal obedience. He had no power to enforce his plea, and they retain
their privileges, taking no oath of allegiance, nor submitting to be
bound by any positive engagement. They speak of him however with respect,
and in any moderate requisition that does not affect their adat or
customs they are ready enough to aid him (tolong, as they express it),
but rather as matter of favour than acknowledged obligation.

The exemption from absolute subjection, which the dupatis contend for,
they allow in turn to their ana-buahs, whom they govern by the influence
of opinion only. The respect paid to one of these is little more than as
to an elder of a family held in esteem, and this the old men of the dusun
share with him, sitting by his side in judgment on the little differences
that arise among themselves. If they cannot determine the cause, or the
dispute be with one of a separate village, the neighbouring proattins of
the same tribe meet for the purpose. From these litigations arise some
small emoluments to the dupati, whose dignity in other respects is rather
an expense than an advantage. In the erection of public works, such as
the ballei or town hall, he contributes a larger share of materials. He
receives and entertains all strangers, his dependants furnishing their
quotas of provision on particular occasions; and their hospitality is
such that food and lodging are never refused to those by whom they are
required.

SUCCESSION OF DUPATIS.

Though the rank of dupati is not strictly hereditary the son, when of age
and capable, generally succeeds the father at his decease: if too young,
the father's brother, or such one of the family as appears most
qualified, assumes the post; not as a regent but in his own right; and
the minor comes in perhaps at the next vacancy. If this settlement
happens to displease any portion of the inhabitants they determine
amongst themselves what chief they will follow, and remove to his
village, or a few families, separating themselves from the rest, elect a
chief, but without contesting the right of him whom they leave. The
chiefs, when nominated, do not however assume the title of dupati until
confirmed by the pangeran, or by the Company's Resident. On every river
there is at least one superior proattin, termed a pambarab, who is chosen
by the rest and has the right or duty of presiding at those suits and
festivals in which two or more villages are concerned, with a larger
allotment of the fines, and (like Homer's distinguished heroes) of the
provisions also. If more tribes than one are settled on the same river
each has usually its pambarab. Not only the rivers or districts but
indeed each dusun is independent of, though not unconnected with, its
neighbours, acting in concert with them by specific consent.

INFLUENCE OF THE EUROPEANS.

The system of government among the people near the sea-coast, who,
towards the southern extreme of the island, are the planters of pepper,
is much influenced by the power of the Europeans, who are virtually the
lords paramount, and exercise in fact many of the functions of
sovereignty. The advantages derived to the subject from their sway, both
in a political and civil sense, are infinitely greater than persons at a
distance are usually inclined to suppose. Oppressions may be some times
complained of at the hands of individuals, but, to the honour of the
Company's service let me add, they have been very rare and of
inconsiderable magnitude. Where a degree of discretionary power is
intrusted to single persons abuses will, in the nature of things, arise
in some instances; cases may occur in which the private passions of the
Resident will interfere with his public duty; but the door has ever been
open for redress, and examples have been made. To destroy this influence
and authority in order to prevent these consequences were to cut off a
limb in order to remove a partial complaint. By the Company's power the
districts over which it extends are preserved in uninterrupted peace.
Were it not for this power every dusun of every river would be at war
with its neighbour. The natives themselves allow it, and it was evinced,
even in the short space of time during which the English were absent from
the coast, in a former war with France. Hostilities of district against
district, so frequent among the independent nations to the northward,
are, within the Company's jurisdiction, things unheard of; and those
dismal catastrophes which in all the Malayan islands are wont to attend
on private feuds but very rarely happen. "I tell you honestly," said a
dupati, much irritated against one of his neighbours, "that it is only
you," pointing to the Resident of Laye, "that prevents my plunging this
weapon into his breast." The Resident is also considered as the protector
of the people from the injustice and oppression of the chiefs. This
oppression, though not carried on in the way of open force, which the
ill-defined nature of their authority would not support, is scarcely less
grievous to the sufferer. Expounders of the law, and deeply versed in the
chicanery of it, they are ever lying in wait to take advantage of the
necessitous and ignorant, till they have stripped them of their property,
their family, and their personal liberty. To prevent these practices the
partial administration of justice in consequence of bribes, the
subornation of witnesses, and the like iniquities, a continual exertion
of the Resident's attention and authority is required, and, as that
authority is accidentally relaxed, the country falls into confusion.

It is true that this interference is not strictly consonant with the
spirit of the original contracts entered into by the Company with the
native chiefs, who, in consideration of protection from their enemies,
regular purchase of the produce of their country, and a gratuity to
themselves proportioned to the quantity of that produce, undertake on
their part to oblige their dependants to plant pepper, to refrain from
the use of opium, the practice of gaming, and other vicious excesses, and
to punish them in case of non-compliance. But, however prudent or equal
these contracts might have been at the time their form was established, a
change of circumstances, the gradual and necessary increase of the
Company's sway which the peace and good of the country required, and the
tacit consent of the chiefs themselves (among whom the oldest living have
never been used to regard the Company, who have conferred on them their
respective dignities, as their equals, or as trading in their districts
upon sufferance), have long antiquated them; and custom and experience
have introduced in their room an influence on one side, and a
subordination on the other, more consistent with the power of the Company
and more suitable to the benefits derived from the moderate and humane
exercise of that power. Prescription has given its sanction to this
change, and the people have submitted to it without murmuring, as it was
introduced not suddenly but with the natural course of events, and
bettered the condition of the whole while it tended to curb the rapacity
of the few. Then let not short-sighted or designing persons, upon false
principles of justice, or ill-digested notions of liberty, rashly
endeavour to overturn a scheme of government, doubtless not perfect, but
which seems best adapted to the circumstances it has respect to, and
attended with the fewest disadvantages. Let them not vainly exert
themselves to procure redress of imaginary grievances, for persons who
complain not, or to infuse a spirit of freedom and independence, in a
climate where nature possibly never intended they should flourish, and
which, if obtained, would apparently be attended with effects that all
their advantages would badly compensate.

GOVERNMENT IN PASSUMMAH.

In Passummah, which nearly borders upon Rejang, to the southward, there
appears some difference in the mode of government, though the same spirit
pervades both; the chiefs being equally without a regular coercive power,
and the people equally free in the choice of whom they will serve. This
is an extensive and comparatively populous country, bounded on the north
by that of Lamattang, and on the south-east by that of Lampong, the river
of Padang-guchi marking the division from the latter, near the sea-coast.
It is distinguished into Passummah lebbar, or the broad, which lies
inland, extending to within a day's journey of Muaro Mulang, on Palembang
River; and Passummah ulu Manna, which is on the western side of the range
of hills, whither the inhabitants are said to have mostly removed in
order to avoid the government of Palembang.

It is governed by four pangerans, who are independent of each other but
acknowledge a kind of sovereignty in the sultan of Palembang, from whom
they hold a chap (warrant) and receive a salin (investiture) on their
accession. This subordination is the consequence of the king of Bantam's
former influence over this part of the island, Palembang being a port
anciently dependent on him, and now on the Dutch, whose instrument the
sultan is. There is an inferior pangeran in almost every dusun (that
title being nearly as common in Passummah as dupati towards the
sea-coast) who are chosen by the inhabitants, and confirmed by the
superior pangeran, whom they assist in the determination of causes. In
the low country, where the pepper-planters reside, the title of kalippah
prevails; which is a corruption of the Arabic word khalifah, signifying a
vicegerent. Each of these presides over various tribes, which have been
collected at different times (some of them being colonists from Rejang,
as well as from a country to the eastward of them, named Haji) and have
ranged themselves, some under one and some under another chief; having
also their superior proattin, or pambarab, as in the northern districts.
On the rivers of Peeno, Manna, and Bankannon are two kalippahs
respectively, some of whom are also pangerans, which last seems to be
here rather a title of honour, or family distinction, than of magistracy.
They are independent of each other, owning no superior; and their number,
according to the ideas of the people, cannot be increased.


CHAPTER 12.

LAWS AND CUSTOMS.
MODE OF DECIDING CAUSES.
CODE OF LAWS.

LAWS OR CUSTOMS.

There is no word in the languages of the island which properly and
strictly signifies law; nor is there any person or class of persons among
the Rejangs regularly invested with a legislative power. They are
governed in their various disputes by a set of long-established customs
(adat), handed down to them from their ancestors, the authority of which
is founded on usage and general consent. The chiefs, in pronouncing their
decisions, are not heard to say, "so the law directs," but "such is the
custom." It is true that, if any case arises for which there is no
precedent on record (of memory), they deliberate and agree on some mode
that shall serve as a rule in future similar circumstances. If the affair
be trifling that is seldom objected to; but when it is a matter of
consequence the pangeran, or kalippah (in places where such are present),
consults with the proattins, or lower order of chiefs, who frequently
desire time to consider of it, and consult with the inhabitants of their
dusun. When the point is thus determined the people voluntarily submit to
observe it as an established custom; but they do not acknowledge a right
in the chiefs to constitute what laws they think proper, or to repeal or
alter their ancient usages, of which they are extremely tenacious and
jealous. It is notwithstanding true that, by the influence of the
Europeans, they have at times been prevailed on to submit to innovations
in their customs; but, except when they perceived a manifest advantage
from the change, they have generally seized an opportunity of reverting
to the old practice.

MODE OF DECIDING CAUSES.

All causes, both civil and criminal, are determined by the several chiefs
of the district, assembled together at stated times for the purpose of
distributing justice. These meetings are called becharo (which signifies
also to discourse or debate), and among us, by an easy corruption,
bechars. Their manner of settling litigations in points of property is
rather a species of arbitration, each party previously binding himself to
submit to the award, than the exertion of a coercive power possessed by
the court for the redress of wrongs.

The want of a written criterion of the laws and the imperfect stability
of traditionary usage must frequently, in the intricacies of their suits,
give rise to contradictory decisions; particularly as the interests and
passions of the chiefs are but too often concerned in the determination
of the causes that come before them.

COMPILATION OF LAWS.

This evil had long been perceived by the English Residents, who, in the
countries where we are settled, preside at the bechars, and, being
instigated by the splendid example of the Governor-general of Bengal (Mr.
Hastings), under whose direction a code of the laws of that empire was
compiled (and translated by Mr. Halhed), it was resolved that the
servants of the Company at each of the subordinates should, with the
assistance of the ablest and most experienced of the natives, attempt to
reduce to writing and form a system of the usages of the Sumatrans in
their respective residencies. This was accordingly executed in some
instances, and, a translation of that compiled in the residency of Laye
coming into my possession, I insert it here, in the original form, as
being attended with more authority and precision than any account
furnished from my own memorandums could pretend to.

REJANG LAWS.

For the more regular and impartial administration of justice in the
Residency of Laye, the laws and customs of the Rejangs, hitherto
preserved by tradition, are now, after being discussed, amended, and
ratified, in an assembly of the pangeran, pambarabs, and proattins,
committed to writing in order that they may not be liable to alteration;
that those deserving death or fine may meet their reward; that causes may
be brought before the proper judges, and due amends made for defaults;
that the compensation for murder may be fully paid; that property may be
equitably divided; that what is borrowed may be restored; that gifts may
become the undoubted property of the receiver; that debts may be paid and
credits received agreeably to the customs that have been ever in force
beneath the heavens and on the face of the earth. By the observance of
the laws a country is made to flourish, and where they are neglected or
violated ruin ensues.

BECHARS, SUITS, OR TRIALS.

PROCESS IN SUITS.

The plaintiff and defendant first state to the bench the general
circumstances of the case. If their accounts differ, and they consent to
refer the matter to the decision of the proattins or bench, each party is
to give a token, to the value of a suku, that he will abide by it, and to
find security for the chogo, a sum stated to them, supposed to exceed the
utmost probable damages.

If the chogo do not exceed 30 dollars the bio or fee paid by each is
  1 1/4 dollars.
If the chogo do not exceed 30 to 50 dollars the bio or fee paid by each
  is 2 1/2 dollars.
If the chogo do not exceed 50 to 100 dollars the bio or fee paid by each
  is 5 dollars.
If the chogo do not exceed 100 dollars and upwards the bio or fee paid by
  each is 9 dollars.

All chiefs of dusuns, or independent tallangs, are entitled to a seat on
the bench upon trials.

If the pangeran sits at the bechar he is entitled to one half of all bio,
and of such fines, or shares of fines, as fall to the chiefs, the
pambarabs, and other proattins dividing the remainder.

If the pangeran be not present the pambarabs have one-third, and the
other proattins two-thirds of the foregoing. Though a single pambarab
only sit he is equally entitled to the above one-third. Of the other
proattins five are requisite to make a quorum.

No bechar, the chogo of which exceeds five dollars, to be held by the
proattins, except in the presence of the Company's Resident, or his
assistant.

If a person maliciously brings a false accusation and it is proved such,
he is liable to pay a sum equal to that which the defendant would have
incurred had his design succeeded; which sum is to be divided between the
defendant and the proattins, half and half.

The fine for bearing false witness is twenty dollars and a buffalo.

The punishment of perjury is left to the superior powers (orang alus).
Evidence here is not delivered on previous oath.

LAWS OF INHERITANCE.

If the father leaves a will, or declares before witnesses his intentions
relative to his effects or estate, his pleasure is to be followed in the
distribution of them amongst his children.

If he dies intestate and without declaring his intentions the male
children inherit, share and share alike, except that the house and pusako
(heirlooms, or effects on which, from various causes, superstitious value
is placed) devolve invariably to the eldest.

The mother (if by the mode of marriage termed jujur, which, with the
other legal terms, will be hereafter explained) and the daughters are
dependant on the sons.

If a man, married by semando, dies, leaving children, the effects remain
to the wife and children. If the woman dies, the effects remain to the
husband and children. If either dies leaving no children the family of
the deceased is entitled to half the effects.

OUTLAWRY.

Any person unwilling to be answerable for the debts or actions of his son
or other relation under his charge may outlaw him, by which he, from that
period, relinquishes all family connexion with him, and is no longer
responsible for his conduct.

The outlaw to be delivered up to the Resident or pangeran, accompanied
with his writ of outlawry, in duplicate, one copy to be lodged with the
Resident, and one with the outlaw's pambarab.

The person who outlaws must pay all debts to that day.

On amendment, the outlaw may be recalled to his family, they paying such
debts as he may have contracted whilst outlawed, and redeeming his writ
by payment of ten dollars and a goat, to be divided among the pangeran
and pambarabs.

If an outlaw commits murder he is to suffer death.

If murdered, a bangun, or compensation, of fifty dollars, is to be paid
for him to the pangeran.

If an outlaw wounds a person he becomes a slave to the Company or
pangeran for three years. If he absconds and is afterwards killed no
bangun is to be paid for him.

If an outlaw wounds a person and is killed in the scuffle no bangun is to
be paid for him.

If the relations harbour an outlaw they are held willing to redeem him,
and become answerable for his debts.

THEFT.

A person convicted of theft pays double the value of the goods stolen,
with a fine of twenty dollars and a buffalo, if they exceed the value of
five dollars: if under five dollars the fine is five dollars and a goat;
the value of the goods still doubled.

All thefts under five dollars, and all disputes for property, or offences
to that amount, may be compromised by the proattins whose dependants are
concerned.

Neither assertion nor oath of the prosecutor are sufficient for
conviction without token (chino) of the robbery, namely, some article
recovered of the goods stolen; or evidence sufficient.

If any person, having permission to pass the night in the house of
another, shall leave it before daybreak, without giving notice to the
family, he shall be held accountable for any thing that may be that night
missing.

If a person passing the night in the house of another does not commit his
effects to the charge of the owner of it, the latter is not accountable
if they are stolen during the night. If he has given them in charge, and
the stranger's effects only are lost during the night, the owner of the
house becomes accountable. If effects both of the owner and lodger are
stolen, each is to make oath to the other that he is not concerned in the
robbery, and the parties put up with their loss, or retrieve it as they
can.

Oaths are usually made on the koran, or at the grave of an ancestor,
according as the Mahometan religion prevails more or less. The party
intended to be satisfied by the oath generally prescribes the mode and
purport of it.

BANGUN, OR COMPENSATION FOR MURDER.

The bangun or compensation for the murder of a pambarab is 500 dollars.
The bangun or compensation for the murder of an inferior proattin is 250
  dollars.
The bangun or compensation for the murder of a common person, man or boy,
  is 80 dollars.
The bangun or compensation for the murder of a common person, woman or girl,
  is 150 dollars.
The bangun or compensation for the murder of the legitimate children or
  wife of a pambarab is 250 dollars.

Exclusive of the above, a fine of fifty dollars and a buffalo as tippong
bumi (expiation), is to be paid on the murder of a pambarab; of twenty
dollars and a buffalo on the murder of any other; which goes to the
pambarab and proattins.

The bangun of an outlaw is fifty dollars without tippong bumi.

No bangun is to be paid for a person killed in the commission of a robbery.

The bangun of pambarabs and proattins is to be divided between the pangeran
and pambarabs one half; and the family of the deceased the other half.

The bangun of private persons is to be paid to their families; deducting
the adat ulasan of ten per cent to the pambarabs and proattins.

If a man kills his slave he pays half his price as bangun to the
pangeran, and the tippong bumi to the proattins.

If a man kills his wife by jujur he pays her bangun to her family, or to
the proattins, according as the tali kulo subsists or not.

If a man kills or wounds his wife by semando he pays the same as for a
stranger.

If a man wounds his wife by jujur slightly he pays one tail or two
dollars.

If a man wounds his wife by jujur with a weapon and an apparent intention
of killing her he pays a fine of twenty dollars.

If the tali kulo (tie of relationship) is broken the wife's family can no
longer claim bangun or fine: they revert to the proattins.

If a pambarab wounds his wife by jujur he pays five dollars and a goat.

If a pambarab's daughter, married by jujur, is wounded by her husband he
pays five dollars and a goat.

For a wound occasioning the loss of an eye or limb or imminent danger of
death half the bangun is to be paid.

For a wound on the head the pampas or compensation is twenty dollars.

For other wounds the pampas from twenty dollars downwards.

If a person is carried off and sold beyond the hills the offender, if
convicted, must pay the bangun. If the person has been recovered previous
to the trial the offender pays half the bangun.

If a man kills his brother he pays to the proattins the tippong bumi.

If a wife kills her husband she must suffer death.

If a wife by semando wounds her husband her relations must pay what they
would receive if he wounded her.

DEBTS AND CREDITS.

DEBTS.

On the death of a person in debt (unless he die an outlaw, or married
byambel-anak) his nearest relation becomes accountable to the creditors.

Of a person married by ambel-anak the family he married into is
answerable for debts contracted during the marriage: such as were
previous to it his relations must pay.

A father, or head of a family, has hitherto been in all cases liable to
the debts of his sons, or younger relations under his care; but to
prevent as much as possible his suffering by their extravagance it is now
resolved:

That if a young unmarried man (bujang) borrows money, or purchases goods
without the concurrence of his father, or of the head of his family, the
parent shall not be answerable for the debt. Should the son use his
father's name in borrowing it shall be at the lender's risk if the father
disavows it.

If any person gives credit to the debtor of another (publicly known as
such, either in the state of mengiring, when the whole of his labour
belongs to the creditor, or of be-blah, when it is divided) the latter
creditor can neither disturb the debtor for the sum nor oblige the former
to pay it. He must either pay the first debt (membulati, consolidate) or
let his claim lie over till the debtor finds means to discharge it.

Interest of money has hitherto been three fanams per dollar per month, or
one hundred and fifty per cent per annum. It is now reduced to one fanam,
or fifty per cent per annum, and no person is to receive more, under
penalty of fine, according to the circumstances of the case.

No more than double the principal can in any case be recovered at law. A
person lending money at interest, and letting it lie over beyond two
years, loses the surplus.

No pepper-planter to be taken as a debtor mengiring, under penalty of
forty dollars.

A planter in debt may engage in any work for hire that does not interfere
with the care of his garden, but must on no account mengiring, even
though his creditor offers to become answerable for the care of his
garden.

If a debtor mengiring absconds from his master (or creditor, who has a
right to his personal service) without leave of absence he is liable to
an increase of debt at the rate of three fanams per day. Females have
been hitherto charged six fanams, but are now put upon a footing the same
as the men.

If a debtor mengiring, without security, runs away, his debt is liable to
be doubled if he is absent above a week.

If a man takes a person mengiring, without security for the debt, should
the debtor die in that predicament the creditor loses his money, having
no claim on the relations for it.

If a person takes up money under promise of mengiring at a certain
period, should he not perform his agreement he must pay interest for the
money at one fanam per dollar per month.

If a person, security for another, is obliged to pay the debt he is
entitled to demand double from the debtor; but this claim to be moderated
according to circumstances.

If a person sues for a debt which is denied the onus probandi lies with
the plaintiff. If he fails in proof the defendant, on making oath to the
justness of his denial, shall be acquitted.

If a debtor taking care of a pepper garden, or one that gives half
produce to his creditor (be-blah), neglects it, the person in whose debt
he is must hire a man to do the necessary work; and the hire so paid
shall be added to the debt. Previous notice shall however be given to the
debtor, that he may if he pleases avoid the payment of the hire by doing
the work himself.

If a person's slave, or debtor mengiring, be carried off and sold beyond
the hills the offender is liable to the bangun, if a debtor, or to his
price, if a slave. Should the person be recovered the offender is liable
to a fine of forty dollars, of which the person that recovers him has
half, and the owner or creditor the remainder. If the offender be not
secured the reward shall be only five dollars to the person that brings
the slave, and three dollars the debtor, if on this side the hills; if
from beyond the hills the reward is doubled.

LAWS REGARDING MARRIAGE.

The modes of marriage prevailing hitherto have been principally by jujur,
or by ambel-anak, the Malay semando being little used. The obvious ill
consequences of the two former, from the debt or slavery they entailed
upon the man that married, and the endless lawsuits they gave rise to,
have at length induced the chiefs to concur in their being as far as
possible laid aside; adopting in lieu of them the semando malayo, or
mardiko, which they now strongly recommend to their dependants as free
from the encumbrances of the other modes, and tending, by facilitating
marriage, and the consequent increase of population, to promote the
welfare of their country. Unwilling, however, to abolish arbitrarily a
favourite custom of their ancestors, marriage by jujur is still permitted
to take place, but under such restrictions as will, it is hoped,
effectually counteract its hitherto pernicious consequences. Marriage by
ambel-anak, which rendered a man and his descendants the property of the
family he married into, is now prohibited, and none permitted for the
future, but, by semando, or jujur, subject to the following regulations.

The jujur of a virgin (gadis) has been hitherto one hundred and twenty
dollars: the adat annexed to it have been tulis-tanggil, fifteen dollars;
upah daun kodo, six dollars, and tali kulo, five dollars:

The jujur of a widow, eighty dollars, without the adat; unless her
children by the former marriage went with her, in which case the jujur
gadis was paid in full.

It is now determined that, on a man's giving his daughter in marriage by
jujur for the future, there shall, in lieu of the above, be fixed a sum
not exceeding one hundred and fifty dollars, to be in full for jujur and
all adat whatever. That this sum shall, when the marriage takes place, be
paid upon the spot; that if credit is given for the whole, or any part,
it shall not be recoverable by course of law; and as the sum includes the
tali kulo, or bond of relationship, the wife thereby becomes the absolute
property of the husband. The marriage by jujur being thus rendered
equivalent to actual sale, and the difficulty enhanced by the necessity
of paying the full price upon the spot, it is probable that the custom
will in a great measure cease, and, though not positively, be virtually
abolished. Nor can a lawsuit follow from any future jujur.

The adat, or custom, of the semando malayo or mardiko, to be paid by the
husband to the wife's family upon the marriage taking place, is fixed at
twenty dollars and a buffalo, for such as can afford it; and at ten
dollars and a goat, for the poorer class of people.

Whatever may be acquired by either party during the subsistence of the
marriage becomes joint property, and they are jointly liable to debts
incurred, if by mutual consent. Should either contract debts without the
knowledge and consent of the other the party that contracts must alone
bear them in case of a divorce.

If either party insists upon, or both agree in it, a divorce must follow.
No other power can separate them. The effects, debts, and credits in all
cases to be equally divided. If the man insists upon the divorce he pays
a charo of twenty dollars to the wife's family, if he obtained her a
virgin; if a widow, ten dollars. If the woman insists on the divorce no
charo is to be paid. If both agree in it the man pays half the charo.

If a man married by semando dies--Vide Inheritance.

If a man carries off a woman with her consent, and is willing either to
pay her price at once by jujur, or marry her by semando, as the father or
relations please, they cannot reclaim the woman, and the marriage takes
place.

If a man carries off a girl under age (which is determined by her not
having her ears bored and teeth filed--bulum bertinde berdabong), though
with her own consent, he pays, exclusive of the adat jujur, or semando,
twenty dollars if she be the daughter of a pambarab, and ten dollars for
the daughter of any other, whether the marriage takes place or not.

If a risau, or person without property and character, carries off a woman
(though with her own consent) and can neither pay the jujur, nor adat
semando, the marriage shall not take place, but the man be fined five
dollars and a goat for misdemeanour. If she be under age, his fine ten
dollars and a goat.

If a man has but one daughter, whom, to keep her near him, he wishes to
give in marriage by semando; should a man carry her off, he shall not be
allowed to keep her by jujur, though he offer the money upon the spot. If
he refuses to marry her by semando, no marriage takes place, and he
incurs a fine to the father of ten dollars and a goat.

If a man carries off a woman under pretence of marriage he must lodge her
immediately with some reputable family. If he carries her elsewhere, for
a single night he incurs a fine of fifty dollars, payable to her parents
or relations.

If a man carries off a virgin against her inclination (me-ulih) he incurs
a fine of twenty dollars and a buffalo: if a widow, ten dollars and a
goat, and the marriage does not take place. If he commits a rape, and the
parents do not choose to give her to him in marriage, he incurs a fine of
fifty dollars.

The adat libei, or custom of giving one woman in exchange for another
taken in marriage, being a modification of the jujur, is still admitted
of; but if the one be not deemed an equivalent for the other the
necessary compensation (as the pangalappang, for nonage) must be paid
upon the spot, or it is not recoverable by course of law. If a virgin is
carried off (te-lari gadis) and another is given in exchange for her, by
adat libei, twelve dollars must be paid with the latter as adat ka-salah.

A man married by ambel-anak may redeem himself and family on payment of
the jujur and adat of a virgin before-mentioned.

The charo of a jujur marriage is twenty-five dollars. If the jujur be not
yet paid in full and the man insists on a divorce he receives back what
he has paid, less twenty-five dollars. If the woman insists no charo can
be claimed by her relations. If the tali kulo is putus (broken) the wife
is the husband's property and he may sell her if he pleases.

If a man compels a female debtor of his to cohabit with him her debt, if
the fact be proved, is thereby discharged, if forty dollars and upwards:
if under forty the debt is cleared and he pays the difference. If she
accuses her master falsely of this offence her debt is doubled. If he
cohabits with her by her consent her parents may compel him to marry her,
either by jujur or semando, as they please.

If an unmarried woman proves with child the man against whom the fact is
proved must marry her; and they pay to the proattins a joint fine of
twenty dollars and a buffalo. This fine, if the parties agree to it, may
be levied in the country by the neighbouring proattins (without bringing
it before the regular court).

If a woman proves with child by a relation within the prohibited degrees
they pay to the proattins a joint fine of twice fifty dollars and two
buffaloes (hukum duo akup).

A marriage must not take place between relations within the third degree,
or tungal nene. But there are exceptions for the descendants of females
who, passing into other families, become as strangers. Of two brothers,
the children may not intermarry. A sister's son may marry a brother's
daughter; but a brother's son may not marry a sister's daughter.

If relations within the prohibited degrees intermarry they incur a fine
of twice fifty dollars and two buffaloes, and the marriage is not valid.

On the death of a man married by jujur or purchase, any of his brothers,
the eldest in preference, if he pleases, may succeed to his bed. If no
brother chooses it they may give the woman in marriage to any relation on
the father's side, without adat, the person who marries her replacing the
deceased (mangabalu). If no relation takes her and she is given in
marriage to a stranger he may be either adopted into the family to
replace the deceased, without adot, or he may pay her jujur, or take her
by semando, as her relations please.

If a person lies with a man's wife by force he is deserving of death; but
may redeem his head by payment of the bangun, eighty dollars, to be
divided between the husband and proattins.

If a man surprises his wife in the act of adultery he may put both man
and woman to death upon the spot, without being liable to any bangun. If
he kills the man and spares his wife he must redeem her life by payment
of fifty dollars to the proattins. If the husband spares the offender, or
has only information of the fact from other persons, he may not
afterwards kill him, but has his remedy at law, the fine for adultery
being fifty dollars, to be divided between the husband and the proattins.
If he divorces his wife on this account he pays no charo.

If a younger sister be first married, the husband pays six dollars, adat
pelalu, for passing over the elder.

GAMING.

All gaming, except cock-fighting at stated periods, is absolutely
prohibited. The fine for each offence is fifty dollars. The person in
whose house it is carried on, if with his knowledge, is equally liable to
the fine with the gamesters. A proattin knowing of gaming in his dusun
and concealing it incurs a fine of twenty dollars. One half of the fines
goes to the informer, the other to the Company, to be distributed among
the industrious planters at the yearly payment of the customs.

OPIUM FARM.

The fine for the retailing of opium by any other than the person who
farms the license is fifty dollars for each offence: one half to the
farmer, and the other to the informer.

EXECUTIVE POWER.

The executive power for enforcing obedience to these laws and customs,
and for preserving the peace of the country, is, with the concurrence of
the pangeran and proattins, vested in the Company's Resident.

Done at Laye, in the month Rabia-al akhir, in the year of the Hejra 1193,
answering to April 1779.

JOHN MARSDEN, Resident.

...

LAWS OR ADAT OF MANNA.

Having procured likewise a copy of the regulations sanctioned by the
chiefs of the Passummah country assembled at Manna, I do not hesitate to
insert it, not only as varying in many circumstances from the preceding,
but because it may eventually prove useful to record the document.

INHERITANCE.

If a person dies having children these inherit his effects in equal
portions, and become answerable for the debts of the deceased. If any of
his brothers survive they may be permitted to share with their nephews,
but rather as matter of courtesy than of right, and only when the effects
of the deceased devolved to him from his father or grandfather. If he was
a man of rank it is common for the son who succeeds him in title to have
a larger share. This succession is not confined to the eldest born but
depends much on private agreement in the family. If the deceased person
leaves no kindred behind him the tribe to which he belonged shall inherit
his effects, and be answerable for his debts.

DEBTS.

When a debt becomes due and the debtor is unable to pay his creditors, or
has no effects to deposit, he shall himself, or his wife, or his
children, live with the creditor as a bond-slave or slaves until redeemed
by the payment of the debt.

If a debt is contracted without any promise of interest none shall be
demanded, although the debt be not paid until some time after it first
became due. The rate of interest is settled at twenty per cent per annum;
but in all suits relating to debts on interest, how long soever they may
have been outstanding, the creditor shall not be entitled to more
interest than may amount to a sum equal to the capital: if the debt is
recent it shall be calculated as above. If any person lends to another a
sum exceeding twenty-five dollars and sues for payment before the chiefs
he shall be entitled only to one year's interest on the sum lent. If
money is lent to the owner of a padi-plantation, on an agreement to pay
interest in grain, and after the harvest is over the borrower omits to
pay the stipulated quantity, the lender shall be entitled to receive at
the rate of fifteen dollars for ten lent; and if the omission should be
repeated another season the lender shall be entitled to receive double
the principal. In all cases of debt contested the onus probandi lies with
the demandant, who must make good his claim by creditable evidence, or in
default thereof the respondent may by oath clear himself from the debt.
On the other hand, if the respondent allows such a debt to have existed
but asserts a previous payment, it rests with him to prove such payment
by proper evidence, or in defect the demandant shall by oath establish
his debt.

EVIDENCE AND OATHS.

EVIDENCE.

In order to be deemed a competent and unexceptionable evidence person
must be of a different family and dusun from the person in whose behalf
he gives evidence, of good character, and a free man: but if the dispute
be between two inhabitants of the same dusun persons of such dusun are
allowed to be complete evidence. In respect to the oath taken by the
principals in a dispute the hukuman (or comprehensive quality of the
oath) depends on the nature of the property in dispute: if it relates to
the effects of the grandfather the hukuman must extend to the descendants
from the grandfather; if it relates to the effects of the father it
extends to the descendants of the father, etc. If any of the parties
proposed to be included in the operation of the oath refuse to subject
themselves to the oath the principal in the suit loses his cause.

PAWNS OR PLEDGES.

If any person holding a pawn or pledge such as wearing-apparel, household
effects, or krises, swords, or kujur (lances), shall pledge it for a
larger sum than he advanced for it, he shall be answerable to the owner
for the full value of it, on payment of the sum originally advanced. If
any person holding as a pledge man, woman, or child shall pledge them to
any other at an advanced sum, or without the knowledge of the owner, and
by these means the person pledged should be sold as a slave, he shall
make good to the owner the full value of such slave, and pay a fine of
twenty-eight dollars. If any person whatever holding man, woman, or child
as a pawn, either with janji lalu (term expired) or not, or with or
without the consent of the original owner, shall sell such person as a
slave without the knowledge of the Resident and Chiefs, he shall be fined
twenty-eight dollars.

BUFFALOES.

CATTLE.

All persons who keep buffaloes shall register at the godong
(factory­house) their tingas or mark; and, in case any dispute shall
arise about a marked buffalo, no person shall be allowed to plead a mark
that is not registered. If any wild (stray) buffalo or buffaloes,
unmarked, shall be taken in a kandang (staked inclosure) they shall be
adjudged the property of any who takes upon himself to swear to them;
and, if it should happen that two or more persons insist upon swearing to
the same buffaloes, they shall be divided among them equally. If no
individual will swear to the property the buffaloes are to be considered
as belonging to the kalippah or magistrate of the district where they
were caught. The person who takes any buffaloes in his kandang shall be
entitled to a gratuity of two dollars per head. If any buffaloes get into
a pepper-garden, either by day or night, the owner of the garden shall
have liberty to kill them, without being answerable to the owner of the
buffaloes: yet, if it shall appear on examination that the garden was not
properly fenced, and from this defect suffers damage, the owner shall be
liable to such fine as the Resident and Chiefs shall judge it proper to
impose.

THEFT.

A person convicted of stealing money, wearing-apparel, household effects,
arms, or the like shall pay the owner double the value of the goods
stolen and be fined twenty-eight dollars. A person convicted of stealing
slaves shall pay to the owner at the rate of eighty dollars per head,
which is estimated to be double the value, and fined twenty­eight
dollars. A person convicted of stealing betel, fowls, or coconuts shall
pay the owner double the value and be fined seven dollars, half of which
fine is to be received by the owner. If buffaloes are stolen they shall
be valued at twelve dollars per head: padi at four bakul (baskets) for
the dollar. If the stolen goods be found in the possession of a person
who is not able to account satisfactorily how he came by them he shall be
deemed the guilty person. If a person attempting to seize a man in the
act of thieving shall get hold of any part of his clothes which are
known, or his kris or siwah, this shall be deemed a sufficient token of
the theft. If two witnesses can be found who saw the stolen goods in
possession of a third person such person shall be deemed guilty unless he
can account satisfactorily how he became possessed of the goods. The oath
taken by such witnesses shall either include the descendants of their
father, or simply their own descendants, according to the discretion of
the chiefs who sit as judges. If several people sleep in one house, and
one of them leaves the house in the night without giving notice to any of
the rest, and a robbery be committed in the house that night, the person
so leaving the house shall be deemed guilty of the crime, provided the
owner of the stolen goods be willing to subject himself to an oath on the
occasion; and provided the other persons sleeping in the house shall
clear themselves by oath from being concerned in the theft: but if it
should happen that a person so convicted, being really innocent, should
in after time discover the person actually guilty, he shall have liberty
to bring his suit and recover. If several persons are sleeping in a house
and a robbery is committed that night, although none leave the house the
whole shall be obliged to make oath that they had no knowledge of, or
concern in, the theft, or on refusal shall be deemed guilty. In all cases
of theft where only a part of the stolen goods is found the owner must
ascertain upon oath the whole amount of his loss.

MURDER, WOUNDING, AND ASSAULT.

A person convicted of murder shall pay to the relations of the deceased a
bangun of eighty-eight dollars, one suku, and seventy-five cash; to the
chiefs a fine of twenty-eight dollars; the bhasa lurah, which is a
buffalo and one hundred bamboos of rice; and the palantan, which is
fourteen dollars. If a son kills his father, or a father his son, or a
man kills his brother, he shall pay a fine of twenty-eight dollars, and
the bhasa lurah as above. If a man kills his wife the relations of the
deceased shall receive half a bangun: if any other kills a man's wife the
husband is entitled to the bangun, but shall pay out of it to the
relations of the wife ten dollars. In wounds a distinction is made in the
parts of the body. A wound in any part from the hips upward is esteemed
more considerable than in the lower parts. If a person wounds another
with sword, kris, kujur, or other weapon, and the wound is considerable,
so as to maim him, he shall pay to the person wounded a half-bangun, and
to the chiefs half of the fine for murder, with half of the bhasa lurah,
etc. If the wound is trifling but fetches blood he shall pay the person
wounded the tepong of fourteen dollars, and be fined fourteen dollars. If
a person wounds another with a stick, bamboo, etc., he shall simply pay
the tepong of fourteen dollars. If in any dispute between two people
krises are drawn the person who first drew his kris shall be fined
fourteen dollars. If any person having a dispute assembles together his
friends with arms, he shall be fined twenty-eight dollars.

MARRIAGE, DIVORCE, ETC.

MARRIAGE.

There are two modes of marriage used here: one by purchase, called jujur
or kulu, the other by adoption, called ambel anak. First of jujur.

JUJUR.

When a person is desirous of marrying he deposits a sum of money in the
hands of the father of the virgin, which is called the pagatan. This sum
is not esteemed part of the purchase, but as an equivalent for the
dandanan (paraphernalia, or ornamental apparel) of the bride, and is not
fixed but varies according to the circumstances and rank of the father.
The amount of the jujur is fixed at seventy dollars, including the hurup
niawa (price of life), forty dollars, a kris with gold about the head and
silver about the sheath, valued at ten dollars, and the meniudakan billi
or putus kulo (completion of purchase) at twenty. If a young man runs
away with a gadis or virgin without the consent of the father he does not
act contrary to the laws of the country; but if he refuses to pay the
full jujur on demand he shall be fined twenty­eight dollars. If the
father, having received the pagatan of one man, marries his daughter to
another before he returns the money to the first, he shall be fined
fourteen dollars, and the man who marries the daughter shall also be
fined fourteen dollars. In case of divorce (which may take place at the
will of either party) the dandanan brought by the wife is to be valued
and to be deducted from the purchase-money. If a divorce originates from
the man, and before the whole purchase­money is paid, the man shall
receive back what he has advanced after deducting the dandanan as above,
and fourteen dollars, called penusutan. If the divorce originates with
the woman the whole purchase-money shall be returned, and the children,
if any, remain with the father. If a divorce originates with the man,
when the whole purchase-money has been paid, or kulo sudah putus, he
shall not be entitled to receive back the purchase-money, but may recall
his wife whenever it shall be agreeable to him. An exact estimation is
made of the value of the woman's ornaments, and what are not restored
with her must be made good by the husband. If there are children they are
in this case to be divided, or if there be only one the husband is to
allow the woman fifteen dollars, and to take the child. Secondly, of
ambel anak.

AMBEL ANAK.

When a man marries after the custom called ambel anak he pays no money to
the father of the bride, but becomes one of his family, and is entirely
upon the footing of a son, the father of his wife being thenceforward
answerable for his debts, etc., in the same manner as for his own
children. The married man becomes entirely separate from his original
family, and gives up his right of inheritance. It is however in the power
of the father of the wife to divorce from her his adopted son whenever he
thinks proper, in which case the husband is not entitled to any of the
children, nor to any effects other than simply the clothes on his back:
but if the wife is willing still to live with him, and he is able to
redeem her and the children by paying the father a hundred dollars, it is
not at the option of the father to refuse accepting this sum; and in that
case the marriage becomes a kulo or jujur, and is subject to the same
rules. If any unmarried woman is convicted of incontinence, or a married
woman of adultery, they shall pay to the chiefs a fine of forty dollars,
or in defect thereof become slaves, and the man with whom the crime was
committed shall pay a fine of thirty dollars, or in like manner become a
slave; and the parties between them shall also be at the expense of a
buffalo and a hundred bamboos of rice. This is called the gawe pati or
panjingan. If an unmarried woman proves with child and refuses to name
the man with whom she was guilty she shall pay the whole fine of seventy
dollars, and furnish the buffalo, etc. If a woman after marriage brings
forth a child before the due course of nature she shall be fined
twenty-eight dollars. If a man keeps a young woman in his house for any
length of time, and has a child by her without being regularly married,
he shall be fined twenty-eight dollars, and furnish a buffalo and a
hundred bamboos of rice. If a person detects the offenders in the act of
adultery, and, attempting to seize the man, is obliged to kill him in
self-defence, he shall not pay the bangun, nor be fined, but only pay the
bhasa lurah, which is a buffalo and a hundred bamboos of rice. On the
other hand, if the guilty person kills the one who attempts to seize him,
he shall be deemed guilty of murder and pay the bangun and fine
accordingly. If a man holding a woman as a pawn, or in the condition of
mengiring shall commit fornication with her, he shall forfeit his claim
to the debt, and the woman become free.

OUTLAWRY.

If the members of a family have suffered inconvenience from the ill
conduct of any of their relations by having been rendered answerable for
their debts, etc., it shall be in their power to clear themselves from
all future responsibility on his account by paying to the chiefs the sum
of thirty dollars, a buffalo, and a hundred bamboos of rice. This is
termed buang surat. Should the person so cast out be afterwards murdered
the relations have forfeited their right to the bangun, which devolves to
the chiefs.

Dated at Manna, July 1807.

JOHN CRISP, Resident.


CHAPTER 13.

REMARKS ON, AND ELUCIDATION OF, THE VARIOUS LAWS AND CUSTOMS.
MODES OF PLEADING.
NATURE OF EVIDENCE.
OATHS.
INHERITANCE.
OUTLAWRY.
THEFT, MURDER, AND COMPENSATION FOR IT.
ACCOUNT OF A FEUD.
DEBTS.
SLAVERY.

REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING LAWS.

The foregoing system of the adat, or customs of the country, being
digested chiefly for the use of the natives, or of persons well
acquainted with their manners in general, and being designed, not for an
illustration of the customs, but simply as a standard of right, the
fewest and concisest terms possible have been made use of, and many parts
must necessarily be obscure to the bulk of readers. I shall therefore
revert to those particulars that may require explanation, and endeavour
to throw a light upon the spirit and operation of such of their laws
especially as seem most to clash with our ideas of distributive justice.
This comment is the more requisite as it appears that some of their
regulations, which were judged to be inconsistent with the prosperity of
the people, were altered and amended through the more enlightened reason
of the persons who acted as the representatives of the English company;
and it may be proper to recall the idea of the original institutions.

MODE OF PLEADING.

The plaintiff and defendant usually plead their own cause, but if
circumstances render them unequal to it they are allowed to pinjam mulut
(borrow a mouth). Their advocate may be a proattin, or other person
indifferently; nor is there any stated compensation for the assistance,
though if the cause be gained a gratuity is generally given, and too apt
to be rapaciously exacted by these chiefs from their clients, when their
conduct is not attentively watched. The proattin also, who is security
for the damages, receives privately some consideration; but none is
openly allowed of. A refusal on his part to become security for his
dependant or client is held to justify the latter in renouncing his civil
dependence and choosing another patron.

EVIDENCE.

Evidence is used among these people in a manner very different from the
forms of our courts of justice. They rarely admit it on both sides of the
question; nor does the witness first make a general oath to speak the
truth, and nothing but the truth. When a fact is to be established,
either on the part of the plaintiff or of the defendant, he is asked if
he can produce any evidence to the truth of what he asserts. On answering
in the affirmative he is directed to mention the person. This witness
must not be a relation, a party concerned, nor even belong to the same
dusun. He must be a responsible man, having a family, and a determinate
place of residence. Thus qualified, his evidence may be admitted. They
have a settled rule in respect to the party that is to produce evidence.
For instance; A. sues B. for a debt: B. denies the debt: A. is now to
bring evidence to the debt, or, on failure thereof, it remains with B. to
clear himself of the debt by swearing himself not indebted. Had B.
acknowledged that such a debt had formerly subsisted but was since paid,
it would be incumbent on B. to prove the payment by evidence, or on
failure it would rest with A. to confirm the debt's being still due, by
his oath. This is an invariable mode, observed in all cases of property.

OATHS.

As their manner of giving evidence differs from ours so also does the
nature of an oath among them differ from our idea of it. In many cases it
is requisite that they should swear to what it is not possible in the
nature of things they should know to be true. A. sues B. for a debt due
from the father or grandfather of B. to the father or grandfather of A.
The original parties are dead and no witness of the transaction survives.
How is the matter to be decided? It remains with B. to make oath that his
father or grandfather never was indebted to those of A.; or that if he
was indebted the debt had been paid. This, among us, would be esteemed a
very strange method of deciding causes; but among these people something
of the kind is absolutely necessary. As they have no sort of written
accounts, nor anything like records or registers among them, it would be
utterly impossible for the plaintiff to establish the debt by a positive
proof in a multitude of cases; and were the suit to be dismissed at once,
as with us, for want of such proof, numbers of innocent persons would
lose the debts really due to them through the knavery of the persons
indebted, who would scarce ever fail to deny a debt. On the side of the
defendant again; if he was not permitted to clear himself of the debt by
oath, but that it rested with the plaintiff only to establish the fact by
a single oath, there would be a set of unprincipled fellows daily
swearing debts against persons who never were indebted to any of their
generation. In such suits, and there are many of them, it requires no
small discernment to discover, by the attendant circumstances, where the
truth lies; but this may be done in most instances by a person who is
used to their manners and has a personal knowledge of the parties
concerned. But what they mean by their oath, in those cases where it is
impossible they should be acquainted with the facts they design to prove,
is no more than this; that they are so convinced of the truth of the
matter as to be willing to subject themselves to the paju sumpah
(destructive consequences of perjury) if what they assert is believed by
them to be false. The form of words used is nearly as follows: "If what I
now declare, namely" (here the fact is recited) "is truly and really so,
may I be freed and clear from my oath: if what I assert is wittingly
false, may my oath be the cause of my destruction." But it may be easily
supposed that, where the punishment for a false oath rests altogether
with the invisible powers, where no direct infamy, no corporal punishment
is annexed to the perjury, there cannot fail to be many who would makan
sumpah (swallow an oath), and willingly incur the guilt, in order to
acquire a little of their neighbour's property.

Although an oath, as being an appeal to the superior powers, is supposed
to come within their cognizance alone, and that it is contrary to the
spirit of the customs of these people to punish a perjury by human means,
even if it were clearly detected; yet, so far prevalent is the opinion of
their interposition in human affairs that it is very seldom any man of
substance, or who has a family that he fears may suffer by it, will
venture to forswear himself; nor are there wanting apparent examples to
confirm them in this notion. Any accident that happens to a man who has
been known to take a false oath, or to his children or grandchildren, is
carefully recorded in memory, and attributed to this sole cause. The
dupati of Gunong Selong and his family have afforded an instance that is
often quoted among the Rejangs, and has evidently had great weight. It
was notorious that he had, about the year 1770, taken in the most solemn
manner a false oath. He had at that time five sons grown up to manhood.
One of them, soon after, in a scuffle with some bugis (country soldiers)
was wounded and died. The dupati the next year lost his life in the issue
of a disturbance he had raised in the district. Two of the sons died
afterwards, within a week of each other. Mas Kaddah, the fourth, is
blind; and Treman, the fifth, lame. All this is attributed to, and firmly
believed to be the consequence of, the father's perjury.

COLLATERAL OATHS.

In administering an oath, if the matter litigated respects the property
of the grandfather, all the collateral branches of the family descended
from him are understood to be included in its operation: if the father's
effects only are concerned, or the transaction happened in his lifetime,
his descendants are included: if the affair regards only the present
parties and originated with them, they and their immediate descendants
only are comprehended in the consequences of the oath; and if any single
one of these descendants refuses to join in the oath it vitiates the
whole; that is, it has the same effect as if the party himself refused to
swear; a case that not unfrequently occurs. It may be observed that the
spirit of this custom tends to the requiring a weight of evidence and an
increase of the importance of the oath in proportion as the distance of
time renders the fact to be established less capable of proof in the
ordinary way.

Sometimes the difficulty of the case alone will induce the court to
insist on administering the oath to the relations of the parties,
although they are nowise concerned in the transaction. I recollect an
instance where three people were prosecuted for a theft. There was no
positive proof against them, yet the circumstances were so strong that it
appeared proper to put them to the test of one of these collateral oaths.
They were all willing, and two of them swore. When it came to the turn of
the third he could not persuade his relations to join with him, and he
was accordingly brought in for the whole amount of the goods stolen, and
penalties annexed.

These customs bear a strong resemblance to the rules of proof established
among our ancestors, the Anglo-Saxons, who were likewise obliged, in the
case of oaths taken for the purpose of exculpation, to produce a certain
number of compurgators; but, as these might be any indifferent persons,
who would take upon them to bear testimony to the truth of what their
neighbour swore, from an opinion of his veracity, there seems to be more
refinement and more knowledge of human nature in the Sumatran practice.
The idea of devoting to destruction, by a wilful perjury, not himself
only, but all, even the remotest branches, of a family which constitutes
his greatest pride, and of which the deceased heads are regarded with the
veneration that was paid to the dii lares of the ancients, has doubtless
restrained many a man from taking a false oath, who without much
compunction would suffer thirty or a hundred compurgators of the former
description to take their chance of that fate. Their strongest prejudices
are here converted to the most beneficial purposes.

CEREMONY OF TAKING AN OATH.

The place of greatest solemnity for administering an oath is the krammat
or burying-ground of their ancestors, and several superstitious
ceremonies are observed on the occasion. The people near the sea-coast,
in general, by long intercourse with the Malays, have an idea of the
Koran, and usually employ this in swearing, which the priests do not fail
to make them pay for; but the inland people keep, laid up in their
houses, certain old reliques, called in the Rejang language pesakko, and
in Malayan, sactian, which they produce when an oath is to be taken. The
person who has lost his cause, and with whom it commonly rests to bind
his adversary by an oath, often desires two or three days' time to get
ready these his swearing apparatus, called on such occasions sumpahan, of
which some are looked upon as more sacred and of greater efficacy than
others. They consist of an old rusty kris, a broken gun barrel, or any
ancient trumpery, to which chance or caprice has annexed an idea of
extraordinary virtue. These they generally dip in water, which the person
who swears drinks off, after having pronounced the form of words before
mentioned.* The pangeran of Sungei-lamo has by him certain copper bullets
which had been steeped in water drunk by the Sungei­etam chiefs, when
they bound themselves never to molest his districts: which they have only
done since as often as they could venture it with safety, from the
relaxation of our government. But these were political oaths. The most
ordinary sumpahan is a kris, and on the blade of this they sometimes drop
lime-juice, which occasions a stain on the lips of the person performing
the ceremony; a circumstance that may not improbably be supposed to make
an impression on a weak and guilty mind. Such would fancy that the
external stain conveyed to the beholders an image of the internal. At
Manna the sumpahan most respected is a gun barrel. When produced to be
sworn on it is carried to the spot in state, under an umbrella, and
wrapped in silk. This parade has an advantageous effect by influencing
the mind of the party with a high idea of the importance and solemnity of
the business. In England the familiarity of the object and the summary
method of administering oaths are well known to diminish their weight,
and to render them too often nugatory. They sometimes swear by the earth,
laying their hands upon it and wishing that it may never produce aught
for their nourishment if they speak falsely. In all these ceremonies they
burn on the spot a little gum benzoin--Et acerra thuris plena, positusque
carbo in cespite vivo.

(*Footnote. The form of taking an oath among the people of Madagascar
very nearly resembles the ceremonies used by the Sumatrans. There is a
strong similarity in the articles they swear on and in the circumstance
of their drinking the consecrated water.)

It is a striking circumstance that practices which boast so little of
reason in their foundation, which are in fact so whimsical and childish,
should yet be common to nations the most remote in situation, climate,
language, complexion, character, and everything that can distinguish one
race of people from another. Formed of like materials, and furnished with
like original sentiments, the uncivilized tribes of Europe and of
India trembled from the same apprehensions, excited by similar ideas, at
a time when they were ignorant, or even denied the possibility of each
other's existence. Mutual wrong and animosity, attended with disputes and
accusations, are not by nature confined to either description of people.
Each, in doubtful litigations, might seek to prove their innocence by
braving, on the justice of their cause, those objects which inspired
amongst their countrymen the greatest terror. The Sumatran, impressed
with an idea of invisible powers, but not of his own immortality, regards
with awe the supposed instruments of their agency, and swears on krises,
bullets, and gun barrels; weapons of personal destruction. The German
Christian of the seventh century, more indifferent to the perils of this
life, but not less superstitious, swore on bits of rotten wood and rusty
nails, which he was taught to revere as possessing efficacy to secure him
from eternal perdition.

INHERITANCE.

When a man dies his effects, in common course, descend to his male
children in equal shares; but if one among them is remarkable for his
abilities above the rest, though not the eldest, he usually obtains the
largest proportion, and becomes the head of the tungguan or house; the
others voluntarily yielding him the superiority. A pangeran of Manna left
several children; none of them succeeded to the title, but a name of
distinction was given to one of the younger, who was looked upon as chief
of the family after the father's decease. Upon asking the eldest how it
happened that the name of distinction passed over him and was conferred
on his younger brother, he answered with great naivete, "because I am
accounted weak and silly." If no male children are left and a daughter
only remains they contrive to get her married by the mode of ambel anak,
and thus the tungguan of the father continues. An equal distribution of
property among children is more natural and conformable to justice than
vesting the whole in the eldest son, as prevails throughout most part of
Europe; but where wealth consists in landed estate the latter mode,
beside favouring the pride of family, is attended with fewest
inconveniences. The property of the Sumatrans being personal merely, this
reason does not operate with them. Land is so abundant in proportion to
the population that they scarcely consider it as the subject of right any
more than the elements of air and water; excepting so far as in
speculation the prince lays claim to the whole. The ground however on
which a man plants or builds, with the consent of his neighbours, becomes
a species of nominal property, and is transferable; but as it costs him
nothing beside his labour it is only the produce which is esteemed of
value, and the compensation he receives is for this alone. A temporary
usufruct is accordingly all that they attend to, and the price, in case
of sale, is generally ascertained by the coconut, durian, and other
fruit-trees that have been planted on it; the buildings being for the
most part but little durable. Whilst any of those subsist the descendants
of the planter may claim the ground, though it has been for years
abandoned. If they are cut down he may recover damages; but if they have
disappeared in the course of nature the land reverts to the public.

They have a custom of keeping by them a sum of money as a resource
against extremity of distress, and which common exigencies do not call
forth. This is a refined antidote against despair, because, whilst it
remains possible to avoid encroaching on that treasure, their affairs are
not at the worst, and the idea of the little hoard serves to buoy up
their spirits and encourage them to struggle with wretchedness. It
usually therefore continues inviolate and descends to the heir, or is
lost to him by the sudden exit of the parent. From their apprehension of
dishonesty and insecurity of their houses their money is for the most
part concealed in the ground, the cavity of an old beam, or other secret
place; and a man on his death-bed has commonly some important discovery
of this nature to make to his assembled relations.

OUTLAWRY.

The practice of outlawing an individual of a family by the head of it
(called lepas or buang dangan surat, to let loose, or cast out with a
writing) has its foundation in the custom which obliges all the branches
to be responsible for the debts contracted by any one of the kindred.
When an extravagant and unprincipled spendthrift is running a career that
appears likely to involve his family in ruinous consequences, they have
the right of dissolving the connexion and clearing themselves of further
responsibility by this public act, which, as the writ expresses it, sends
forth the outcast, as a deer into the woods, no longer to be considered
as enjoying the privileges of society. This character is what they term
risau, though it is sometimes applied to persons not absolutely outlawed,
but of debauched and irregular manners.

In the Saxon law we find a strong resemblance to this custom; the kindred
of a murderer being exempt from the feud if they abandoned him to his
fate. They bound themselves in this case neither to converse with him nor
to furnish him with meat or other necessaries. This is precisely the
Sumatran outlawry, in which it is always particularly specified (beside
what relates to common debts) that if the outlaw kills a person the
relations shall not pay the compensation, nor claim it if he is killed.
But the writ must have been issued before the event, and they cannot free
themselves by a subsequent process, as it would seem the Saxons might. If
an outlaw commits murder the friends of the deceased may take personal
revenge on him, and are not liable to be called to an account for it; but
if such be killed, otherwise than in satisfaction for murder, although
his family have no claim, the prince of the country is entitled to a
certain compensation, all outlaws being nominally his property, like
other wild animals.

COMPENSATION FOR MURDER.

It seems strange to those who are accustomed to the severity of penal
laws, which in most instances inflict punishment exceeding by many
degrees the measure of the offence, how a society can exist in which the
greatest of all crimes is, agreeably to established custom, expiated by
the payment of a certain sum of money; a sum not proportioned to the rank
and ability of the murderer, nor to the premeditation, or other
aggravating circumstances of the fact, but regulated only by the quality
of the person murdered. The practice had doubtless its source in the
imbecility of government, which, being unable to enforce the law of
retaliation, the most obvious rule of punishment, had recourse to a
milder scheme of retribution as being preferable to absolute indemnity.
The latter it was competent to carry into execution because the guilty
persons readily submit to a penalty which effectually relieves them from
the burden of anxiety for the consequences of their action. Instances
occur in the history of all states, particularly those which suffer from
internal weakness, of iniquities going unpunished, owing to the rigour of
the pains denounced against them by the law, which defeats its own
purpose. The original mode of avenging a murder was probably by the arm
of the person nearest in consanguinity, or friendship, to the deceased;
but this was evidently destructive of the public tranquillity, because
thereby the wrong became progressive, each act of satisfaction, or
justice, as it was called, being the source of a new revenge, till the
feud became general in the community; and some method would naturally be
suggested to put a stop to such confusion. The most direct step is to
vest in the magistrate or the law the rights of the injured party, and to
arm them with a vindictive power; which principle the policy of more
civilized societies has refined to that of making examples in terrorem,
with a view of preventing future, not of revenging past crimes. But this
requires a firmness of authority to which the Sumatran governments are
strangers. They are without coercive power, and the submission of the
people is little other than voluntary; especially of the men of
influence, who are held in subjection rather by the sense of general
utility planted in the breast of mankind, attachment to their family and
connexions, and veneration for the spot in which their ancestors were
interred, than by the apprehension of any superior authority. These
considerations however they would readily forego, renounce their fealty,
and quit their country, if in any case they were in danger of paying with
life the forfeit of their crimes; to lesser punishments those ties induce
them to submit; and to strengthen this hold their customs wisely enjoin
that every the remotest branch of the family shall be responsible for the
payment of their adjudged and other debts; and in cases of murder the
bangun, or compensation, may be levied on the inhabitants of the village
the culprit belonged to, if it happens that neither he nor any of his
relations can be found.

The equality of punishment, which allows to the rich man the faculty of
committing, with small inconvenience, crimes that bring utter destruction
on the poor man and his family, and which is in fact the greatest
inequality, originates certainly from the interested design of those
through whose influence the regulation came to be adopted. Its view was
to establish a subordination of persons. In Europe the absolute
distinction between rich and poor, though too sensibly felt, is not
insisted upon in speculation, but rather denied or explained away in
general reasoning. Among the Sumatrans it is coolly acknowledged, and a
man without property, family, or connexions never, in the partiality of
self-love, considers his own life as being of equal value with that of a
man of substance. A maxim, though not the practice, of their law, says,
"that he who is able to pay the bangun for murder must satisfy the
relations of the deceased; he who is unable, must suffer death." But the
avarice of the relations prefers selling the body of the delinquent for
what his slavery will fetch them (for such is the effect of imposing a
penalty that cannot be paid) to the satisfaction of seeing the murder
revenged by the public execution of a culprit of that mean description.
Capital punishments are therefore almost totally out of use among them;
and it is only par la loi du plus fort that the Europeans take the
liberty of hanging a notorious criminal now and then, whom however their
own chiefs always condemn, and formally sentence.

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.

Corporal punishment of any kind is rare. The chain, and a sort of stocks,
made of the pinang tree, are adopted from us; the word pasong, now
commonly used to denote the latter, originally signifying and being still
frequently applied to confinement in general. A kind of cage made use of
in the country is probably their own invention. "How do you secure a
prisoner (a man was asked) without employing a chain or our stocks?" "We
pen him up," said he, "as we would a bear!" The cage is made of bamboos
laid horizontally in a square, piled alternately, secured by timbers at
the corners, and strongly covered in at top. To lead a runaway they
fasten a rattan round his neck, and, passing it through a bamboo somewhat
longer than his arms, they bring his hands together and make them fast to
the bamboo, in a state rather of constraint than of pain, which I believe
never is wantonly or unnecessarily inflicted. If the offender is of a
desperate character they bind him hands and feet and sling him on a pole.
When they would convey a person from accident or otherwise unable to walk
they make a palanquin by splitting a large bamboo near the middle of its
length, where they contrive to keep it open so that the cavity forms a
bed, the ends being preserved whole, to rest upon their shoulders.

The custom of exacting the bangun for murder seems only designed with a
view of making a compensation to the injured family, and not of punishing
the offender. The word signifies awaking or raising up, and the deceased
is supposed to be replaced, or raised again to his family, in the payment
of a sum proportioned to his rank, or equivalent to his or her personal
value. The price of a female slave is generally more than that of a male,
and therefore, I heard a chief say, is the bangun of a woman more than
that of a man. It is upon this principle that their laws take no
cognizance of the distinction between a wilful murder and what we term
manslaughter. The loss is the same to the family, and therefore the
compensations are alike. A dupati of Laye, in an ill hour, stepped
unwarily across the mouth of a cannon at the instant it was fired off for
a salute, and was killed by the explosion, upon which his relations
immediately sued the sergeant of the country-guard, who applied the
match, for the recovery of the bangun; but they were cast, and upon these
grounds: that the dupati was instrumental in his own death, and that the
Company's servants, being amenable to other laws for their crimes, were
not, by established custom, subject to the bangun or other penalties
inflicted by the native chiefs, for accidents resulting from the
execution of their duty. The tippong bumi, expiation, or purification of
the earth from the stain it has received, was however gratuitously paid.
No plea was set up that the action was unpremeditated, and the event
chance-medley.

The introduction of this custom is beyond the extent of Sumatran
tradition, and has no connexion with, or dependence on, Mahometanism,
being established amongst the most inland people from time immemorial. In
early ages it was by no means confined to that part of the world. The
bangun is perfectly the same as the compensation for murder in the rude
institutions of our Saxon ancestors and other northern nations. It is the
eric of Ireland, and the apoinon of the Greeks. In the compartments of
the shield of Achilles Homer describes the adjudgment of a fine for
homicide. It would seem then to be a natural step in the advances from
anarchy to settled government, and that it can only take place in such
societies as have already a strong idea of the value of personal
property, who esteem its possession of the next importance to that of
life, and place it in competition with the strongest passion that seizes
the human soul.

The compensation is so regularly established among the Sumatrans that any
other satisfaction is seldom demanded. In the first heat of resentment
retaliation is sometimes attempted, but the spirit soon evaporates, and
application is usually made, upon the immediate discovery of the fact, to
the chiefs of the country for the exertion of their influence to oblige
the criminal to pay the bangun. His death is then not thought of unless
he is unable, and his family unwilling, to raise the established sum.
Instances, it is true, occur in which the prosecutor, knowing the
European law in such case, will, from motives of revenge, urge to the
Resident the propriety of executing the offender rather than receive the
money; but if the latter is ready to pay it it is contrary to their laws
to proceed further. The degree of satisfaction that attends the payment
of the bangun is generally considered as absolute to the parties
concerned; they receive it as full compensation, and pretend to no
farther claim upon the murderer and his family. Slight provocations
however have been sometimes known to renew the feud, and there are not
wanting instances of a son's revenging his father's murder and willingly
refunding the bangun. When in an affray there happen to be several
persons killed on both sides, the business of justice is only to state
the reciprocal losses, in the form of an account current, and order the
balance to be discharged, if the numbers be unequal. The following is a
relation of the circumstances of one of these bloody feuds, which
happened whilst I was in the island, but which become every year more
rare where the influence of our government extends.

ACCOUNT OF A FEUD.

Raddin Siban was the head of a tribe in the district of Manna, of which
Pangeran Raja-Kalippah was the official chief; though by the customs of
the country he had no right of sovereignty over him. The pangeran's not
allowing him what he thought an adequate share of fines, and other
advantages annexed to his rank, was the foundation of a jealousy and ill
will between them, which an event that happened a few years since raised
to the highest pitch of family feud. Lessut, a younger brother of the
pangeran, had a wife who was very handsome, and whom Raddin Siban had
endeavoured to procure, whilst a virgin, for HIS younger brother, who was
in love with her: but the pangeran had contrived to circumvent him, and
obtained the girl for Lessut. However it seems the lady herself had
conceived a violent liking for the brother of Raddin Siban, who found
means to enjoy her after she was married, or was violently suspected so
to have done. The consequence was that Lessut killed him to revenge the
dishonour of his bed. Upon this the families were presently up in arms,
but the English Resident interfering preserved the peace of the country,
and settled the affair agreeably to the customs of the place by bangun
and fine. But this did not prove sufficient to extinguish the fury which
raged in the hearts of Raddin Siban's family, whose relation was
murdered. It only served to delay the revenge until a proper opportunity
offered of gratifying it. The people of the country being called together
on a particular occasion, the two inimical families were assembled, at
the same time, in Manna bazaar. Two younger brothers (they had been five
in all) of Raddin Siban, going to the cockpit, saw Raja Muda the next
brother of the pangeran, and Lessut his younger brother, in the open part
of a house which they passed. They quickly returned, drew their krises,
and attacked the pangeran's brothers, calling to them, if they were men,
to defend themselves. The challenge was instantly accepted, Lessut, the
unfortunate husband, fell; but the aggressors were both killed by Raja
Muda, who was himself much wounded. The affair was almost over before the
scuffle was perceived. The bodies were lying on the ground, and Raja Muda
was supporting himself against a tree which stood near the spot, when
Raddin Siban, who was in a house on the opposite side of the bazaar at
the time the affray happened, being made acquainted with the
circumstances, came over the way, with his lance in his hand. He passed
on the contrary side of the tree, and did not see Raja Muda, but began to
stab with his weapon the dead body of Lessut, in excess of rage, on
seeing the bloody remains of his two brothers. Just then, Raja Muda, who
was half dead, but had his kris in his hand, still unseen by Raddin
Siban, crawled a step or two and thrust the weapon into his side, saying
"Matti kau"--"die thou!" Raddin Siban spoke not a word, but put his hand
on the wound and walked across to the house from whence he came, at the
door of which he dropped down and expired. Such was the catastrophe. Raja
Muda survived his wounds, but being much deformed by them lives a
melancholy example of the effects of these barbarous feuds.

PROOF OF THEFT.

In cases of theft the swearing a robbery against a person suspected is of
no effect, and justly, for were it otherwise nothing would be more common
than the prosecution of innocent persons. The proper proofs are either
seizure of the person in the fact before witnesses, or discovery of the
goods stolen in possession of one who can give no satisfactory account
how he came by them. As it frequently happens that a man finds part only
of what he had lost it remains with him, when the robbery is proved, to
ascertain the whole amount, by oath, which in that point is held
sufficient.

LAW RESPECTING DEBTS.

The law which renders all the members of a family reciprocally bound for
the security of each others' debts forms a strong connexion among them,
and occasions the elder branches to be particularly watchful of the
conduct of those for whose imprudence they must be answerable.

When a debtor is unable to pay what he owes, and has no relation or
friends capable of doing it for him, or when the children of a deceased
person do not find property enough to discharge the debts of their
parent, they are forced to the state which is called mengiring, which
simply means to follow or be dependent on, but here implies the becoming
a species of bond-slaves to the creditor, who allows them subsistence and
clothing but does not appropriate the produce of their labour to the
diminution of their debt. Their condition is better than that of pure
slavery in this, that the creditor cannot strike them, and they can
change their masters by prevailing on another person to pay their debt
and accept of their labour on the same terms. Of course they may obtain
their liberty if they can by any means procure a sum equal to their debt;
whereas a slave, though possessing ever so large property, has not the
right of purchasing his liberty. If however the creditor shall demand
formally the amount of his debt from a person mengiring, at three several
times, allowing a certain number of days between each demand, and the
latter is not able to persuade anyone to redeem him, he becomes, by the
custom of the country, a pure slave, upon the creditor's giving notice to
the chief of the transaction. This is the resource he has against the
laziness or untoward behaviour of his debtor, who might otherwise, in the
state of mengiring, be only a burden to him. If the children of a
deceased debtor are too young to be of service the charge of their
maintenance is added to the debt. This opens a door for many iniquitous
practices, and it is in the rigorous and frequently perverted exertion of
these rights which a creditor has over his debtor that the chiefs are
enabled to oppress the lower class of people, and from which abuses the
English Residents find it necessary to be the most watchful to restrain
them. In some cases one half of the produce of the labour is applied to
the reduction of the debt, and this situation of the insolvent debtor is
termed be-blah. Meranggau is the condition of a married woman who remains
as a pledge for a debt in the house of the creditor of her husband. If
any attempt should be made upon her person the proof of it annuls the
debt; but should she bring an accusation of that nature, and be unable to
prove it to the satisfaction of the court, and the man takes an oath in
support of his innocence, the debt must be immediately paid by the
family, or the woman be disposed of as a slave.

When a man of one district or country has a debt owing to him from the
inhabitant of a neighbouring country, of which he cannot recover payment,
an usual resource is to seize on one or more of his children and carry
them off; which they call andak. The daughter of a Rejang dupati was
carried off in this manner by the Labun people. Not hearing for some time
from her father, she sent him cuttings of her hair and nails, by which
she intimated a resolution of destroying herself if not soon released.

SLAVERY.

The right of slavery is established in Sumatra, as it is throughout the
East, and has been all over the world; yet but few instances occur of the
country people actually having slaves; though they are common enough in
the Malayan, or sea-port towns. Their domestics and labourers are either
dependant relations, or the orang mengiring above described, who are
usually called debtors, but should be distinguished by the term of
insolvent debtors. The simple manners of the people require that their
servants should live, in a great measure, on a footing of equality with
the rest of the family, which is inconsistent with the authority
necessary to be maintained over slaves who have no principle to restrain
them but that of personal fear,* and know that their civil condition
cannot be altered for the worse.

(*Footnote. I do not mean to assert that all men in the condition of
slaves are devoid of principle: I have experienced the contrary, and
found in them affection and strict honesty: but that there does not
result from their situation as slaves any principle of moral rectitude;
whereas every other condition of society has annexed to it ideas of duty
and mutual obligation arising from a sense of general utility. That
sublime species of morality derived from the injunctions of religion it
is almost universally their fate to be likewise strangers to, because
slavery is found inconsistent with the spirit of the gospel, not merely
as inculcating philanthropy but inspiring a principle of equality amongst
mankind.)

There is this advantage also, that when a debtor absconds they have
recourse to his relations for the amount of his debt, who, if unable to
pay it, must mengiring in his room; whereas when a slave makes his escape
the law can give no redress, and his value is lost to the owner. These
people moreover are from habit backward to strike, and the state of
slavery unhappily requires the frequent infliction of punishment in that
mode. A slave cannot possess independently any property; yet it rarely
happens that a master is found mean and sordid enough to despoil them of
the fruits of their industry; and their liberty is generally granted them
when in a condition to purchase it, though they cannot demand it of
right. It is nothing uncommon for those belonging to the Europeans to
possess slaves of their own, and to acquire considerable substance. Their
condition is here for the most part less unhappy than that of persons in
other situations of life. I am far from wishing to diminish the horror
that should ever accompany the general idea of a state which, whilst it
degrades the species, I am convinced is not necessary among mankind; but
I cannot help remarking, as an extraordinary fact, that if there is one
class of people eminently happy above all others upon earth it is the
body of Caffres, or negro slaves belonging to the India Company at
Bencoolen. They are well clothed and fed, and supplied with a proper
allowance of liquor; their work is by no means severe; the persons
appointed as their immediate overseers are chosen for their merit from
amongst themselves; they have no occasion of care or anxiety for the past
or future, and are naturally of a lively and open temper. The
contemplation of the effects which such advantages produce must afford
the highest gratification to a benevolent mind. They are usually seen
laughing or singing whilst at work, and the intervals allowed them are
mostly employed in dancing to their rude instrumental music, which
frequently begins at sunset and ceases only with the daylight that
recalls them to their labour. Since they were first carried thither, from
different parts of Africa and Madagascar, to the present hour, not so
much as the rumour of disturbance or discontent has ever been known to
proceed from them. They hold the natives of the island in contempt, have
a degree of antipathy towards them, and enjoy any mischief they can do
them; and these in their turn regard the Caffres as devils half
humanized.

The practice said to prevail elsewhere of men selling themselves for
slaves is repugnant to the customs of the Sumatrans, as it seems to
reason. It is an absurdity to barter anything valuable, much more civil
existence, for a sum which, by the very act of receiving, becomes again
the property of the buyer. Yet if a man runs in debt without a prospect
of paying, he does virtually the same thing, and this in cases of
distress is not uncommon, in order to relieve, perhaps, a beloved wife,
or favourite child, from similar bondage. A man has even been known to
apply in confidence to a friend to sell him to a third person, concealing
from the purchaser the nature of the transaction till the money was
appropriated.

Ignorant stragglers are often picked up in the country by lawless knaves
in power and sold beyond the hills. These have sometimes procured their
liberty again, and prosecuting their kidnappers have recovered large
damages. In the district of Allas a custom prevails by which, if a man
has been sold to the hill people, however unfairly, he is restricted on
his return from associating with his countrymen as their equal unless he
brings with him a sum of money and pays a fine for his re-enfranchisement
to his kalippah or chief. This regulation has taken its rise from an idea
of contamination among the people, and from art and avarice among the
chiefs.


CHAPTER 14.

MODES OF MARRIAGE, AND CUSTOMS RELATIVE THERETO.
POLYGAMY.
FESTIVALS.
GAMES.
COCK-FIGHTING.
USE AND EFFECTS OF OPIUM.

MOTIVES FOR ALTERING SOME OF THEIR MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.

By much the greater number of the legal disputes among these people have
their source in the intricacy attending their marriage contracts. In most
uncivilized countries these matters are very simple, the dictates of
nature being obeyed, or the calls of appetite satisfied, with little
ceremony or form of convention; but with the Sumatrans the difficulties,
both precedent and subsequent, are increased to a degree unknown even in
the most refined states. To remedy these inconveniences, which might be
supposed to deter men from engaging in marriage, was the view of the
Resident of Laye, before mentioned, who prevailed upon them to simplify
their engagements, as the means of preventing litigation between
families, and of increasing the population of the country. How far his
liberal views will be answered by having thus influenced the people to
change their customs, whether they will not soon relapse into the ancient
track; and whether in fact the cause that he supposed did actually
contribute to retard population, I shall not pretend to determine; but as
the last is a point on which a difference of opinion prevails I shall
take the liberty of quoting here the sentiments of another servant of the
Company (the late Mr. John Crisp) who possessed an understanding highly
enlightened.

REASONS AGAINST THIS ALTERATION.

This part of the island is in a low state of population, but it is an
error to ascribe this to the mode of obtaining wives by purchase. The
circumstance of children constituting part of the property of the parents
proves a most powerful incentive to matrimony, and there is not perhaps
any country on the face of the earth where marriage is more general than
here, instances of persons of either sex passing their lives in a state
of celibacy being extremely rare. The necessity of purchasing does not
prove such an obstacle to matrimony as is supposed. Was it indeed true
that every man was obliged to remain single till he had accumulated, from
the produce of his pepper-garden, a sum adequate to the purchase of a
wife, married pairs would truly be scarce. But the people have other
resources; there are few families who are not in possession of some small
substance; they breed goats and buffaloes, and in general keep in reserve
some small sum for particular purposes. The purchase-money of the
daughter serves also to provide wives for the sons. Certain it is that
the fathers are rarely at a loss for money to procure them wives so soon
as they become marriageable. In the districts under my charge are about
eight thousand inhabitants, among whom I do not conceive it would be
possible to find ten instances of men of the age of thirty years
unmarried. We must then seek for other causes of the paucity of
inhabitants, and indeed they are sufficiently obvious; among these we may
reckon that the women are by nature unprolific, and cease gestation at an
early age; that, almost totally unskilled in the medical art, numbers
fall victims to the endemic diseases of a climate nearly as fatal to its
indigenous inhabitants as to the strangers who settle among them: to
which we may add that the indolence and inactivity of the natives tend to
relax and enervate the bodily frame, and to abridge the natural period of
their lives.

...

MODES OF MARRIAGE.

The modes of marriage, according to the original institutions of these
people, are by jujur, by ambel anak, or by semando. The jujur is a
certain sum of money given by one man to another as a consideration for
the person of his daughter, whose situation, in this case, differs not
much from that of a slave to the man she marries, and to his family. His
absolute property in her depends however upon some nice circumstances.
Beside the batang jujur (or main sum) there are certain appendages or
branches, one of which, the tali kulo, of five dollars, is usually, from
motives of delicacy or friendship, left unpaid, and so long as that is
the case a relationship is understood to subsist between the two
families, and the parents of the woman have a right to interfere on
occasions of ill treatment: the husband is also liable to be fined for
wounding her, with other limitations of absolute right. When that sum is
finally paid, which seldom happens but in cases of violent quarrel, the
tali kulo (tie of relationship) is said to be putus (broken), and the
woman becomes to all intents the slave of her lord.*

(*Footnote. I cannot omit to remark here that, however apposite the word
tali, which in Malayan signifies a cord, may be to the subject of the
marriage tie, there is very strong evidence of the term, as applied to
this ceremony, having been adopted from the customs of the Hindu
inhabitants of the peninsula of India, in whose language it has a
different meaning. Among others who have described their rites is M.
Sonnerat. In speaking of the mode of marriage called pariam, which, like
the jujur, n'est autre chose qu'un achat que le mari fait de sa femme, he
says, le mari doit aussi fournir le tali, petit joyau d'or, qu'il attache
avec un cordon au col de la fille; c'est la derniere ceremonie; elle
donne la sanction au marriage, qui ne peut plus etre rompu des que le
tali est attache. Voyage aux Indes etc. tome 1 page 70. The reader will
also find the Sumatran mode of marriage by ambel anak, or adoption,
exactly described at page 72. An engraving of the tali is given by P.
Paolino, Systema Brahmanicum tab. 22. This resemblance is not confined to
the rites of marriage, for it is remarked by Sir W. Jones that, "among
the laws of the Sumatrans two positive rules concerning sureties and
interest appear to be taken word for word from the Indian legislators."
Asiatic Researches Volume 3 page 9.)

She has then no title to claim a divorce in any predicament; and he may
sell her, making only the first offer to her relations. The other
appendages as already mentioned are the tulis tanggil (the meaning of
which I cannot satisfactorily ascertain, this and many other of the legal
terms being in the Rejang or the Passummah and not the Malayan language)
and the upah daun kodo, which is a consideration for the expense of the
marriage feast, paid to the girl's parent, who provides it. But sometimes
it is deposited at the wedding, when a distribution is made of it amongst
the old people present. The words allude to the leaf in which the rice is
served up. These additional sums are seldom paid or claimed before the
principal is defrayed, of which a large proportion, as fifty, eighty, and
sometimes a hundred and four dollars, is laid down at the time of
marriage, or in the first visit (after the parties are determined in
their regards) made by the father of the young man, or the bujang
himself, to the father of the woman. Upon opening his design this money
is tendered as a present, and the other's acceptance of it is a token
that he is inclined to forward the match. It lies often in his hands
three, six, or twelve months before the marriage is consummated. He
sometimes sends for more, and is seldom refused. Until at least fifty
dollars are thus deposited the man cannot take his wife home; but so long
as the matter continues dalam rasa-an (under consideration) it would be
deemed scandalous in the father to listen to any other proposals. When
there is a difficulty in producing the necessary sum it is not uncommon
to resort to an expedient termed mengiring jujur, that is, to continue a
debtor with the family until he can raise money sufficient to redeem
himself; and after this long credit is usually given for the remainder.
Years often elapse, if the families continue on good terms, without the
debt being demanded, particularly when a hundred and four dollars have
been paid, unless distress obliges them to it. Sometimes it remains
unadjusted to the second and third generation, and it is not uncommon to
see a man suing for the jujur of the sister of his grandfather. These
debts constitute in fact the chief part of their substance; and a person
is esteemed rich who has several of them due to him for his daughters,
sisters, aunts, and great aunts. Debts of this nature are looked upon as
sacred, and are scarcely ever lost. In Passummah, if the race of a man is
extinct, and some of these remain unpaid, the dusun or village to which
the family belonged must make it good to the creditor; but this is not
insisted upon amongst the Rejangs.

In lieu of paying the jujur a barter transaction, called libei, sometimes
takes place, where one gadis (virgin) is given in exchange for another;
and it is not unusual to borrow a girl for this purpose from a friend or
relation, the borrower binding himself to replace her or pay her jujur
when required, A man who has a son and daughter gives the latter in
exchange for a wife to the former. The person who receives her disposes
of her as his own child or marries her himself. A brother will give his
sister in exchange for a wife, or, in default of such, procure a cousin
for the purpose. If the girl given in exchange be under age a certain
allowance per annum is made till she becomes marriageable. Beguppok is a
mode of marriage differing a little from the common jujur, and probably
only taking place where a parent wants to get off a child labouring under
some infirmity or defect. A certain sum is in this case fixed below the
usual custom, which, when paid, is in full for her value, without any
appendages. In other cases likewise the jujur is sometimes lessened and
sometimes increased by mutual agreement; but on trials it is always
estimated at a hundred and twenty dollars. If a wife dies soon after
marriage, or at any time without children, the full jujur cannot be
claimed; it is reduced to eighty dollars; but should more than that have
been laid down in the interim there is no refunding. The jujur of a
widow, which is generally eighty dollars, without appendages, is again
reduced upon a third marriage, allowances being made for dilapidation. A
widow being with child cannot marry again till she is delivered, without
incurring a penalty. In divorces it is the same. If there be no
appearance of pregnancy she must yet abstain from making another choice
during the period of three months and ten days.

When the relations and friends of the man go in form to the parents of
the girl to settle the terms of the marriage they pay at that time the
adat besasala, or earnest, of six dollars generally; and these kill a
goat or a few fowls to entertain them. It is usually some space of time
(except in cases of telari gadis or elopement) after the payment of the
besasala, before the wedding takes place; but, when the father has
received that, he cannot give his daughter to any other person without
incurring a fine, which the young lady sometimes renders him liable to;
for whilst the old folk are planning a match by patutan, or regular
agreement between families, it frequently happens that miss disappears
with a more favoured swain and secures a match of her own choice. The
practice styled telari gadis is not the least common way of determining a
marriage, and from a spirit of indulgence and humanity, which few codes
can boast, has the sanction of the laws. The father has only the power
left of dictating the mode of marriage, but cannot take his daughter away
if the lover is willing to comply with the custom in such cases. The girl
must be lodged, unviolated, in the house of some respectable family till
the relations are advised of the enlevement and settle the terms. If
however upon immediate pursuit they are overtaken on the road, she may be
forced back, but not after she has taken sanctuary.

By the Mosaic law, if a man left a widow without children his brother was
to marry her. Among the Sumatrans, with or without children, the brother,
or nearest male relation of the deceased, unmarried (the father
excepted), takes the widow. This is practised both by Malays and country
people. The brother, in taking the widow to himself, becomes answerable
for what may remain due of her purchase money, and in every respect
represents the deceased. This is phrased ganti tikar
bantal'nia--supplying his place on his mat and pillow.

CHASTITY OF THE WOMEN.

Chastity prevails more perhaps among these than any other people. It is
so materially the interest of the parents to preserve the virtue of their
daughters unsullied, as they constitute the chief of their substance,
that they are particularly watchful in this respect. But as marriages in
general do not take place so early as the forwardness of nature in that
climate would admit, it will sometimes happen, notwithstanding their
precaution, that a young woman, not choosing to wait her father's
pleasure, tastes the fruit by stealth. When this is discovered he can
oblige the man to marry her, and pay the jujur; or, if he chooses to keep
his daughter, the seducer must make good the difference he has occasioned
in her value, and also pay the fine, called tippong bumi, for removing
the stain from the earth. Prostitution for hire is I think unknown in the
country, and confined to the more polite bazaars, where there is usually
a concourse of sailors and others who have no honest settlement of their
own, and whom, therefore, it is impossible to restrain from promiscuous
concubinage. At these places vice generally reigns in a degree
proportioned to the number and variety of people of different nations who
inhabit them or occasionally resort thither. From the scenes which these
sea-ports present travellers too commonly form their judgment, and
imprudently take upon them to draw, for the information of the world, a
picture of the manners of a people.

The different species of horrid and disgustful crimes, which are
emphatically denominated, against nature, are unknown on Sumatra; nor
have any of their languages terms to express such ideas.

INCEST.

Incest, or the intermarriage of persons within a certain degree of
consanguinity, which is, perhaps (at least after the first degree),
rather an offence against the institutions of human prudence than a
natural crime, is forbidden by their customs and punishable by fine: yet
the guilt is often expiated by a ceremony, and the marriages in many
instances confirmed.

ADULTERY.

Adultery is punishable by fine; but the crime is rare, and suits on the
subject still less frequent. The husband, it is probable, either conceals
his shame or revenges it with his own hand.

DIVORCES.

If a man would divorce a wife he has married by jujur he may claim back
what he has paid in part, less twenty-five dollars, the adat charo, for
the damage he has done her; but if he has paid the jujur in full the
relations may choose whether they will receive her or not; if not he may
sell her. If a man has paid part of a jujur but cannot raise the
remainder, though repeatedly dunned for it, the parents of the girl may
obtain a divorce; but if it is not with the husband's concurrence they
lose the advantage of the charo, and must refund all they have received.
A woman married by jujur must bring with her effects to the amount of ten
dollars, or, if not, it is deducted from the sum; if she brings more the
husband is accountable for the difference. The original ceremony of
divorce consists in cutting a rattan­cane in two, in presence of the
parties, their relations, and the chiefs of the country.

SECOND MODE OF MARRIAGE.

In the mode of marriage by ambel anak the father of a virgin makes choice
of some young man for her husband, generally from an inferior family,
which renounces all further right to, or interest in, him, and he is
taken into the house of his father-in-law, who kills a buffalo on the
occasion, and receives twenty dollars from the son's relations. After
this the buruk baik'nia (the good and bad of him) is vested in the wife's
family. If he murders or robs they pay the bangun, or the fine. If he is
murdered they receive the bangun. They are liable to any debts he may
contract after marriage; those prior to it remaining with his parents. He
lives in the family in a state between that of a son and a debtor. He
partakes as a son of what the house affords, but has no property in
himself. His rice plantation, the produce of his pepper-garden, with
everything that he can gain or earn, belong to the family. He is liable
to be divorced at their pleasure, and, though he has children, must leave
all, and return naked as he came. The family sometimes indulge him with
leave to remove to a house of his own, and take his wife with him; but
he, his children, and effects are still their property. If he has not
daughters by the marriage he may redeem himself and wife by paying her
jujur; but if there are daughters before they become emancipated the
difficulty is enhanced, because the family are likewise entitled to their
value. It is common however when they are upon good terms to release him
on the payment of one jujur, or at most with the addition of an adat of
fifty dollars. With this addition he may insist upon a release whilst his
daughters are not marriageable. If the family have paid any debts for him
he must also make them good. Should he contract more than they approve
of, and they fear his adding to them, they procure a divorce, and send
him back to his parents; but must pay his debts to that time. If he is a
notorious spendthrift they outlaw him by means of a writ presented to the
magistrate. These are inscribed on slips of bamboo with a sharp
instrument, and I have several of them in my possession. They must banish
him from home, and if they receive him again, or assist him with the
smallest sum, they are liable to all his debts. On the prodigal son's
return, and assurance of amendment, this writ may be redeemed on payment
of five dollars to the proattins, and satisfying the creditors. This kind
of marriage is productive of much confusion, for till the time it takes
place the young man belongs to one dusun and family, and afterwards to
another, and as they have no records to refer to there is great
uncertainty in settling the time when debts were contracted, and the
like. Sometimes the redemption of the family and their return to the
former dusun take place in the second or third generation; and in many
cases it is doubtful whether they ever took place or not; the two parties
contradicting each other, and perhaps no evidence to refer to. Hence
arise various and intricate bechars.

THIRD, OR MALAYAN MODE OF MARRIAGE.

Besides the modes of marriage above described, a third form, called
semando, has been adopted from the Malays, and thence termed semando
malayo or mardika (free). This marriage is a regular treaty between the
parties, on the footing of equality. The adat paid to the girl's friends
has usually been twelve dollars. The agreement stipulates that all
effects, gains, or earnings are to be equally the property of both, and
in case of divorce by mutual consent the stock, debts, and credits are to
be equally divided. If the man only insists on the divorce he gives the
woman her half of the effects, and loses the twelve dollars he has paid.
If the woman only claims the divorce she forfeits her right to the
proportion of the effects, but is entitled to keep her tikar, bantal, and
dandan (paraphernalia), and her relations are liable to pay back the
twelve dollars; but it is seldom demanded. This mode, doubtless the most
conformable to our ideas of conjugal right and felicity, is that which
the chiefs of the Rejang country have formally consented to establish
throughout their jurisdiction, and to their orders the influence of the
Malayan priests will contribute to give efficacy.

In the ambel anak marriage, according to the institutions of Passummah,
when the father resolves to dismiss the husband of his daughter and send
him back to his dusun the sum for which he can redeem his wife and family
is a hundred dollars: and if he can raise that, and the woman is willing
to go with him, the father cannot refuse them; and now the affair is
changed into a kulo marriage; the man returns to his former tungguan
(settlement or family) and becomes of more consequence in society. These
people are no strangers to that sentiment which we call a regard to
family. There are some families among them more esteemed than others,
though not graced with any title or employment in the state. The origin
of this distinction it is difficult to trace; but it may have arisen from
a succession of men of abilities, or from the reputation for wisdom or
valour of some ancestor. Everyone has a regard to his race; and the
probability of its being extinct is esteemed a great unhappiness. This is
what they call tungguan putus, and the expression is used by the lowest
member of the community. To have a wife, a family, collateral relations,
and a settled place of residence is to have a tungguan, and this they are
anxious to support and perpetuate. It is with this view that, when a
single female only remains of a family, they marry her by ambel anak; in
which mode the husband's consequence is lost in the wife's, and in her
children the tungguan of her father is continued. They find her a husband
that will menegga tungguan, or, as it is expressed amongst the Rejangs
menegga rumah, set up the house again.

The semando marriage is little known in Passummah. I recollect that a
pangeran of Manna, having lost a son by a marriage of this kind with a
Malay woman, she refused upon the father's death to let the boy succeed
to his dignities, and at the same time become answerable for his debts,
and carried him with her from the country; which was productive of much
confusion. The regulations there in respect to incontinence have much
severity, and fall particularly hard on the girl's father, who not only
has his daughter spoiled but must also pay largely for her frailty. To
the northward the offence is not punished with so much rigour, yet the
instances are there said to be rarer, and marriage is more usually the
consequence. In other respects the customs of Passummah and Rejang are
the same in these matters.

RITES OF MARRIAGE.

The rites of marriage, nikah (from the Arabian), consist simply in
joining the hands of the parties and pronouncing them man and wife,
without much ceremony excepting the entertainment which is given on the
occasion. This is performed by one of the fathers or the chief of the
dusun, according to the original customs of the country; but where
Mahometanism has found its way, a priest or imam executes the business.

COURTSHIP.

But little apparent courtship precedes their marriages. Their manners do
not admit of it, the bujang and gadis (youth of each sex) being carefully
kept asunder, and the latter seldom trusted from under the wing of their
mothers. Besides, courtship with us includes the idea of humble entreaty
on the man's side, and favour and condescension on the part of the woman,
who bestows person and property for love. The Sumatran on the contrary,
when he fixes his choice and pays all that he is worth for the object of
it, may naturally consider the obligation on his side. But still they are
not without gallantry. They preserve a degree of delicacy and respect
towards the sex, which might justify their retorting on many of the
polished nations of antiquity the epithet of barbarians. The
opportunities which the young people have of seeing and conversing with
each other are at the bimbangs, or public festivals, held at the balei,
or town hall of the dusun. On these occasions the unmarried people meet
together and dance and sing in company. It may be supposed that the young
ladies cannot be long without their particular admirers. The men, when
determined in their regards, generally employ an old woman as their
agent, by whom they make known their sentiments and send presents to the
female of their choice. The parents then interfere and, the preliminaries
being settled, a bimbang takes place.

MARRIAGE FESTIVALS.

At these festivals a goat, a buffalo, or several, according to the rank
of the parties, are killed, to entertain not only the relations and
invited guests but all the inhabitants of the neighbouring country who
choose to repair to them. The greater the concourse the more is the
credit of the host, who is generally on these occasions the father of the
girl; but the different branches of the family, and frequently all the
people of the dusun, contribute a quota of rice.

ORDER OBSERVED.

The young women proceed in a body to the upper end of the balei where
there is a part divided off for them by a curtain. The floor is spread
with their best mats, and the sides and ceiling of that extremity of the
building are hung with pieces of chintz, palampores, and the like. They
do not always make their appearance before dinner; that time, with part
of the afternoon, previous to a second or third meal, being appropriated
to cock-fighting and other diversions peculiar to the men. Whilst the
young are thus employed the old men consult together upon any affair that
may be at the time in agitation; such as repairing a public building or
making reprisals upon the cattle of a neighbouring people. The bimbangs
are often given on occasions of business only, and, as they are apt to be
productive of cabals, the Europeans require that they shall not be held
without their knowledge and approbation. To give authority to their
contracts and other deeds, whether of a public or private nature, they
always make one of these feasts. Writings, say they, may be altered or
counterfeited, but the memory of what is transacted and concluded in the
presence of a thousand witnesses
must remain sacred. Sometimes, in token of the final determination of an
affair, they cut a notch in a post, before the chiefs, which they call
taka kayu.

AMUSEMENT OF DANCING.

In the evening their softer amusements take place, of which the dances
are the principal. These are performed either singly or by two women, two
men, or with both mixed. Their motions and attitudes are usually slow,
and too much forced to be graceful; approaching often to the lascivious,
and not unfrequently the ludicrous. This is I believe the general opinion
formed of them by Europeans, but it may be the effect of prejudice.
Certain I am that our usual dances are in their judgment to the full as
ridiculous. The minuets they compare to the fighting of two game-cocks,
alternately approaching and receding. Our country dances they esteem too
violent and confused, without showing grace or agility. The stage dances
I have not a doubt would please them. Part of the female dress, called
the salendang, which is usually of silk with a gold head, is tied round
the waist, and the ends of this they at times extend behind them with
their hands. They bend forward as they dance, and usually carry a fan,
which they close and strike smartly against their elbows at particular
cadences. They keep time well, and the partners preserve a consistency
with each other though the figure and steps are ad libitum. A brisker
movement is sometimes adopted which proves more conformable to the taste
of the English spectators.

SINGING.

Dancing is not the only amusement on these occasions. A gadis sometimes
rises and, leaning her face on her arm, supporting herself against a
pillar, or the shoulder of one of her companions, with her back to the
audience, begins a tender song. She is soon taken up and answered by one
of the bujangs in company, whose greatest pretensions to gallantry and
fashion are founded on an adroitness at this polite accomplishment. The
uniform subject on such occasions is love, and, as the words are
extempore, there are numberless degrees of merit in the composition,
which is sometimes surprisingly well turned, quaint, and even witty.
Professed story-tellers are sometimes introduced, who are raised on a
little stage and during several hours arrest the attention of their
audience by the relation of wonderful and interesting adventures. There
are also characters of humour amongst them who, by buffoonery, mimicry,
punning, repartee, and satire (rather of the sardonic kind) are able to
keep the company in laughter at intervals during the course of a night's
entertainment. The assembly seldom breaks up before daylight, and these
bimbangs are often continued for several days and nights together till
their stock of provisions is exhausted. The young men frequent them in
order to look out for wives, and the lasses of course set themselves off
to the best advantage.

DRESSES.

They wear their best silken dresses, of their own weaving; as many
ornaments of filigree as they possess; silver rings upon their arms and
legs; and earrings of a particular construction. Their hair is variously
adorned with flowers and perfumed with oil of benzoin. Civet is also in
repute, but more used by the men.

COSMETIC USED, AND MODE OF PREPARING IT.

To render their skin fine, smooth, and soft they make use of a white
cosmetic called pupur. The mode of preparing it is as follows. The basis
is fine rice, which is a long time steeped in water and let to ferment,
during which process the water becomes of a deep red colour and highly
putrid, when it is drained off, and fresh added successively until the
water remains clear, and the rice subsides in the form of a fine white
paste. It is then exposed to the sun to dry, and, being reduced to a
powder, they mix with it ginger, the leaves of a plant called by them
dilam, and by Europeans patch-leaf (Melissa lotoria, R.), which gives to
it a peculiar smell, and also, as is supposed, a cooling quality. They
add likewise the flowers of the jagong (maize); kayu chendana
(sandalwood); and the seeds of a plant called there kapas antu
(fairy-cotton), which is the Hibiscus abelmoschus, or musk seed. All
these ingredients, after being moistened and well mixed together, are
made up into little balls, and when they would apply the cosmetic these
are diluted with a drop of water, rubbed between the hands, and then on
the face, neck, and shoulders. They have an apprehension, probably well
founded, that a too abundant or frequent application will, by stopping
the pores of the skin, bring on a fever. It is used with good effect to
remove that troublesome complaint, so well known to Europeans in India,
by the name of the prickly heat; but it is not always safe for strangers
thus to check the operations of nature in a warm climate. The Sumatran
girls, as well as our English maidens, entertain a favourable opinion of
the virtues of morning dew as a beautifier, and believe that by rubbing
it to the roots of the hair it will strengthen and thicken it. With this
view they take pains to catch it before sunrise in vessels as it falls.

CONSUMMATION OF MARRIAGES.

If a wedding is the occasion of the bimbang the couple are married,
perhaps, the second or third day; but it may be two or three more ere the
husband can get possession of his bride; the old matrons making it a rule
to prevent him, as long as possible, and the bride herself holding it a
point of honour to defend to extremity that jewel which she would yet be
disappointed in preserving.*

(*Footnote. It is recorded that the jealousy between the English and
Dutch at Bantam arose from a preference shown to the former by the king
at a festival which he gave upon obtaining a victory of this nature,
which his bride had long disputed with him. For a description of a
Malayan wedding, with an excellent plate representing the conclusion of
the ceremony and the sleeping apartment, I beg to refer the reader to
Captain Forrest's Voyage to New Guinea page 286 quarto edition. The
bed-place is described at page 232 and the processional car (per­arakan)
at page 241. His whole account of the domestic manners of the people of
Mindanao, at the court of which he lived on terms of familiarity, will be
found highly amusing.)

They sit up in state at night on raised cushions, in their best clothes
and trinkets. They are sometimes loaded on the occasion with all the
finery of their relations, or even the whole dusun, and carefully eased
of it when the ceremony is over. But this is not the case with the
children of persons of rank. I remember being present at the marriage of
a young woman, whose beauty would not have disgraced any country, with a
son of Raddin, prince of Madura, to whom the English gave protection from
the power of the Dutch after his father had fallen a sacrifice.* She was
decked in unborrowed plumes. Her dress was eminently calculated to do
justice to a fine person; her hair, in which consists their chief pride,
was disposed with extreme grace; and an uncommon elegance and taste were
displayed in the workmanship and adjustment of her ornaments. It must be
confessed however that this taste is by no means general, especially
amongst the country people. Simplicity, so essential to the idea, is the
characteristic of a rude and quite uncivilized people, and is again
adopted by men in their highest state of refinement. The Sumatrans stand
removed from both these extremes. Rich and splendid articles of dress and
furniture, though not often procured, are the objects of their vanity and
ambition.

(*Footnote. The circumstances of this disgraceful affair are preserved in
a book entitled A Voyage to the East Indies in 1747 and 1748. This Raddin
Tamanggung, a most intelligent and respectable man, died at Bencoolen in
the year 1790. His sons possess the good qualities of their father, and
are employed in the Company's service.)

The bimbangs are conducted with great decorum and regularity. The old
women are very attentive to the conduct of the girls, and the male
relations are highly jealous of any insults that may be shown them. A lad
at one of these entertainments asked another his opinion of a gadis who
was then dancing. "If she was plated with gold," replied he, "I would not
take her for my concubine, much less for my wife." A brother of the girl
happened to be within hearing, and called him to account for the
reflection thrown on his sister. Krises were drawn but the bystanders
prevented mischief. The brother appeared the next day to take the law of
the defamer, but the gentleman, being of the risau description, had
absconded, and was not to be found.

NUMBER OF WIVES.

The customs of the Sumatrans permit their having as many wives by jujur
as they can compass the purchase of or afford to maintain; but it is
extremely rare that an instance occurs of their having more than one, and
that only among a few of the chiefs. This continence they in some measure
owe to their poverty. The dictates of frugality are more powerful with
them than the irregular calls of appetite, and make them decline an
indulgence that their law does not restrain them from. In talking of
polygamy they allow it to be the privilege of the rich, but regard it as
a refinement which the poor Rejangs cannot pretend to. Some young risaus
have been known to take wives in different places, but the father of the
first, as soon as he hears of the second marriage, procures a divorce. A
man married by semando cannot take a second wife without repudiating the
first for this obvious reason that two or more persons could not be
equally entitled to the half of his effects.

QUESTION OF POLYGAMY.

Montesquieu infers that the law which permits polygamy is physically
conformable to the climate of Asia. The season of female beauty precedes
that of their reason, and from its prematurity soon decays. The empire of
their charms is short. It is therefore natural, the president observes,
that a man should leave one wife to take another: that he should seek a
renovation of those charms which had withered in his possession. But are
these the real circumstances of polygamy? Surely not. It implies the
contemporary enjoyment of women in the same predicament; and I should
consider it as a vice that has its source in the influence of a warm
atmosphere upon the passions of men, which, like the cravings of other
disordered appetites, make them miscalculate their wants. It is probably
the same influence, on less rigid nerves, that renders their thirst of
revenge so much more violent than among northern nations; but we are not
therefore to pronounce murder to be physically conformable to a southern
climate. Far be it from my intention however to put these passions on a
level; I only mean to show that the president's reasoning proves too
much. It must further be considered that the genial warmth which expands
the desires of the men, and prompts a more unlimited exertion of their
faculties, does not inspire their constitutions with proportionate
vigour; but on the contrary renders them in this respect inferior to the
inhabitants of the temperate zone; whilst it equally influences the
desires of the opposite sex without being found to diminish from their
capacity of enjoyment. From which I would draw this conclusion, that if
nature intended that one woman only should be the companion of one man,
in the colder regions of the earth it appears also intended a fortiori
that the same law should be observed in the hotter; inferring nature's
design, not from the desires, but from the abilities with which she has
endowed mankind.

Montesquieu has further suggested that the inequality in the comparative
numbers of each sex born in Asia, which is represented to be greatly
superior on the female side, may have a relation to the law that allows
polygamy. But there is strong reason to deny the reality of this supposed
excess. The Japanese account, taken from Kaempfer, which makes them to be
in the proportion of twenty-two to eighteen, is very inconclusive, as the
numbering of the inhabitants of a great city can furnish no proper test;
and the account of births at Bantam, which states the number of girls to
be ten to one boy, is not only manifestly absurd, but positively false. I
can take upon me to assert that the proportion of the sexes throughout
Sumatra does not sensibly differ from that ascertained in Europe; nor
could I ever learn from the inhabitants of the many eastern islands whom
I have conversed with that they were conscious of any disproportion in
this respect.

CONNEXION BETWEEN POLYGAMY AND PURCHASE OF WIVES.

But from whatever source we derive polygamy its prevalence seems to be
universally attended with the practice of giving a valuable consideration
for the woman, instead of receiving a dowry with her. This is a natural
consequence. Where each man endeavours to engross several, the demand for
the commodity, as a merchant would express it, is increased, and the
price of course enhanced. In Europe on the contrary, where the demand is
small; whether owing to the paucity of males from continual diminution;
their coldness of constitution, which suffers them rather to play with
the sentimental than act from the animal passion; their corruption of
manners leading them to promiscuous concubinage; or, in fine, the
extravagant luxury of the times, which too often renders a family an
insupportable burden--whatever may be the cause it becomes necessary, in
order to counteract it and produce an additional incitement to the
marriage state, that a premium be given with the females. We find in the
history of the earliest ages of the world that, where a plurality of
women was allowed of, by law or custom, they were obtained by money or
service. The form of marriage by semando among the Malays, which admits
but of one partner, requires no sum to be paid by the husband to the
relations of the wife except a trifle, by way of token, or to defray the
expenses of the wedding-feast. The circumstance of the rejangs confining
themselves to one, and at the same time giving a price for their wives,
would seem an exception to the general rule laid down; but this is an
accidental and perhaps temporary restraint, arising, it may be, from the
European influence, which tends to make them regular and industrious, but
keeps them poor: affords the means of subsistence to all, but the
opportunity of acquiring riches to few or none. In their genuine state
war and plunder caused a rapid fluctuation of property; the little wealth
now among them, derived mostly from the India Company's expenditure,
circulates through the country in an equal stream, returning chiefly,
like the water exhaled in vapours from the sea, to its original source.
The custom of giving jujurs had most probably its foundation in polygamy;
and the superstructure subsists, though its basis is partly mouldered
away; but, being scarcely tenantable, the inhabitants are inclined to
quit, and suffer it to fall to the ground. Moderation in point of women
destroying their principle, the jujurs appear to be devoid of policy.
Open a new spring of luxury, and polygamy, now confined to a few
individuals amongst the chiefs, will spread throughout the people. Beauty
will be in high request; each fair one will be sought for by many
competitors; and the payment of the jujur be again esteemed a reasonable
equivalent for possession. Their acknowledging the custom under the
present circumstances to be a prejudicial one, so contrary to the spirit
of eastern manners, which is ever marked with a blind veneration for the
establishments of antiquity, contributes to strengthen considerably the
opinion I have advanced.

GAMING.

Through every rank of the people there prevails a strong spirit of
gaming, which is a vice that readily insinuates itself into minds
naturally indisposed to the avocations of industry; and, being in general
a sedentary occupation, is more adapted to a warm climate, where bodily
exertion is in few instances considered as an amusement.

DICE. OTHER MODES.

Beside the common species of gambling with dice, which, from the term
dadu applied to it, was evidently introduced by the Portuguese, they have
several others; as the judi, a mode of playing with small shells, which
are taken up by handfuls, and, being counted out by a given number at a
time (generally that of the party engaged), the success is determined by
the fractional number remaining, the amount of which is previously
guessed at by each of the party.

CHESS.

They have also various games on chequered boards or other delineations,
and persons of superior rank are in general versed in the game of chess,
which they term main gajah, or the game of the elephant, naming the
pieces as follows: king, raja; queen or vizir, mantri; bishop or
elephant, gajah; knight or horse, kuda; castle, rook, or chariot, ter;
and pawn or foot-soldier, bidak. For check they use the word sah; and for
checkmate, mat or mati. Among these names the only one that appears to
require observation as being peculiar is that for the castle or rook,
which they have borrowed from the Tamul language of the peninsula of
India, wherein the word ter (answering to the Sanskrit rat'ha) signifies
a chariot (particularly such as are drawn in the processions of certain
divinities), and not unaptly transferred to this military game to
complete the constituent parts of an army. Gambling, especially with
dice, is rigorously forbidden throughout the pepper districts, because it
is not only the child, but the parent of idleness, and by the events of
play often throws whole villages into confusion. Debts contracted on this
account are declared to be void.

COCK-FIGHTING.

To cock-fighting they are still more passionately addicted, and it is
indulged to them under certain regulations. Where they are perfectly
independent their propensity to it is so great that it resembles rather a
serious occupation than a sport. You seldom meet a man travelling in the
country without a cock under his arm, and sometimes fifty persons in a
company when there is a bimbang in one of the neighbouring villages. A
country-man coming down, on any occasion, to the bazaar or settlement at
the mouth of the river, if he boasts the least degree of spirit must not
be unprovided with this token of it. They often game high at their
meetings; particularly when a superstitious faith in the invincibility of
their bird has been strengthened by past success. A hundred Spanish
dollars is no very uncommon risk, and instances have occurred of a
father's staking his children or wife, and a son his mother or sisters,
on the issue of a battle, when a run of ill luck has stripped them of
property and rendered them desperate. Quarrels, attended with dreadful
consequences, have often arisen on these occasions.

RULES OF COCKING.

By their customs there are four umpires appointed to determine on all
disputed points in the course of the battles; and from their decision
there lies no appeal except the Gothic appeal to the sword. A person who
loses and has not the ability to pay is immediately proscribed, departs
with disgrace, and is never again suffered to appear at the galan­gang.
This cannot with propriety be translated a cockpit, as it is generally a
spot on the level ground, or a stage erected, and covered in. It is
inclosed with a railing which keeps off the spectators; none but the
handlers and heelers being admitted withinside. A man who has a high
opinion of and regard for his cock will not fight him under a certain
number of dollars, which he places in order on the floor: his poorer
adversary is perhaps unable to deposit above one half: the standers-by
make up the sum, and receive their dividends in proportion if successful.
A father at his deathbed has been known to desire his son to take the
first opportunity of matching a certain cock for a sum equal to his whole
property, under a blind conviction of its being betuah, or invulnerable.

MATCHES.

Cocks of the same colour are never matched but a grey against a pile, a
yellow against a red, or the like. This might have been originally
designed to prevent disputes or knavish impositions. The Malay breed of
cocks is much esteemed by connoisseurs who have had an opportunity of
trying them. Great pains is taken in the rearing and feeding; they are
frequently handled and accustomed to spar in public, in order to prevent
any shyness. Contrary to our laws, the owner is allowed to take up and
handle his cock during the battle to clear his eye of a feather or his
mouth of blood. When a cock is killed, or runs, the other must have
sufficient spirit and vigour left to peck at him three times, on his
being held to him for that purpose, or it becomes a drawn battle; and
sometimes an experienced cocker will place the head of his vanquished
bird in such an uncouth posture as to terrify the other and render him
unable to give this proof of victory. The cocks are never trimmed, but
matched in full feather. The artificial spur used in Sumatra resembles in
shape the blade of a scimitar, and proves a more destructive weapon than
the European spur. It has no socket but is tied to the leg, and in the
position of it the nicety of the match is regulated. As in horse-racing
weight is proportioned to inches, so in cocking a bird of superior weight
and size is brought to an equality with his adversary by fixing the steel
spur so many scales of the leg above the natural spur, and thus obliging
him to fight with a degree of disadvantage. It rarely happens that both
cocks survive the combat.

In the northern parts of the island, where gold-dust is the common medium
of gambling, as well as of trade, so much is accidentally dropped in
weighing and delivering that at some cock-pits, where the resort of
people is great, the sweepings are said, probably with exaggeration, to
be worth upwards of a thousand dollars per annum to the owner of the
ground; beside his profit of two fanams (five pence) for each battle.

QUAIL-FIGHTING.

In some places they match quails, in the manner of cocks. These fight
with great inveteracy, and endeavour to seize each other by the tongue.
The Achinese bring also into combat the dial-bird (murei) which resembles
a small magpie, but has an agreeable though imperfect note. They
sometimes engage one another on the wing, and drop to the ground in the
struggle.

FENCING.

They have other diversions of a more innocent nature. Matches of fencing,
or a species of tournament, are exhibited on particular days; as at the
breaking up of their annual fast, or month of ramadan, called there the
puasa. On these occasions they practise strange attitudes, with violent
contortions of the body, and often work themselves up to a degree of
frenzy, when the old men step in and carry them off. These exercises in
some circumstances resemble the idea which the ancients have given us of
the pyrrhic or war dance; the combatants moving at a distance from each
other in cadence, and making many turns and springs unnecessary in the
representation of a real combat. This entertainment is more common among
the Malays than in the country. The chief weapons of offence used by
these people are the kujur or lance and the kris. This last is properly
Malayan, but in all parts of the island they have a weapon equivalent,
though in general less curious in its structure, wanting that waving in
the blade for which the kris is remarkable, and approaching nearer to
daggers or knives.

Among their exercises we never observe jumping or running. They smile at
the Europeans, who in their excursions take so many unnecessary leaps.
The custom of going barefoot may be a principal impediment to this
practice in a country overrun with thorny shrubs, and where no fences
occur to render it a matter of expediency.

DIVERSION OF TOSSING A BALL.

They have a diversion similar to that described by Homer as practised
among the Phaeacians, which consists in tossing an elastic wicker ball or
round basket of split rattans into the air, and from one player to
another, in a peculiar manner. This game is called by the Malays sipak
raga, or, in the dialect of Bencoolen, chipak rago, and is played by a
large party standing in an extended circle, who endeavour to keep up the
ball by striking it either perpendicularly, in order to receive it again,
or obliquely to some other person of the company, with the foot or the
hand, the heel or the toe, the knee, the shoulder, the head, or with any
other part of the body; the merit appearing to consist in producing the
effect in the least obvious or most whimsical manner; and in this sport
many of them attain an extraordinary degree of expertness. Among the
plates of Lord Macartney's Embassy will be found the representation of a
similar game, as practised by the natives of Cochin­china.

SMOKING OF OPIUM.

The Sumatrans, and more particularly the Malays, are much attached, in
common with many other eastern people, to the custom of smoking opium.
The poppy which produces it not growing on the island, it is annually
imported from Bengal in considerable quantities, in chests containing a
hundred and forty pounds each. It is made up in cakes of five or six
pounds weight, and packed with dried leaves; in which situation it will
continue good and vendible for two years, but after that period grows
hard and diminishes considerably in value. It is of a darker colour, and
is supposed to have less strength than the Turkey opium. About a hundred
and fifty chests are consumed annually on the west coast of Sumatra,
where it is purchased, on an average, at three hundred dollars the chest,
and sold again in smaller quantities at five or six. But on occasions of
extraordinary scarcity I have known it to sell for its weight in silver,
and a single chest to fetch upwards of three thousand dollars.

PREPARATION.

The method of preparing it for use is as follows. The raw opium is first
boiled or seethed in a copper vessel; then strained through a cloth to
free it from impurities; and then a second time boiled. The leaf of the
tambaku, shred fine, is mixed with it, in a quantity sufficient to absorb
the whole; and it is afterwards made up into small pills, about the size
of a pea, for smoking. One of these being put into the small tube that
projects from the side of the opium pipe, that tube is applied to a lamp,
and the pill being lighted is consumed at one whiff or inflation of the
lungs, attended with a whistling noise. The smoke is never emitted by the
mouth, but usually receives vent through the nostrils, and sometimes, by
adepts, through the passage of the ears and eyes. This preparation of the
opium is called maddat, and is often adulterated in the process by mixing
jaggri, or pine sugar, with it; as is the raw opium, by incorporating
with it the fruit of the pisang or plantain.

EFFECTS OF OPIUM.

The use of opium among these people, as that of intoxicating liquors
among other nations, is a species of luxury which all ranks adopt
according to their ability, and which, when once become habitual, it is
almost impossible to shake off. Being however like other luxuries
expensive, few only among the lower or middling class of people can
compass the regular enjoyment of it, even where its use is not
restrained, as it is among the pepper-planters, to the times of their
festivals. That the practice of smoking opium must be in some degree
prejudicial to the health is highly probable; yet I am inclined to think
that effects have been attributed to it much more pernicious to the
constitution than it in reality causes. The bugis soldiers and others in
the Malay bazaars whom we see most attached to it, and who use it to
excess, commonly appear emaciated; but they are in other respects
abandoned and debauched. The Limun and Batang Assei gold-traders, on the
contrary, who are an active, laborious class of men but yet indulge as
freely in opium as any others whatever, are notwithstanding the most
healthy and vigorous people to be met with on the island. It has been
usual also to attribute to the practice destructive consequences of
another nature from the frenzy it has been supposed to excite in those
who take it in quantities. But this should probably rank with the many
errors that mankind have been led into by travellers addicted to the
marvellous; and there is every reason to believe that the furious
quarrels, desperate assassinations, and sanguinary attacks, which the use
of opium is said to give birth to, are idle notions, originally adopted
through ignorance and since maintained from the mere want of
investigation, without having any solid foundation. It is not to be
controverted, that those desperate acts of indiscriminate murder, called
by us mucks, and by the natives mengamok, do actually take place, and
frequently too in some parts of the East (in Java in particular) but it
is not equally evident that they proceed from any intoxication except
that of their unruly passions. Too often they are occasioned by excess of
cruelty and injustice in their oppressors. On the west coast of Sumatra
about twenty thousand pounds weight of this drug are consumed annually,
yet instances of this crime do not happen (at least within the scope of
our knowledge) above once in two or three years. During my residence
there I had an opportunity of being an eyewitness but to one muck. The
slave of a Portuguese woman, a man of the island of Nias, who in all
probability had never handled an opium pipe in his life, being treated by
his mistress with extreme severity for a trifling offence, vowed he would
have revenge if she attempted to strike him again, and ran down the steps
of the house with a knife in each hand, as it is said. She cried out,
mengamok! The civil guard was called, who, having the power in these
cases of exercising summary justice, fired half a dozen rounds into an
outhouse where the unfortunate wretch had sheltered himself on their
approach, and from whence he was at length dragged, covered with wounds.
Many other mucks might perhaps be found, upon scrutiny, of the nature of
the foregoing, where a man of strong feelings was driven by excess of
injury to domestic rebellion.

It is true that the Malays, when in a state of war they are bent on any
daring enterprise, fortify themselves with a few whiffs of opium to
render them insensible to danger, as the people of another nation are
said to take a dram for the same purpose; but it must be observed that
the resolution for the act precedes, and is not the effect of, the
intoxication. They take the same precaution previous to being led to
public execution; but on these occasions show greater signs of stupidity
than frenzy. Upon the whole it may be reasonably concluded that the
sanguinary achievements, for which the Malays have been famous, or
infamous rather, in history, are more justly to be attributed to the
natural ferocity of their disposition, or to the influence upon their
manners of a particular state of society, than to the qualities of any
drug whatever. The pretext of the soldiers of the country-guard for using
opium is that it may render them watchful on their nightly posts: we on
the contrary administer it to procure sleep, and according to the
quantity it has either effect. The delirium it produces is known to be so
very pleasing that Pope has supposed this to have been designed by Homer
when he describes the delicious draught prepared by Helen, called
nepenthe, which exhilarated the spirits and banished from the mind the
recollection of woe.

It is remarkable that at Batavia, where the assassins just now described,
when taken alive, are broken on the wheel, with every aggravation of
punishment that the most rigorous justice can inflict, the mucks yet
happen in great frequency, whilst at Bencoolen, where they are executed
in the most simple and expeditious manner, the offence is extremely rare.
Excesses of severity in punishment may deter men from deliberate and
interested acts of villainy, but they add fuel to the atrocious
enthusiasm of desperadoes.

PIRATICAL ADVENTURES.

A further proof of the influence that mild government has upon the
manners of people is that the piratical adventures so common on the
eastern coast of the island are unknown on the western. Far from our
having apprehensions of the Malays, the guards at the smaller English
settlements are almost entirely composed of them, with a mixture of Bugis
or Makasar people. Europeans, attended by Malays only, are continually
travelling through the country. They are the only persons employed in
carrying treasure to distant places; in the capacity of secretaries for
the country correspondence; as civil officers in seizing delinquents
among the planters and elsewhere; and as masters and supercargoes of the
tambangans, praws, and other small coasting vessels. So great is the
effect of moral causes and habit upon a physical character esteemed the
most treacherous and sanguinary.


CHAPTER 15.

CUSTOM OF CHEWING BETEL.
EMBLEMATIC PRESENTS.
ORATORY.
CHILDREN.
NAMES.
CIRCUMCISION.
FUNERALS.
RELIGION.

CUSTOM OF CHEWING BETEL.

Whether to blunt the edge of painful reflection, or owing to an aversion
our natures have to total inaction, most nations have been addicted to
the practice of enjoying by mastication or otherwise the flavour of
substances possessing an inebriating quality. The South Americans chew
the cocoa and mambee, and the eastern people the betel and areca, or, as
they are called in the Malay language, sirih and pinang. This custom has
been accurately described by various writers, and therefore it is almost
superfluous to say more on the subject than that the Sumatrans
universally use it, carry the ingredients constantly about them, and
serve it to their guests on all occasions--the prince in a gold stand,
and the poor man in a brass box or mat bag. The betel-stands of the
better rank of people are usually of silver embossed with rude figures.
The Sultan of Moco-moco was presented with one by the India Company, with
their arms on it; and he possesses beside another of gold filigree. The
form of the stand is the frustum of a hexagonal pyramid reversed, about
six or eight inches in diameter. It contains many smaller vessels fitted
to the angles, for holding the nut, leaf, and chunam, which is quicklime
made from calcined shells; with places for the instruments (kachip)
employed in cutting the first, and spatulas for spreading the last.

When the first salutation is over, which consists in bending the body,
and the inferior's putting his joined hands between those of the
superior, and then lifting them to his forehead, the betel is presented
as a token of hospitality and an act of politeness. To omit it on the one
hand or to reject it on the other would be an affront; as it would be
likewise in a person of subordinate rank to address a great man without
the precaution of chewing it before he spoke. All the preparation
consists in spreading on the sirih leaf a small quantity of the chunam
and folding it up with a slice of the pinang nut. Some mix with these
gambir, which is a substance prepared from the leaves of a tree of that
name by boiling their juices to a consistence, and made up into little
balls or squares, as before spoken of: tobacco is likewise added, which
is shred fine for the purpose, and carried between the lip and upper row
of teeth. From the mastication of the first three proceeds a juice which
tinges the saliva of a bright red, and which the leaf and nut, without
the chunam, will not yield. This hue being communicated to the mouth and
lips is esteemed ornamental; and an agreeable flavour is imparted to the
breath. The juice is usually (after the first fermentation produced by
the lime) though not always swallowed by the chewers of betel. We might
reasonably suppose that its active qualities would injure the coats of
the stomach, but experience seems to disprove such a consequence. It is
common to see the teeth of elderly persons stand loose in the gums, which
is probably the effect of this custom, but I do not think that it affects
the soundness of the teeth themselves. Children begin to chew betel very
young, and yet their teeth are always beautifully white till pains are
taken to disfigure them by filing and staining them black. To persons who
are not habituated to the composition it causes a strong giddiness,
astringes and excoriates the tongue and fauces, and deadens for a time
the faculty of taste. During the puasa, or fast of ramadan, the
Mahometans among them abstain from the use of betel whilst the sun
continues above the horizon; but excepting at this season it is the
constant luxury of both sexes from an early period of childhood, till,
becoming toothless, they are reduced to the necessity of having the
ingredients previously reduced to a paste for them, that without further
effort the betel may dissolve in the mouth. Along with the betel, and
generally in the chunam, is the mode of conveying philtres, or love
charms. How far they prove effectual I cannot take upon me to say, but
suppose that they are of the nature of our stimulant medicines, and that
the direction of the passion is of course indiscriminate. The practice of
administering poison in this manner is not followed in latter times; but
that the idea is not so far eradicated as entirely to prevent suspicion
appears from this circumstance, that the guest, though taking a leaf from
the betel-service of his entertainer, not unfrequently applies to it his
own chunam, and never omits to pass the former between his thumb and
forefinger in order to wipe off any extraneous matter. This mistrustful
procedure is so common as not to give offence.

TOBACCO.

Beside the mode before-mentioned of enjoying the flavour of tobacco it is
also smoked by the natives and for this use--after shredding it fine
whilst green and drying it well it is rolled up in the thin leaves of a
tree, and is in that form called roko, a word they appear to have
borrowed from the Dutch. The rokos are carried in the betel-box, or more
commonly under the destar or handkerchief which, in imitation of a
turband, surrounds the head. Much tobacco is likewise imported from China
and sells at a high price. It seems to possess a greater pungency than
the Sumatran plant, which the people cultivate for their own use in the
interior parts of the island.

EMBLEMATIC PRESENTS.

The custom of sending emblematical presents in order to make known, in a
covert manner, the birth, progress, or change of certain affections of
the mind, prevails here, as in some other parts of the East; and not only
flowers of various kinds have their appropriate meaning, but also
cayenne-pepper, betel-leaf, salt, and other articles are understood by
adepts to denote love, jealousy, resentment, hatred, and other strong
feelings.

ORATORY.

The Sumatrans in general are good speakers. The gift of oratory seems
natural to them. I knew many among them whose harangues I have listened
to with pleasure and admiration. This may be accounted for perhaps from
the constitution of their government, which being far removed from
despotism seems to admit, in some degree, every member of the society to
a share in the public deliberations. Where personal endowments, as has
been observed, will often raise a private man to a share of importance in
the community,superior to that of a nominal chief, there is abundant
inducement for the acquisition of these valuable talents. The forms of
their judicial proceedings likewise, where there are no established
advocates and each man depends upon his own or his friend's abilities for
the management of his cause, must doubtless contribute to this habitual
eloquence. We may add to these conjectures the nature of their domestic
manners, which introduce the sons at an early period of life into the
business of the family, and the counsels of their elders. There is little
to be perceived among them of that passion for childish sports which
marks the character of our boys from the seventh to the fourteenth year.
In Sumatra you may observe infants, not exceeding the former age, full
dressed and armed with a kris, seated in the circle of the old men of the
dusun, and attending to their debates with a gravity of countenance not
surpassed by their grandfathers. Thus initiated they are qualified to
deliver an opinion in public at a time of life when an English schoolboy
could scarcely return an answer to a question beyond the limits of his
grammar or syntax, which he has learned by rote. It is not a little
unaccountable that this people, who hold the art of speaking in such high
esteem, and evidently pique themselves on the attainment of it, should
yet take so much pains to destroy the organs of speech in filing down and
otherwise disfiguring their teeth; and likewise adopt the uncouth
practice of filling their mouths with betel whenever they prepare to hold
forth. We must conclude that it is not upon the graces of elocution they
value an orator, but his artful and judicious management of the subject
matter; together with a copiousness of phrase, a perspicuity of thought,
an advantageous arrangement, and a readiness, especially, at unravelling
the difficulties and intricacies of their suits.

CHILD-BEARING.

The curse entailed on women in the article of child-bearing does not fall
so heavy in this as in the northern countries. Their pregnancy scarcely
at any period prevents their attendance on the ordinary domestic duties;
and usually within a few hours after their delivery they walk to the
bathing-place, at a small distance from the house. The presence of a sage
femme is often esteemed superfluous. The facility of parturition may
probably be owing to the relaxation of the frame from the warmth of the
climate; to which cause also may be attributed the paucity of children
borne by the Sumatran women and the early decay of their beauty and
strength. They have the tokens of old age at a season of life when
European women have not passed their prime. They are like the fruits of
the country, soon ripe and soon decayed. They bear children before
fifteen, are generally past it at thirty, and grey-headed and shrivelled
at forty. I do not recollect hearing of any woman who had six children
except the wife of Raddin of Madura, who had more; and she, contrary to
the universal custom, did not give suck to hers.

TREATMENT OF CHILDREN.

Mothers carry the children not on the arm, as our nurses do, but
straddling on the hip, and usually supported by a cloth which ties in a
knot on the opposite shoulder. This practice I have been told is common
in some parts of Wales. It is much safer than the other method, less
tiresome to the nurse, and the child has the advantage of sitting in a
less constrained posture: but the defensive armour of stays, and
offensive weapons called pins, might be some objection to the general
introduction of the fashion in England. The children are nursed but
little, not confined by any swathing or bandages, and, being suffered to
roll about the floor, soon learn to walk and shift for themselves. When
cradles are used they are swung suspended from the ceiling of the rooms.

AGE OF THE PEOPLE.

The country people can very seldom give an account of their age, being
entirely without any species of chronology. Among those country people
who profess themselves Mahometans to very few is the date of the Hejra
known; and even of those who in their writings make use of it not one in
ten can pronounce in what year of it he was born. After a few taun padi
(harvests) are elapsed they are bewildered in regard to the date of an
event, and only guess at it from some contemporary circumstance of
notoriety, as the appointment of a particular dupati, the incursion of a
certain enemy, or the like. As far as can be judged from observation it
would seem that not a great proportion of the men attain to the age of
fifty, and sixty years is accounted a long life.

NAMES.

The children among the Rejangs have generally a name given to them by
their parents soon after their birth, which is called namo daging. The
galar (cognomen), another species of name, or title, as we improperly
translate it, is bestowed at a subsequent, but not at any determinate,
period: sometimes as the lads rise to manhood, at an entertainment given
by the parent, on some particular occasion; and often at their marriage.
It is generally conferred by the old men of the neighbouring villages,
when assembled; but instances occur of its being irregularly assumed by
the persons themselves; and some never obtain any galar. It is also not
unusual, at a convention held on business of importance, to change the
galar of one or two of the principal personages to others of superior
estimation; though it is not easy to discover in what this pre-eminence
consists, the appellations being entirely arbitrary, at the fancy of
those who confer them: perhaps in the loftier sound, or more pompous
allusion in the sense, which latter is sometimes carried to an
extraordinary pitch of bombast, as in the instance of Pengunchang bumi,
or Shaker of the World, the title of a pangeran of Manna. But a climax is
not always perceptible in the change.

FATHER NAMED FROM HIS CHILD.

The father, in many parts of the country, particularly in Passummah, is
distinguished by the name of his first child, as Pa-Ladin, or Pa-Rindu
(Pa for bapa, signifying the father of), and loses in this acquired his
own proper name. This is a singular custom, and surely less conformable
to the order of nature than that which names the son from the father.
There it is not usual to give them a galar on their marriage, as with the
Rejangs, among whom the filionymic is not so common, though sometimes
adopted, and occasionally joined with the galar; as Radin-pa-Chirano. The
women never change the name given them at the time of their birth; yet
frequently they are called, through courtesy, from their eldest child,
Ma-si-ano, the mother of such a one; but rather as a polite description
than a name. The word or particle Si is prefixed to the birth-names of
persons, which almost ever consist of but a single word, as Si Bintang,
Si Tolong; and we find from Captain Forrest's voyage that in the island
of Mindanao the infant son of the Raja Muda was named Se Mama.

HESITATE TO PRONOUNCE THEIR OWN NAME.

A Sumatran ever scrupulously abstains from pronouncing his own name; not
as I understand from any motive of superstition, but merely as a
punctilio in manners. It occasions him infinite embarrassment when a
stranger, unacquainted with their customs, requires it of him. As soon as
he recovers from his confusion he solicits the interposition of his
neighbour.

ADDRESS IN THE THIRD PERSON.

He is never addressed, except in the case of a superior dictating to his
dependant, in the second person, but always in the third; using his name
or title instead of the pronoun; and when these are unknown a general
title of respect is substituted, and they say, for instance, apa orang
kaya punia suka, what is his honour's pleasure for what is your, or your
honour's pleasure? When criminals or other ignominious persons are spoken
to use is made of the pronoun personal kau (a contraction of angkau)
particularly expressive of contempt. The idea of disrespect annexed to
the use of the second person in discourse, though difficult to be
accounted for, seems pretty general in the world. The Europeans, to avoid
the supposed indecorum, exchange the singular number for the plural; but
I think with less propriety of effect than the Asiatic mode; if to take
off from the bluntness of address be the object aimed at.

CIRCUMCISION.

The boys are circumcised, where Mahometanism prevails, between the sixth
and tenth year. The ceremony is called krat kulop and buang or lepas malu
(casting away their shame), and a bimbang is usually given on the
occasion; as well as at the ceremony of boring the ears and filing the
teeth of their daughters (before described), which takes place at about
the age of ten or twelve; and until this is performed they cannot with
propriety be married.

FUNERALS.

At their funerals the corpse is carried to the place of interment on a
broad plank, which is kept for the public service of the dusun, and lasts
for many generations. It is constantly rubbed with lime, either to
preserve it from decay or to keep it pure. No coffin is made use of; the
body being simply wrapped in white cloth, particularly of the sort called
hummums. In forming the grave (kubur), after digging to a convenient
depth they make a cavity in the side, at bottom, of sufficient dimensions
to contain the body, which is there deposited on its right side. By this
mode the earth literally lies light upon it; and the cavity, after
strewing flowers in it, they stop up by two boards fastened angularly to
each other, so that the one is on the top of the corpse, whilst the other
defends it on the open side, the edge resting on the bottom of the grave.
The outer excavation is then filled up with earth, and little white flags
or streamers are stuck in order around. They likewise plant a shrub,
bearing a white flower, called kumbang­kamboja (Plumeria obtusa), and in
some places wild marjoram. The women who attend the funeral make a
hideous noise, not much unlike the Irish howl. On the third and seventh
day the relations perform a ceremony at the grave, and at the end of
twelve months that of tegga batu, or setting up a few long elliptical
stones at the head and foot, which, being scarce in some parts of the
country, bear a considerable price. On this occasion they kill and feast
on a buffalo, and leave the head to decay on the spot as a token of the
honour they have done to the deceased, in eating to his memory.* The
ancient burying-places are called krammat, and are supposed to have been
those of the holy men by whom their ancestors were converted to the
faith. They are held in extraordinary reverence, and the least
disturbance or violation of the ground, though all traces of the graves
be obliterated, is regarded as an unpardonable sacrilege.

(*Footnote. The above ceremonies (with the exception of the last) are
briefly described in the following lines, extracted from a Malayan poem.

Setelah sudah de tangisi, nia
Lalu de kubur de tanamkan 'nia
De ambel koran de ajikan 'nia
Sopaya lepas deri sangsara 'nia
Mengaji de kubur tujuh ari
Setelah de khatam tiga kali
Sudah de tegga batu sakali
Membayer utang pada si-mati.)

RELIGION.

In works descriptive of the manners of people little known to the world
the account of their religion usually constitutes an article of the first
importance. Mine will labour under the contrary disadvantage. The ancient
and genuine religion of the Rejangs, if in fact they ever had any, is
scarcely now to be traced; and what principally adds to its obscurity,
and the difficulty of getting information on the subject, is that even
those among them who have not been initiated in the principles of
Mahometanism yet regard those who have as persons advanced a step in
knowledge beyond them, and therefore hesitate to own circumstantially
that they remain still unenlightened. Ceremonies are fascinating to
mankind, and without comprehending with what views they were instituted
the profanum vulgus naturally give them credit for something mysterious
and above their capacities, and accordingly pay them a tribute of
respect. With Mahometanism a more extensive field of knowledge (I speak
in comparison) is open to its converts, and some additional notions of
science are conveyed. These help to give it importance, though it must be
confessed they are not the most pure tenets of that religion which have
found their way to Sumatra; nor are even the ceremonial parts very
scrupulously adhered to. Many who profess to follow it give themselves
not the least concern about its injunctions, or even know what they
require. A Malay at Manna upbraided a countryman with the total ignorance
of religion his nation laboured under. "You pay a veneration to the tombs
of your ancestors: what foundation have you for supposing that your dead
ancestors can lend you assistance?" "It may be true," answered the other,
"but what foundation have you for expecting assistance from Allah and
Mahomet?" "Are you not aware, replied the Malay, that it is written in a
Book? Have you not heard of the Koran?" The native of Passummah, with
conscious inferiority, submitted to the force of this argument.

If by religion is meant a public or private form of worship of any kind,
and if prayers, processions, meetings, offerings, images, or priests are
any of them necessary to constitute it, I can pronounce that the Rejangs
are totally without religion and cannot with propriety be even termed
pagans, if that, as I apprehend, conveys the idea of mistaken worship.
They neither worship God, devil, nor idols. They are not however without
superstitious beliefs of many kinds, and have certainly a confused
notion, though perhaps derived from their intercourse with other people,
of some species of superior beings who have the power of rendering
themselves visible or invisible at pleasure. These they call orang alus,
fine, or impalpable beings, and regard them as possessing the faculty of
doing them good or evil, deprecating their wrath as the sense of present
misfortunes or apprehension of future prevails in their minds. But when
they speak particularly of them they call them by the appellations of
maleikat and jin, which are the angels and evil spirits of the Arabians,
and the idea may probably have been borrowed at the same time with the
names. These are the powers they also refer to in an oath. I have heard a
dupati say, "My grandfather took an oath that he would not demand the
jujur of that woman, and imprecated a curse on any of his descendants
that should do it: I never have, nor could I without salah kapada
maleikat--an offence against the angels." Thus they say also, de talong
nabi, maleikat, the prophet and angels assisting. This is pure
Mahometanism.

NO NAME FOR THE DEITY.

The clearest proof that they never entertained an idea of Theism or the
belief of one supreme power is that they have no word in their language
to express the person of God, except the Allah tala of the Malays,
corrupted by them to Ulah tallo. Yet when questioned on the subject they
assert their ancestors' knowledge of a deity, though their thoughts were
never employed about him; but this evidently means no more than that
their forefathers as well as themselves had heard of the Allah of the
Mahometans (Allah orang islam).

IDEA OF INVISIBLE BEINGS.

They use, both in Rejang and Passummah, the word dewa to express a
superior invisible class of beings; but each country acknowledges it to
be of foreign derivation, and they suppose it Javanese. Radin, of Madura,
an island close to Java, who was well conversant with the religious
opinions of most nations, asserted to me that dewa was an original word
of that country for a superior being, which the Javans of the interior
believed in, but with regard to whom they used no ceremonies or forms of
worship:* that they had some idea of a future life, but not as a state of
retribution, conceiving immortality to be the lot of rich rather than of
good men. I recollect that an inhabitant of one of the islands farther
eastward observed to me, with great simplicity, that only great men went
to the skies; how should poor men find admittance there? The Sumatrans,
where untinctured with Mahometanism, do not appear to have any notion of
a future state. Their conception of virtue or vice extends no farther
than to the immediate effect of actions to the benefit or prejudice of
society, and all such as tend not to either of these ends are in their
estimation perfectly indifferent.

(*Footnote. In the Transactions of the Batavian Society Volumes 1 and 3
is to be found a History of these Dewas of the Javans, translated from an
original manuscript. The mythology is childish and incoherent. The Dutch
commentator supposes them to have been a race of men held sacred, forming
a species of Hierarchy, like the government of the Lamas in Tartary.)

Notwithstanding what is asserted of the originality of the word dewa, I
cannot help remarking its extreme affinity to the Persian word div or
diw, which signifies an evil spirit or bad genius. Perhaps, long
antecedent to the introduction of the faith of the khalifs among the
eastern people, this word might have found its way and been naturalized
in the islands; or perhaps its progress was in a contrary direction. It
has likewise a connexion in sound with the names used to express a deity
or some degree of superior being by many other people of this region of
the earth. The Battas, inhabitants of the northern end of Sumatra, whom I
shall describe hereafter, use the word daibattah or daivattah; the
Chingalese of Ceylon dewiju, the Telingas of India dai-wundu, the Biajus
of Borneo dewattah, the Papuas of New Guinea 'wat, and the Pampangos of
the Philippines diuata. It bears likewise an affinity (perhaps
accidental) to the deus and deitas of the Romans.*

(*Footnote. At the period when the above was written I was little aware
of the intimate connexion now well understood to have anciently subsisted
between the Hindus and the various nations beyond the Ganges. The most
evident proofs appear of the extensive dissemination both of their
language and mythology throughout Sumatra, Java, Balli (where at this day
they are best preserved), and the other eastern islands. To the Sanskrit
words dewa and dewata, signifying divinities in that great mother-tongue,
we are therefore to look for the source of the terms, more or less
corrupted, that have been mentioned in the text. See Asiatic Researches
Volume 4 page 223.)

VENERATION FOR THE MANES AND TOMBS OF THEIR ANCESTORS.

The superstition which has the strongest influence on the minds of the
Sumatrans, and which approaches the nearest to a species of religion, is
that which leads them to venerate, almost to the point of worshipping,
the tombs and manes of their deceased ancestors (nenek puyang). These
they are attached to as strongly as to life itself, and to oblige them to
remove from the neighbourhood of their krammat is like tearing up a tree
by the roots; these the more genuine country people regard chiefly, when
they take a solemn oath, and to these they apostrophise in instances of
sudden calamity. Had they the art of making images or other
representations of them they would be perfect lares, penates, or
household gods. It has been asserted to me by the natives (conformably to
what we are told by some of the early travellers) that in very ancient
times the Sumatrans made a practice of burning the bodies of their dead,
but I could never find any traces of the custom, or any circumstances
that corroborated it.

METEMPSYCHOSIS.

They have an imperfect notion of a metempsychosis, but not in any degree
systematic, nor considered as an article of religious faith. Popular
stories prevail amongst them of such a particular man being changed into
a tiger or other beast. They seem to think indeed that tigers in general
are actuated with the spirits of departed men, and no consideration will
prevail on a countryman to catch or to wound one but in self-defence, or
immediately after the act of destroying a friend or relation. They speak
of them with a degree of awe, and hesitate to call them by their common
name (rimau or machang), terming them respectfully satwa (the wild
animals), or even nenek (ancestors), as really believing them such, or by
way of soothing and coaxing them; as our ignorant country folk call the
fairies the good people. When a European procures traps to be set, by the
means of persons less superstitious, the inhabitants of the neighbourhood
have been known to go at night to the place and practise some forms in
order to persuade the animal, when caught, or when he shall perceive the
bait, that it was not laid by them, or with their consent. They talk of a
place in the country where the tigers have a court and maintain a regular
form of government, in towns, the houses of which are thatched with
women's hair. It happened that in one month seven or eight people were
killed by these prowling beasts in Manna district; upon which a report
became current that fifteen hundred of them were come down from
Passummah, of which number four were without understanding (gila), and
having separated from the rest ran about the country occasioning all the
mischief that was felt. The alligators also are highly destructive, owing
to the constant practice of bathing in the rivers, and are regarded with
nearly the same degree of religious terror. Fear is the parent of
superstition, by ignorance. Those two animals prove the Sumatran's
greatest scourge. The mischief the former commit is incredible, whole
villages being often depopulated by them, and the suffering people learn
to reverence as supernatural effects the furious ravages of an enemy they
have not resolution to oppose.

The Sumatrans are firmly persuaded that various particular persons are
what they term betuah (sacred, impassive, invulnerable, not liable to
accident), and this quality they sometimes extend to things inanimate, as
ships and boats. Such an opinion, which we should suppose every man might
have an opportunity of bringing to the test of truth, affords a
humiliating proof of the weakness and credulity of human nature, and the
fallibility of testimony, when a film of prejudice obscures the light of
the understanding. I have known two men, whose honesty, good faith, and
reasonableness in the general concerns of life were well established, and
whose assertions would have weight in transactions of consequence: these
men I have heard maintain, with the most deliberate confidence and an
appearance of inward conviction of their own sincerity, that they had
more than once in the course of their wars attempted to run their weapons
into the naked body of their adversary, which they found impenetrable,
their points being continually and miraculously turned without any effort
on the part of the orang betuah: and that hundreds of instances of the
like nature, where the invulnerable man did not possess the smallest
natural means of opposition, had come within their observation. An
English officer, with more courage and humour than discretion, exposed
one imposture of this kind. A man having boasted in his presence that he
was endowed with this supernatural privilege, the officer took an
opportunity of applying to his arm the point of a sword and drew the
blood, to the no little diversion of the spectators, and mortification of
the pretender to superior gifts, who vowed revenge, and would have taken
it had not means been used to keep him at a distance. But a single
detection of charlatanerie is not effectual to destroy a prevalent
superstition. These impostors are usually found among the Malays and not
the more simple country people.

NO MISSIONARIES.

No attempts, I have reason to think, have ever been made by missionaries
or others to convert the inhabitants of the island to Christianity, and I
have much doubt whether the most zealous and able would meet with any
permanent success in this pious work. Of the many thousands baptized in
the eastern islands by the celebrated Francis Xavier in the sixteenth
century not one of their descendants are now found to retain a ray of the
light imparted to them; and probably, as it was novelty only and not
conviction that induced the original converts to embrace a new faith, the
impression lasted no longer than the sentiment which recommended it, and
disappeared as rapidly as the itinerant apostle. Under the influence
however of the Spanish government at Manila and of the Dutch at Batavia
there are many native Christians, educated as such from children. In the
Malayan language Portuguese and Christians are confounded under the same
general name; the former being called orang Zerani, by corruption for
Nazerani. This neglect of missions to Sumatra is one cause that the
interior of the country has been so little known to the civilized world.


CHAPTER 16.

THE COUNTRY OF LAMPONG AND ITS INHABITANTS.
LANGUAGE.
GOVERNMENT.
WARS.
PECULIAR CUSTOMS.
RELIGION.

Having thus far spoken of the manners and customs of the Rejangs more
especially, and adverted, as occasion served, to those of the Passummah
people, who nearly resemble them, I shall now present a cursory view of
those circumstances in which their southern neighbours, the inhabitants
of the Lampong country, differ from them, though this dissimilitude is
not very considerable; and shall add such information as I have been
enabled to obtain respecting the people of Korinchi and other tribes
dwelling beyond the ranges of hills which bound the pepper-districts.

LIMITS OF THE LAMPONG COUNTRY.

By the Lampong country is understood a portion of the southern extreme of
the island, beginning, on the west coast, at the river of Padang-guchi,
which divides it from Passummah, and extending across as far as
Palembang, on the north-east side, at which last place the settlers are
mostly Javans. On the south and east sides it is washed by the sea,
having several ports in the Straits of Sunda, particularly Keysers and
Lampong Bays; and the great river Tulang-bawang runs through the heart of
it, rising from a considerable lake between the ranges of mountains. That
division which is included by Padang-guchi, and a place called Nassal, is
distinguished by the name of Briuran, and from thence southward to Flat
Point, by that of Laut-Kawur; although Kawur, properly so called, lies in
the northern division.

TULANG BAWANG RIVER.

Upon the Tulang-bawang, at a place called Mangala, thirty-six leagues
from its mouth, the Dutch have a fortified post. There also the
representative of the king of Bantam, who claims the dominion of the
whole country of Lampong, has his residence, the river Masusi, which runs
into the former, being the boundary of his territories and those of the
sultan of Palembang. In the neighbourhood of these rivers the land is so
low as to be overflowed in the rainy season, or months of January and
February, when the waters have been known to rise many feet in the course
of a few hours, the villages, situated on the higher spots, appearing as
islands. The houses of those immediately on the banks are built on piles
of ironwood timber, and each has before it a floating raft for the
convenience of washing. In the western parts, towards Samangka, on the
contrary, the land is mountainous, and Keyser's Peak, as well as Pugong,
are visible to a great distance at sea.

INHABITANTS.

The country is best inhabited in the central and mountainous parts, where
the people live independent, and in some measure secure from the inroads
of their eastern neighbours, the Javans, who, from about Palembang and
the Straits, frequently attempt to molest them. It is probably within but
a very few centuries that the south-west coast of this country has been
the habitation of any considerable number of people; and it has been
still less visited by strangers, owing to the unsheltered nature of the
sea thereabouts, and want of soundings in general, which renders the
navigation wild and dangerous for country vessels; and to the rivers
being small and rapid, with shallow bars and almost ever a high surf. If
you ask the people of these parts from whence they originally came they
answer, from the hills, and point out an inland place near the great lake
from whence they say their forefathers emigrated: and further than this
it is impossible to trace. They of all the Sumatrans have the strongest
resemblance to the Chinese, particularly in the roundness of face and
constructure of the eyes. They are also the fairest people of the island,
and the women are the tallest and esteemed the most handsome.

LANGUAGE.

Their language differs considerably, though not essentially, from that of
the Rejangs, and the characters they use are peculiar to themselves, as
may be observed in the specimens exhibited.

GOVERNMENT.

The titles of government are pangeran (from the Javans), kariyer, and
kiddimong or nebihi; the latter nearly answering to dupati among the
Rejangs. The district of Kroi, near Mount Pugong, is governed by five
magistrates called Panggau-limo, and a sixth, superior, called by way of
eminence Panggau; but their authority is said to be usurped and is often
disputed. The word in common signifies a gladiator or prizefighter. The
pangeran of Suko, in the hills, is computed to have four or five thousand
dependants, and sometimes, on going a journey, he levies a tali, or
eighth part of a dollar, on each family, which shows his authority to be
more arbitrary and probably more strictly feudal than among the Rejangs,
where the government is rather patriarchal. This difference has doubtless
its source in the wars and invasions to which the former people are
exposed.

WARS.

The Javanese banditti, as has been observed, often advance into the
country, and commit depredations on the inhabitants, who are not, in
general, a match for them. They do not make use of firearms. Beside the
common weapons of the island they fight with a long lance which is
carried by three men, the foremost guiding the point and covering himself
and his companions with a large shield. A compact body thus armed would
have been a counterpart of the Macedonian phalanx, but can prove, I
should apprehend, of but little use among a people with whom war is
carried on in a desultory manner, and more in the way of ambuscade than
of general engagement, in which alone troops so armed could act with
effect.

Inland of Samangka, in the Straits of Sunda, there is a district, say the
Lampongs, inhabited by a ferocious people called orang Abung, who were a
terror to the neighbouring country until their villages were destroyed
some years ago by an expedition from the former place. Their mode of
atoning for offences against their own community, or, according to a
Malayan narrative in my possession, of entitling themselves to wives, was
by bringing to their dusuns the heads of strangers. The account may be
true, but without further authentication such stories are not to be too
implicitly credited on the faith of a people who are fond of the
marvellous and addicted to exaggeration. Thus they believed the
inhabitants of the island Engano to be all females, who were impregnated
by the wind, like the mares in Virgil's Georgics.

MANNERS.

The manners of the Lampongs are more free, or rather licentious, than
those of any other native Sumatrans. An extraordinary liberty of
intercourse is allowed between the young people of different sexes, and
the loss of female chastity is not a very uncommon consequence. The
offence is there however thought more lightly of, and instead of
punishing the parties, as in Passummah and elsewhere, they prudently
endeavour to conclude a legal match between them. But if this is not
effected the lady still continues to wear the insignia of virginity, the
fillet and arm-rings, and takes her place as such at festivals. It is not
only on these public occasions that the young men and women have
opportunities of forming arrangements, as in most other parts of the
island. They frequently associate together at other times; and the former
are seen gallantly reclining in the maiden's lap, whispering soft
nonsense, whilst she adjusts and perfumes his hair, or does a friendly
office of less delicacy to a European apprehension. At bimbangs the women
often put on their dancing dress in the public hall, letting that garment
which they mean to lay aside dexterously drop from under, as the other
passes over the head, but sometimes, with an air of coquetry, displaying
as if by chance enough to warm youthful imaginations. Both men and women
anoint themselves before company when they prepare to dance; the women
their necks and arms, and the men their breasts. They also paint each
others faces; not, seemingly, with a view of heightening or imitating the
natural charms, but merely as matter of fashion; making fantastic spots
with the finger on the forehead, temples, and cheeks, of white, red,
yellow, and other hues. A brass salver (tallam) covered with little china
cups, containing a variety of paints, is served up for this purpose.

Instances have happened here, though rarely, of very disagreeable
conclusions to their feasts. A party of risaus among the young fellows
have been known suddenly to extinguish the lights for the purpose of
robbing the girls, not of their chastity, as might be apprehended, but of
the gold and silver ornaments of their persons. An outrage of this nature
I imagine could only happen in Lampong, where their vicinity to Java
affords the culprits easier and surer means of escape, than in the
central parts of the island; and here too their companies appear to be
more mixed, collected from greater distances, and not composed, as with
the Rejang people, of a neighbourly assemblage of the old men and women
of a few contiguous villages with their sons and daughters, for the sake
of convivial mirth, of celebrating a particular domestic event, and
promoting attachments and courtship amongst the young people.

PARTICULAR CUSTOMS.

In every dusun there is appointed a youth, well fitted by nature and
education for the office, who acts as master of ceremonies at their
public meetings, arranges the young men and women in their proper places,
makes choice of their partners, and regulates all other circumstances of
the assembly except the important economy of the festival part or cheer,
which comes under the cognizance of one of the elders. Both parts of the
entertainment are preceded by long complimentary speeches, delivered by
the respective stewards, who in return are answered and complimented on
their skill, liberality, and other qualities, by some of the best bred
amongst the guests. Though the manner of conducting, and the appendages
of these feasts, are superior in style to the rustic hospitality of some
of the northern countries, yet they are esteemed to be much behind those
in the goodness and mode of dressing their food. The Lampongs eat almost
all kinds of flesh indiscriminately, and their guleis (curries or made
dishes) are said, by connoisseurs, to have no flavour. They serve up the
rice divided into portions for each person, contrary to the practice in
the other countries; the tallam being covered with a handsome crimson
napkin manufactured for that use. They are wont to entertain strangers
with much more profusion than is met with in the rest of the island. If
the guest is of any consequence they do not hesitate to kill, beside
goats and fowls, a buffalo, or several, according to the period of his
stay, and the number of his attendants. One man has been known to
entertain a person of rank and his suite for sixteen days, during which
time there were not less than a hundred dishes of rice spread each day,
containing some one, some two bamboos. They have dishes here, of a
species of china or earthenware, called batu benauang, brought from the
eastward, remarkably heavy, and very dear, some of them being valued at
forty dollars a piece. The breaking one of them is a family loss of no
small importance.

RECEPTION OF STRANGERS.

Abundantly more ceremony is used among these people at interviews with
strangers than takes place in the countries adjacent to them. Not only
the chief person of a party travelling, but every one of his attendants,
is obliged, upon arriving at a town, to give a formal account of their
business, or occasion of coming that way. When the principal man of the
dusun is acquainted by the stranger with the motives of his journey he
repeats his speech at full length before he gives an answer; and if it is
a person of great consequence, the words must pass through two or three
mouths before they are supposed to come with sufficient ceremony to his
ears. This in fact has more the air of adding to his own importance and
dignity than to that of the guest; but it is not in Sumatra alone that
respect is manifested by this seeming contradiction.

The terms of the jujur, or equivalent for wives, is the same here,
nearly, as with the Rejangs. The kris-head is not essential to the
bargain, as among the people of Passummah. The father of the girl never
admits of the putus tali kulo, or whole sum being paid, and thereby
withholds from the husband, in any case, the right of selling his wife,
who, in the event of a divorce, returns to her relations. Where the putus
tali is allowed to take place, he has a property in her, little differing
from that of a slave, as formerly observed. The particular sums which
constitute the jujur are less complex here than at other places. The
value of the maiden's golden trinkets is nicely estimated, and her jujur
regulated according to that and the rank of her parents. The semando
marriage scarcely ever takes place but among poor people, where there is
no property on either side, or in the case of a slip in the conduct of
the female, when the friends are glad to make up a match in this way
instead of demanding a price for her. Instances have occurred however of
countrymen of rank affecting a semando marriage in order to imitate the
Malayan manners; but it has been looked upon as improper and liable to
create confusion.

The fines and compensation for murder are in every respect the same as in
the countries already described.

RELIGION.

The Mahometan religion has made considerable progress amongst the
Lampongs, and most of their villages have mosques in them: yet an
attachment to the original superstitions of the country induces them to
regard with particular veneration the ancient burying-places of their
fathers, which they piously adorn and cover in from the weather.

SUPERSTITIOUS OPINIONS.

In some parts, likewise, they superstitiously believe that certain trees,
particularly those of a venerable appearance (as an old jawi-jawi or
banyan tree) are the residence, or rather the material frame of spirits
of the woods; an opinion which exactly answers to the idea entertained by
the ancients of the dryads and hamadryads. At Benkunat in the Lampong
country there is a long stone, standing on a flat one, supposed by the
people to possess extraordinary power or virtue. It is reported to have
been once thrown down into the water and to have raised itself again to
its original position, agitating the elements at the same time with a
prodigious storm. To approach it without respect they believe to be the
source of misfortune to the offender.

The inland people of that country are said to pay a kind of adoration to
the sea, and to make to it an offering of cakes and sweetmeats on their
beholding it for the first time, deprecating its power of doing them
mischief. This is by no means surprising when we consider the natural
proneness of unenlightened mankind to regard with superstitious awe
whatever has the power of injuring them without control, and particularly
when it is attended with any circumstances mysterious and inexplicable to
their understandings. The sea possesses all these qualities. Its
destructive and irresistible power is often felt, and especially on the
coasts of India where tremendous surfs are constantly breaking on the
shore, rising often to their greatest degree of violence without any
apparent external cause. Add to this the flux and reflux and perpetual
ordinary motion of that element, wonderful even to philosophers who are
acquainted with the cause, unaccountable to ignorant men, though long
accustomed to the effects; but to those who only once or twice in their
lives have been eyewitnesses to the phenomena, supernatural and divine.
It must not however be understood that anything like a regular worship is
paid to the sea by these people, any more than we should conclude that
people in England worship witches when they nail a horseshoe on the
threshold to prevent their approach, or break the bottoms of eggshells to
hinder them from sailing in them. It is with the inhabitants of Lampong
no more than a temporary sentiment of fear and respect, which a little
familiarity soon effaces. Many of them indeed imagine it endowed with a
principle of voluntary motion. They tell a story of an ignorant fellow
who, observing with astonishment its continual agitation, carried a
vessel of sea water with him, on his return to the country, and poured it
into a lake, in full expectation of seeing it perform the same fanciful
motions he had admired it for in its native bed.*

(*Footnote. The manners of the natives of the Philippine or Luzon Islands
correspond in so many striking particulars with those of the inland
Sumatrans, and especially where they differ most from the Malays, that I
think no doubt can be entertained, if not of a sameness of origin, at
least of an intercourse and connection in former times which now no
longer exists. The following instances are taken from an essay preserved
by Thevenot, entitled Relation des Philippines par un religieux; traduite
d'un manuscrit Espagnol du cabinet de Monsieur Dom. Carlo del Pezzo
(without date), and from a manuscript communicated to me by Alex
Dalrymple, Esquire. "The chief Deity of the Tagalas is called Bathala mei
Capal, and also Diuata; and their principal idolatry consists in adoring
those of their ancestors who signalised themselves for courage or
abilities, calling them Humalagar, i.e. manes: They make slaves of the
people who do not keep silence at the tombs of their ancestors. They have
great veneration for the crocodile, which they call nono, signifying
grandfather, and make offerings to it. Every old tree they look upon as a
superior being, and think it a crime to cut it down. They worship also
stones, rocks, and points of land, shooting arrows at these last as they
pass them. They have priests who, at their sacrifices, make many
contortions and grimaces, as if possessed with a devil. The first man and
woman, they say, were produced from a bamboo, which burst in the island
of Sumatra; and they quarrelled about their marriage. The people mark
their bodies in various figures, and render them of the colour of ashes,
have large holes in their ears, blacken and file their teeth, and make an
opening which they fill up with gold, they used to write from top to
bottom till the Spaniards taught them to write from left to right,
bamboos and palm leaves serve them for paper. They cover their houses
with straw, leaves of trees, or bamboos split in two which serve for
tiles. They hire people to sing and weep at their funerals, burn benzoin,
bury their dead on the third day in strong coffins, and sometimes kill
slaves to accompany their deceased masters.")

The latter account is more particular, and appears of modern date.

They held the caiman, or alligator, in great reverence, and when they saw
him they called him nono, or grandfather, praying with great tenderness
that he would do them no harm, and to this end, offered him of whatever
they had in their boats, throwing it into the water. There was not an old
tree to which they did not offer divine worship, especially that called
balete; and even at this time they have some respect for them. Beside
these they had certain idols inherited from their ancestors, which the
Tagalas called Anita, and the Bisayans, Divata. Some of these were for
the mountains and plains, and they asked their leave when they would pass
them: others for the corn fields, and to these they recommend them, that
they might be fertile, placing meat and drink in the fields for the use
of the Anitos. There was one, of the sea, who had care of their fishing
and navigation; another of the house, whose favour they implored at the
birth of a child, and under whose protection they placed it. They made
Anitos also of their deceased ancestors, and to these were their first
invocations in all difficulties and dangers. They reckoned amongst these
beings, all those who were killed by lightning or alligators, or had any
disastrous death, and believed that they were carried up to the happy
state, by the rainbow, which they call Balan-gao. In general they
endeavoured to attribute this kind of divinity to their fathers, when
they died in years, and the old men, vain with this barbarous notion,
affected in their sickness a gravity and composure of mind, as they
conceived, more than human, because they thought themselves commencing
Anitos. They were to be interred at places marked out by themselves, that
they might be discovered at a distance and worshipped. The missionaries
have had great trouble in demolishing their tombs and idols; but the
Indians, inland, still continue the custom of pasing tabi sa nano, or
asking permission of their dead ancestors, when they enter any wood,
mountain, or corn field, for hunting or sowing; and if they omit this
ceremony imagine their nonos will punish them with bad fortune.

Their notions of the creation of the world, and formation of mankind, had
something ridiculously extravagant. They believed that the world at first
consisted only of sky and water, and between these two, a glede; which,
weary with flying about, and finding no place to rest, set the water at
variance with the sky, which, in order to keep it in bounds, and that it
should not get uppermost, loaded the water with a number of islands, in
which the glede might settle and leave them at peace. Mankind, they said,
sprang out of a large cane with two joints, that, floating about in the
water, was at length thrown by the waves against the feet of the glede,
as it stood on shore, which opened it with its bill, and the man came out
of one joint, and the woman out of the other. These were soon after
married by consent of their God, Batkala Meycapal, which caused the first
trembling of the earth; and from thence are descended the different
nations of the world.")


CHAPTER 17.

ACCOUNT OF THE INLAND COUNTRY OF KORINCHI.
EXPEDITION TO THE SERAMPEI AND SUNGEI-TENANG COUNTRIES.

COUNTRY OF KORINCHI.

At the back of the range of high mountains by which the countries of
Indrapura and Anak-sungei are bounded lies the district or valley of
Korinchi, which, from its secluded situation, has hitherto been little
known to Europeans. In the year 1800 Mr. Charles Campbell, whose name I
have had frequent occasion to mention, was led to visit this spot, in the
laudable pursuit of objects for the improvement of natural history, and
from his correspondence I shall extract such parts as I have reason to
hope will be gratifying to the reader.

MR. CAMPBELL'S JOURNEY.

Says this indefatigable traveller:

The country of Korinchi first occupied my attention. From the sea-coast
at Moco-moco to the foot of the mountains cost us three days' weary
journey, and although our path was devious I cannot estimate the distance
at less than thirty miles, for it was late on the fourth day when we
began to ascend. Your conjecture that the ridge is broader betwixt the
plains of Anak-sungei and valley of Korinchi than that which we see from
Bencoolen is just. Our route in general lay north-east until we attained
the summit of the first high range, from which elevated situation,
through an opening in the wood, the Pagi or Nassau Islands were clearly
visible. During the next day our course along the ridge of hills was a
little to the northward of north­west, and for the two following days
almost due north, through as noble a forest as was ever penetrated by
man. On the evening of the last we descended by a steep and seemingly
short path from the summit of the second range (for there are obviously
two) into the Korinchi country.

SITUATION OF LAKE.

This descent did not occupy us more than twenty minutes, so that the
valley must lie at a great height above the level of the sea; but it was
yet a few days march to the inhabited and cultivated land on the border
of the great lake, which I conjecture to be situated directly behind
Indrapura, or north-east from the mouth of that river. There are two
lakes, but one of them is inconsiderable. I sailed for some time on the
former, which may be nearly as broad as the strait between Bencoolen and
Rat Island. My companions estimated it at seven miles; but the eye is
liable to much deception, and, having seen nothing for many days but
rivulets, the grandeur of the sheet of water, when it first burst upon
our sight, perhaps induced us to form too high a notion of its extent.
Its banks were studded with villages; it abounds with fish, particularly
the summah, a species of cyprinus; its waters are clear and beautiful
from the reflection of the black and shining sand which covers the bottom
in many places to the depth of eight or ten inches.

INHABITANTS.

The inhabitants are below the common stature of the Malays, with harder
visages and higher cheekbones, well knit in their limbs, and active; not
deficient in hospitality, but jealous of strangers. The women, excepting
a few of the daughters of the chiefs, were in general ill­favoured, and
even savage in their aspect. At the village of In-juan on the borders of
the lake I saw some of them with rings of copper and shells among their
hair; they wore destars round their heads like the men, and almost all of
them had siwars or small daggers at their sides. They were not shut up or
concealed from us, but mixed with our party, on the contrary, with much
frankness.

BUILDINGS.

The people dwell in hordes, many families being crowded together in one
long building. That in which I lived gave shelter to twenty-five
families. The front was one long undivided verandah, where the unmarried
men slept; the back part was partitioned into small cabins, each of which
had a round hole with a door to fit it, and through this the female
inmates crept backwards and forwards in the most awkward manner and
ridiculous posture. This house was in length two hundred and thirty feet,
and elevated from the ground. Those belonging to the chiefs were smaller,
well constructed of timber and plank, and covered with shingles or thin
plates of board bound on with rattans, about the size and having much the
appearance of our slates.

DRESSES.

The dresses of the young women of rank were pretty enough. A large blue
turband, woven with silver chains, which, meeting behind and crossing,
were fastened to the earrings in festoons, decorated their heads. In this
was placed a large plume of cock's feathers, bending forward over the
face. The jacket was blue, of a silky texture, their own work, and
bordered with small gold chain. The body-dress, likewise of their own
weaving, was of cotton mingled with silk, richly striped and mixed with
gold thread; but they wear it no lower than the knees. The youths of
fashion were in a kind of harlequin habit, the forepart of the trousers
white, the back-part blue; their jacket after the same fashion. They
delighted much in an instrument made from some part of the iju palm-tree,
which resembled and produced a sound like the jews-harp.

COOKERY.

Their domestic economy (I speak of the houses of the chiefs) seemed
better regulated than it generally is in these countries; they seemed
tolerably advanced in the art of cookery, and had much variety of food;
such as the flesh of deer, which they take in rattan snares, wild ducks,
abounding on the lake; green pigeons, quails innumerable; and a variety
of fish beside the summah already mentioned, and the ikan gadis, a
species of carp which attains to a greater size here than in the rivers.

ESCULENT VEGETABLES.

The potato, which was introduced there many years ago, is now a common
article of food, and cultivated with some attention. Their plantations
supply many esculent herbs, fruits, and roots; but the coconut, although
reared as a curiosity, is abortive in these inland regions, and its place
is supplied by the buah kras (Juglans camirium), of which they also make
their torches. Excellent tobacco is grown there, also cotton and indigo,
the small leafed kind. They get some silk from Palembang, and rear a
little themselves. The communication is more frequent with the north-west
shore than with the eastern, and of late, since the English have been
settled at Pulo Chinco, they prefer going there for opium to the more
tedious (though less distant) journey by which they formerly sought it at
Moco-moco.

GOLD.

In their cockpits the gold-scales are frequent, and I have seen
considerable quantities weighed out by the losers. This metal, I am
informed, they get in their own country, although they studiously evaded
all inquiries on the subject.

GUNPOWDER.

They make gunpowder, and it is a common sport among the young boys to
fire it out of bamboos. In order to increase its strength, in their
opinion, they mingle it with pepper-dust.

LEPERS.

In a small recess on the margin of the lake, overhung with very rugged
cliffs and accessible only by water, I saw one of those receptacles of
misery to which the leprous and others afflicted with diseases supposed
to be contagious are banished. I landed much against the remonstrances of
my conductors, who would not quit the boat. There were in all seven of
these unfortunate people basking on the beach and warming the wretched
remains of their bodies in the sun. They were fed at stated periods by
the joint contribution of the neighbouring villages, and I was given to
understand that any attempt to quit this horrid exile was punished with
death.

PECULIAR PLANTS.

I had little time for botanizing; but I found there many plants unknown
to the lowlands. Among them were a species of prune, the water-hemlock,
and the strawberry. This last was like that species which grows in our
woods; but it was insipid. I brought the roots with me to Fort
Marlborough, where it lingered a year or two after fruiting and gradually
died.* I found there also a beautiful kind of the Hedychium coronarium,
now ranked among the kaempferias. It was of a pale orange, and had a most
grateful odour. The girls wear it in their hair, and its beautiful head
of lily flowers is used in the silent language of love, to the practice
of which, during your stay here, I suppose you were no stranger, and
which indicates a delicacy of sentiment one would scarcely expect to find
in the character of so rude a people.

(*Footnote. This plant has fruited also in England, but doubts are
entertained of its being really a fragaria, By Dr. Smith it is termed a
potentilla.)

CHARACTER OF PEOPLE.

Although the chiefs received us with hospitality yet the mass of people
considered our intentions as hostile, and seemed jealous of our
intrusion. Of their women however they were not at all jealous, and the
familiarity of these was unrestrained. They entertained us with dances
after their fashion, and made some rude attempts at performing a sort of
pantomime. I may now close this detail with observing that the natives of
this mountainous region have stronger animal spirits than those of the
plains, and pass their lives with more variety than the torpid
inhabitants of the coast; that they breathe a spirit of independence, and
being frequently engaged in warfare, village against village, they would
be better prepared to resist any invasion of their liberties.

SUSPICIONS.

They took great offence at a large package carried by six men which
contained our necessaries, insisting that within it we had concealed a
priuk api, for so they call a mortar or howitzer, one of which had been
used with success against a village on the borders of their country
during the rebellion of the son of the sultan of Moco-moco; and even when
satisfied respecting this they manifested so much suspicion that we found
it necessary to be constantly on our guard, and were once nearly provoked
by their petulance and treachery to proceed to violence. When they found
our determination they seemed humble, but were not even then to be
trusted; and when we were on our return a friendly chief sent us
intelligence that an ambuscade had been laid for us in one of the narrow
passes of the mountains. We pursued our journey however without meeting
any obstruction.

...

On the subject of gold I have only to add to Mr. Campbell's information
that, in the enumeration by the natives of places where there are
gold-mines, Karinchi is always included.

EXPEDITION TO INTERIOR COUNTRY.

Opportunities of visiting the interior parts of the island have so seldom
occurred, or are likely to occur, that I do not hesitate to present to
the reader an abstract of the Journal kept by Lieutenant Hastings Dare
(now a captain on the Bengal establishment) whilst commanding an
expedition to the countries of Ipu, Serampei, and Sungei-tenang, which
border to the south-east on that of Korinchi above described; making at
the same time my acknowledgments to that gentleman for his obliging
communication of the original, and my apologies for the brevity to which
my subject renders it necessary to confine the narrative.

ORIGIN OF DISTURBANCES.

Sultan Asing, brother to the present sultan of Moco-moco, in conjunction
with Pa Muncha and Sultan Sidi, two hill-chiefs his relations, residing
at Pakalang-jambu and Jambi, raised a small force with which, in the
latter part of the year 1804, they made a descent on Ipu, one of the
Company's districts, burnt several villages and carried off a number of
the inhabitants. The guard of native Malay troops not being sufficiently
strong to check these depredations, a party was ordered from Fort
Marlborough under the command of Lieutenant Hastings Dare, consisting of
eighty-three sepoy officers and men, with five lascars, twenty­two Bengal
convicts, and eighteen of the Bugis-guard; in the whole one hundred and
twenty-eight.

November 22 1804. Marched from Fort Marlborough, and December 3 arrived
at Ipu. The roads extremely bad from the torrents of rain that fell. 4th.
Mr. Hawthorne, the Resident, informed us that the enemy had fortified
themselves at a place called Tabe-si-kuddi, but, on hearing of the
approach of the detachment, had gone off to the hills in the
Sungei­tenang country and fortified themselves at Koto Tuggoh, a village
that had been a receptacle for all the vagabonds from the districts near
the coast. 13th. Having procured coolies and provisions, for which we
have been hitherto detained, quitted Ipu in an east-north-east direction,
and passed through several pepper and rice plantations. At dusun Baru one
of our people caught a fine large fish, called ikan gadis. 14th. Marched
in a south-east direction; crossed several rivulets, and reached again
the banks of Ipu river, which we crossed. It was about four feet deep and
very rapid. Passed the night at dusun Arah. The country rather hilly;
thermometer 88 degrees at noon. 15th. Reached dusun Tanjong, the last
place in the Ipu district where rice or any other provision is to be
found, and these were sent on from Talang Puttei, this place being
deserted by its inhabitants, several of whom the enemy had carried off
with them as slaves. The country very hilly, and roads, in consequence of
the heavy rains, bad and slippery. 16th. Marched in a north and east
direction.

HOT SPRINGS.

After crossing the Ayer Ikan stream twice we arrived at some hot springs,
about three or four miles in the winding course we were obliged to take
from dusun Tanjong, situated in a low swampy spot, about sixty yards in
circumference. This is very hot in every part of it, excepting (which is
very extraordinary) one place on its eastern side, where, although a hot
spring is bubbling up within one yard of it, the water running from it is
as cold as common spring water. In consequence of the excessive heat of
the place and softness of the ground none of us could get close to the
springs; but upon putting the thermometer within three yards of them it
immediately rose to 120 degrees of Fahrenheit. We could not bear our
fingers any time in the water. It tasted copperish and bitter; there was
a strong sulphurous smell at the place, and a green sediment at the
bottom and sides of the spring, with a reddish or copper-coloured scum
floating on the surface. After again crossing the Ikan stream we arrived
at dusun Simpang. The enemy had been here, and had burned nearly half of
the village and carried off the inhabitants. The road from Tanjong to
Simpang was entirely through a succession of pepper-gardens and rice
plantations. We are now among the hills. Country in a higher state of
cultivation than near the coast, but nearly deserted, and must soon
become a waste. Could not get intelligence of the enemy. Built huts on
Ayer Ikan at Napah Kapah. 17th. Marched in a south direction and crossed
Ayer Tubbu, passing a number of durian trees on its bank. Again crossed
the stream several times. Arrived early at Tabe-si-kuddi, a small talang,
where the enemy had built three batteries or entrenchments and left
behind them a quantity of grain, but vegetating and unfit for use.
Previously to our reaching these entrenchments some of the detachment got
wounded in the feet with ranjaus, set very thickly in the ground in every
direction, and which obliged us to be very cautious in our steps until we
arrived at the banks of a small rivulet, called the Nibong, two or three
miles beyond them.

RANJAUS.

Ranjaus are slips of bamboo sharpened at each end, the part that is stuck
in the ground being thicker than the opposite end, which decreases to a
fine thin point, and is hardened by dipping it in oil and applying it to
the smoke of a lamp near the flame. They are planted in the footpaths,
sometimes erect, sometimes sloping, in small holes, or in muddy and miry
places, and when trodden upon (for they are so well concealed as not to
be easily seen) they pierce through the foot and make a most disagreeable
wound, the bamboo leaving in it a rough hairy stuff it has on its
outside, which irritates, inflames, and prevents it from healing. The
whole of the road this day lay over a succession of steep hills, and in
the latter part covered with deep forests. The whole of the detachment
did not reach our huts on the bank of the Nibong stream till evening,
much time being consumed in bringing on the mortar and magazine. Picked
up pouches, musket stocks, etc., and saw new huts, near one of which was
a quantity of clotted blood and a fresh grave. 18th. Proceeded
east-north-east and passed several rivulets. Regained the banks of the
Ipu river, running north-east to south-west here tolerably broad and
shallow, being a succession of rapids over a rough stony bed. Encamped
both this night and the last where the enemy had built huts. 19th.
Marched in a north direction. More of the detachment wounded by ranjaus
planted in the pathways. Roads slippery and bad from rains, and the hills
so steep it is with difficulty we get the mortar and heavy baggage
forward. Killed a green snake with black spots along its back, about four
feet long, four to five inches in girt, and with a thick stumpy tail. The
natives say its bite is venomous. Our course today has been north along
the banks of the Ipu river; the noise of the rapids so great that when
near it we can with difficulty hear each other speak. 20th. Continued
along the river, crossing it several times. Came to a hot spring in the
water of which the thermometer rose to 100 degrees at a considerable
distance from its source. The road today tolerably level and good.

LEECHES.

We were much plagued by a small kind of leech, which dropped on us from
the leaves of the trees, and got withinside our clothes. We were in
consequence on our halting every day obliged to strip and bathe ourselves
in order to detach them from our bodies, filled with the blood they had
sucked from us. They were not above an inch in length, and before they
fixed themselves as thin as a needle, so that they could penetrate our
dress in any part. We encamped this evening at the conflux of the Simpang
stream and Ipu river. Our huts were generally thatched with the puar or
wild cardamum leaf, which grows in great abundance on the banks of the
rivers in this part of the country. It bears a pleasant acid fruit,
growing much in the same way as the maize. In long journeys through the
woods, when other provisions fail, the natives live principally on this.
The leaf is something like that of the plantain, but not nearly so large.
21st. Arrived at a spot called Dingau-benar, from whence we were obliged
to return on account of the coolies not being able to descend a hill
which was at least a hundred and fifty yards high, and nearly
perpendicular. In effecting it we were obliged to cling to the trees and
roots, without which assistance it would have been impracticable. It was
nearly evening before one half of the detachment had reached the bottom,
and it rained so excessively hard that we were obliged to remain divided
for the night; the rear party on the top of the steep hill, and the
advanced on the brow of another hill. One of the guides and a Malay
coolie were drowned in attempting to find a ford across the Ipu river. I
was a long time before we could get any fire, everything being completely
soaked through, and the greater part of the poor fellows had not time to
build huts for themselves. Military disposition for guarding baggage,
preventing surprise, etc. 22nd. We had much difficulty in getting the
mortar and its bed down, being obliged to make use of long thick rattans
tied to them and successively to several trees. It was really admirable
to observe the patience of the sepoys and Bengal convicts on this
occasion. On mustering the coolies, found that nearly one half had run
during the night, which obliged us to fling away twenty bags of rice,
besides salt and other articles. Our course lay north, crossing the river
several times. My poor faithful dog Gruff was carried away by the
violence of the stream and lost. We were obliged to make bridges by
cutting down tall trees, laying them across the stream, and interlacing
them with rattans.

We were now between two ranges of very high hills; on our right hand
Bukit Pandang, seen from a great distance at sea; the road shockingly
bad. Encamped on the western bank. 23rd. Marched in a north direction,
the roads almost impassable. The river suddenly swelled so much that the
rear party could not join the advanced, which was so fortunate as to
occupy huts built by the enemy. There were fires in two of them. We were
informed however that the Serampei and Sungei-tenang people often come
this distance to catch fish, which they dry and carry back to their
country. At certain times of the year great quantities of the ringkis and
ikan-gadis are taken, besides a kind of large conger-eel. We frequently
had fish when time would admit of the people catching them. It is
impossible to describe the difficulties we had to encounter in
consequence of the heavy rains, badness of the roads, and rapidity of the
river. The sepoy officer and many men ill of fluxes and fevers, and lame
with swelled and sore feet. 24th. Military precautions. Powder damaged.
Thunder and lightning with torrents of rain. Almost the whole of the rice
rotten or sour. 25th. Continued to march up the banks of the river. No
inhabitants in this part of the country.

IRREGULARITY OF COMPASS.

The compass for these several days has been very irregular. We have two
with us and they do not at all agree. The road less bad. At one place we
saw bamboos of the thickness of a man's thigh. There were myriads of very
small flies this evening, which teased us much. Occupied some huts we
found on the eastern bank. This is Christmas evening; to us, God knows, a
dull one. Our wines and liquors nearly expended, and we have but one
miserable half-starved chicken left although we have been on short
allowance the whole way. 26th. Roads tolerable. Passed a spot called
Kappah, and soon after a waterfall named Ipu-machang, about sixty feet
high. Picked up a sick man belonging to the enemy. He informed us that
there were between two and three hundred men collected at Koto Tuggoh,
under the command of Sutan Sidi, Sutan Asing, and Pa Muncha. These three
chiefs made a festival, killing buffaloes, as is usual with the natives
of Sumatra on such occasions, at this place, and received every
assistance from the principal Dupati, who is also father-in-law to Pa
Muncha. They possess sixty stand of muskets, beside blunderbusses and
wall-pieces. They had quitted the Company's districts about twenty-three
days ago, and are gone, some to Koto Tuggoh, and others to
Pakalang-jambu. 27th. Marched in a north-north-east direction; passed
over a steep hill which took us three hours hard walking. The river is
now very narrow and rapid, not above twelve feet across; it is a
succession of waterfalls every three or four yards. After this our road
was intricate, winding, and bad. We had to ascend a high chasm formed in
the rock, which was effected by ladders from one shelf to another.
Arrived at the foot of Bukit Pandang, where we found huts, and occupied
them for the night. We have been ascending the whole of this day. Very
cold and rainy. At night we were glad to make large fires and use our
blankets and woollen clothes. Having now but little rice left we were
obliged to put ourselves to an allowance of one bamboo or gallon measure
among ten men; and the greater part of that rotten.

ASCEND A HIGH MOUNTAIN.

28th. Ascended Bukit Pandang in an east-north-east direction. Reached a
small spring of water called Pondo Kubang, the only one to be met with
till the hill is descended. About two miles from the top, and from thence
all the way up, the trees and ground were covered very thick with moss;
the trees much stunted, and altogether the appearance was barren and
gloomy; to us particularly so, for we could find little or nothing
wherewith to build our huts, nor procure a bit of dry wood to light a
fire. In order to make one for dressing the victuals, Lieutenant Dare was
compelled to break up one of his boxes, otherwise he and Mr. Alexander,
the surgeon, must have eaten them raw. It rained hard all night, and the
coolies and most of the party were obliged to lie
down on the wet ground in the midst of it.

MEN DIE FROM SEVERITY OF THE WEATHER.

It was exceedingly cold to our feelings; in the evening the thermometer
was down to 50 degrees, and in the night to 45 degrees. In consequence of
the cold, inclemency, and fatigue to which the coolies were exposed,
seven of them died that night. The lieutenant and surgeon made themselves
a kind of shelter with four tarpaulins that were fortunately provided to
cover the medicine chest and surgical instruments, but the place was so
small that it scarcely held them both. In the evening when the former was
sitting on his camp­stool, whilst the people were putting up the
tarpaulins, a very small bird, perfectly black, came hopping about the
stool, picking up the worms from the moss. It was so tame and fearless
that it frequently perched itself on his foot and on different parts of
the stool; which shows that these parts of the country must be very
little frequented by human beings. 29th. Descended Bukit Pandang. Another
coolie died this morning. We are obliged to fling away shells. After
walking some time many of the people recovered, as it was principally
from cold and damps they suffered. Crossed a stream called Inum where we
saw several huts. In half an hour more arrived at the banks of the
greater Ayer Dikit River, which is here shallow, rapid, and about eighty
yards broad. We marched westerly along its banks, and reached a hut
opposite to a spot called Rantau Kramas, where we remained for the night,
being prevented from crossing by a flood. 30th. Cut down a large tree and
threw it across the river; it reached about halfway over. With this and
the assistance of rattans tied to the opposite side we effected our
passage and arrived at Rantau Kramas. Sent off people to Ranna Alli, one
of the Serampei villages, about a day's march from hence, for provisions.
Thermometer 59 degrees.

The greater Ayer Dikit river, on the north side of which this place lies,
runs nearly from east to west. There are four or five bamboo huts at it,
for the temporary habitation of travellers passing and repassing this
way, being in the direction from the Serampei to the Sungei-tenang
country. These huts are covered with bamboos (in plenty here) split and
placed like pantiles transversely over each other, forming, when the
bamboos are well-grown, a capital and lasting roof (see above). 31st. A
Malay man and woman taken by our people report that the enemy thirteen
days ago had proceeded two days march beyond Koto Tuggoh. Received some
provisions from Ranna Alli. The enemy, we are informed, have dug holes
and put long stakes into them, set spring-spears, and planted the road
very thickly with ranjaus, and were collecting their force at Koto Tuggoh
(signifying the strong fortress) to receive us. 1805. January 1st and
2nd. Received some small supplies of provisions.

COME UP WITH THE ENEMY.

On the 3rd we were saluted by shouting and firing of the enemy from the
heights around us. Parties were immediately sent off in different
directions as the nature of the ground allowed.

ATTACK.

The advanced party had only time to fire two rounds when the enemy
retired to a strong position on the top of a steep hill where they had
thrown up a breastwork, which they disputed for a short time. On our
getting possession of it they divided into three parties and fled. We had
one sepoy killed and several of the detachment wounded by the ranjaus.
Many of the enemy were killed and wounded and the paths they had taken
covered with blood; but it is impossible to tell their numbers as they
always carry them off the moment they drop, considering it a disgrace to
leave them on the field of battle. If they get any of the bodies of their
enemies they immediately strike off the head and fix it on a long pole,
carrying it to their village as a trophy, and addressing to it every sort
of abusive language. Those taken alive in battle are made slaves. After
completely destroying everything in the battery we marched, and arrived
at the top of a very high hill, where we built our huts for the evening.
The road was thickly planted with ranjaus which, with the heavy rains,
impeded our progress and prevented us from reaching a place called
Danau-pau. Our course today has been north-east and easterly, the roads
shockingly bad, and we were obliged to leave behind several coolies and
two sepoys who were unable to accompany us. 4th. Obliged to fling away
the bullets of the cartridges, three-fourths of which were damaged, and
other articles. Most of the detachment sick with fluxes and fevers, or
wounded in the feet. Marched in an eastern direction. Reached a spot very
difficult to pass, being knee-deep in mud for a considerable way, with
ranjaus concealed in the mud, and spring-spears set in many places. We
were obliged to creep through a thicket of canes and bamboos. About noon
the advanced party arrived at a lake and discovered that the enemy were
on the opposite side of a small stream that ran from the lake, where they
had entrenched themselves behind four small batteries in a most
advantageous position, being on the top of a steep hill, of difficult
access, with the stream on one side, the lake on the other, and the other
parts surrounded by a swamp.

ENTRENCHMENTS ATTACKED AND CARRIED.

We immediately commenced the attack, but were unable, from the number of
ranjaus in the only accessible part, to make a push on to the enemy.
However about one o'clock we effected our purpose, and completely got
possession of the entrenchments, which, had they been properly defended,
must have cost us more than the half of our detachment. We had four
sepoys severely wounded, and almost the whole of our feet dreadfully cut.
Numbers of the enemy were killed and wounded. They defended each of the
batteries with some obstinacy against our fire, but when once we came
near them they could not stand our arms, and ran in every direction. At
this place there are no houses nor inhabitants, but only temporary huts,
built by the Sungei-tenang people, who come here occasionally to fish.
The lake, which is named Danau-pau, has a most beautiful appearance,
being like a great amphitheatre, surrounded by high and steep mountains
covered with forests. It is about two miles in diameter. We occupied some
huts built by the enemy. The place is thickly surrounded with bamboos.

MOTIVES FOR RETURNING TO THE COAST.

In consequence of the number of our sick and wounded, the small strength
of coolies to carry their baggage, and the want of medicines and
ammunition, as well as of provisions, we thought it advisable to return
to Rantau Kramas; and to effect this we were obliged to fling away the
mortar-bed, shells, and a number of other things. We marched at noon, and
arrived in the evening at the top of the hill where we had before
encamped, and remained for the night. 6th. Reached Rantau Kramas. 7th.
Marching in torrents of rain. People exceedingly harassed, reduced, and
emaciated. Relieved by the arrival of Serampei people with some
provisions from Ranna Alli. 8th. After a most fatiguing march arrived at
that place half-dead with damps and cold. The bearers of the litters for
the sick were absolutely knocked up, and we were obliged to the sepoys
for getting on as we did. Our route was north-west with little variation.
9th. Remained at Ranna Alli. This serampei village consists of about
fifteen houses, and may contain a hundred and fifty or two hundred
inhabitants. It is thickly planted all round with a tall hedge of live
bamboos, on the outside of which ranjaus are planted to the distance of
thirty or forty feet. Withinside of the hedge there is a bamboo pagar or
paling. It is situated on a steep hill surrounded by others, which in
many places are cleared to their tops, where the inhabitants have their
ladangs or rice plantations. They appeared to be a quiet, inoffensive set
of people; their language different from the Malayan, which most of them
spoke, but very imperfectly and hardly to be understood by us. On our
approach the women and children ran to their ladangs, being, as their
husbands informed us, afraid of the sepoys.

GOITRES.

Of the women whom we saw almost every one had the goitres or swellings
under the throat; and it seemed to be more prevalent with these than with
the men. One woman in particular had two protuberances dangling at her
neck as big as quart bottles.

There are three dupatis and four mantris to this village, to whom we made
presents, and afterwards to the wives and families of the inhabitants.
10th and 11th. Preparing for our march to Moco-moco, where we can recruit
our force, and procure supplies of stores and ammunition. 12th. Marched
in a north and north-west direction.

HANGING BRIDGE.

Passed over a bridge of curious construction across the Ayer Abu River.
It was formed of bamboos tied together with iju ropes and suspended to
the trees, whose branches stretched nearly over the stream.

The Serampei women are the worst-favoured creatures we ever saw, and
uncouth in their manners. Arrived at Tanjong Kasiri, another fortified
village, more populous than Ranna Alli. 13th. The sick and heavy baggage
were ordered to Tanjong Agung, another Serampei village.

HOT SPRINGS.

14th. Arrived at Ayer Grau or Abu, a small river, within a yard or two of
which we saw columns of smoke issuing from the earth, where there were
hot springs of water bubbling up in a number of places. The stream was
quite warm for several yards, and the ground and stones were so hot that
there was no standing on them for any length of time. The large pieces of
quartz, pumice, and other stones apparently burnt, induce us to suppose
there must have formerly been a volcano at this spot, which is a deep
vale, surrounded by high hills. Arrived much fatigued at Tanjong Agung,
where the head dupati received us in his best style.

COCONUTS.

He seemed to know more of European customs and manners than those whom we
have hitherto met with, and here, for the first time since quitting the
Ipu district, we got coconuts, which he presented to us.

CASSIA.

We saw numbers of cassia-trees in our march today. The bark, which the
natives brought us in quantities, is sweet, but thick and coarse, and
much inferior to cinnamon. This is the last and best fortified village in
the Serampei country, bordering on the forests between that and
Anak-Sungei.

PECULIAR REGULATION.

They have a custom here of never allowing any animal to be killed in any
part of the village but the balei or town hall, unless the person wishing
to do otherwise consents to pay a fine of one fathom of cotton cloth to
the priest for his permission. The old dupati told us there had been
formerly a great deal of sickness and bloodshed in the village, and it
had been predicted that, unless this custom were complied with, the like
would happen again. We paid the fine, had the prayers of the priest, and
killed our goats where and as we pleased. 16th. Marched in a
south-westerly direction, and, after passing many steep hills, reached
the lesser Ayer Dikit River, which we crossed, and built our huts on its
western bank. 17th. Marched in a west, and afterwards a south, direction;
the roads, in consequence of the rain ceasing today, tolerably dry and
good, but over high hills. Arrived at Ayer Prikan, and encamped on its
western bank; its course north and south over a rough, stony bed; very
rapid, and about thirty yards across, at the foot of Bukit Lintang. Saw
today abundance of cassia­trees. 18th. Proceeded to ascend Bukit Lintang,
which in the first part was excessively steep and fatiguing; our route
north and north-west when descending, south-south-west. Arrived at one of
the sources of the Sungei-ipu. Descending still farther we reached a
small spring where we built our huts. 19th. On our march this day we were
gratified by the receipt of letters from our friends at Bencoolen, by the
way of Moco-moco, from whence the Resident, Mr. Russell, sent us a supply
of wine and other refreshments, which we had not tasted for fourteen
days. Our course lay along the banks of the Sungei-ipu, and we arrived at
huts prepared for us by Mr. Russell. 20th. At one time our guide lost the
proper path by mistaking for it the track of a rhinoceros (which are in
great numbers in these parts), and we got into a place where we were
teased with myriads of leeches. Our road, excepting two or three small
hills, was level and good. Reached the confluence of the Ipu and Si
Luggan Rivers, the latter of which rises in the Korinchi country. Passed
Gunong Payong, the last hill, as we approached Moco-moco, near to which
had been a village formerly burnt and the inhabitants made slaves by Pa
Muncha and the then tuanku mudo (son of the sultan). 21st. Arrived at
talang Rantau Riang, the first Moco-moco or Anak-Sungei village, where we
found provisions dressed for us. At dusun Si Ballowe, to which our road
lay south-easterly, through pepper and rice plantations, sampans were in
readiness to convey us down the river. This place is remarkable for an
arau tree (casuarina), the only one met with at such a distance from the
sea. The country is here level in comparison with what we have passed
through, and the soil rather sandy, with a mixture of red clay. 22nd. The
course of the river is south-west and west with many windings. Arrived at
Moco-moco.

DESCRIPTION OF MOCO-MOCO.

Fort Ann lies on the southern and the settlement on the northern side of
the Si Luggan River, which name belongs properly to the place also, and
that of Moco-moco to a small village higher up. The bazaar consists of
about one hundred houses, all full of children. At the northern end is
the sultan's, which has nothing particular to distinguish it, but only
its being larger than other Malay houses. Great quantities of fish are
procured at this place, and sold cheap. The trade is principally with the
hill-people, in salt, piece-goods, iron, steel, and opium; for which the
returns are provisions, timber, and a little gold-dust. Formerly there
was a trade carried on with the Padang and other ate angin people, but it
is now dropped. The soil is sandy, low, and flat.

EXPEDITION RESUMED.

It being still necessary to make an example of the Sungei-tenang people
for assisting the three hostile chiefs in their depredations, in order
thereby to deter others from doing the same in future, and the men being
now recovered from their fatigue and furnished with the requisite
supplies, the detachment began to march on the 9th of February for Ayer
Dikit. It now consists of Lieutenant Dare, Mr. Alexander, surgeon,
seventy sepoys, including officers, twenty-seven lascars and Bengal
convicts, and eleven of the bugis-guard. Left the old mortar and took
with us one of smaller calibre.

ACCOUNT OF SERAMPEI COUNTRY AND PEOPLE.

From the 10th to the 22nd occupied in our march to the Serampei village
of Ranna Alli. The people of this country acknowledge themselves the
subjects of the sultan of Jambi, who sometimes but rarely exacts a
tribute from them of a buffalo, a tail of gold, and a hundred bamboos of
rice from each village. They are accustomed to carry burdens of from
sixty to ninety pounds weight on journeys that take them twenty or thirty
days; and it astonishes a lowlander to see with what ease they walk over
these hills, generally going a shuffling or ambling pace. Their loads are
placed in a long triangular basket, supported by a fillet across the
forehead, resting upon the back and back part of the head, the broadest
end of the triangle being uppermost, considerably above the head, and the
small end coming down as low as the loins. The Serampei country,
comprehending fifteen fortified and independent dusuns, beside talangs or
small open villages, is bounded on the north and north-west by Korinchi,
on the east, south-east, and south by Pakalang-jambu and Sungei-tenang,
and on the west and south-west by the greater Ayer Dikit River and chain
of high mountains bordering on the Sungei-ipu country. 23rd. Reached
Rantau Kramas. Took possession of the batteries, which the enemy had
considerably improved in our absence, collecting large quantities of
stones; but they were not manned, probably from not expecting our return
so soon. 24th. Arrived at those of Danau-pau, which had also been
strengthened. The roads being dry and weather fine we are enabled to make
tolerably long marches. Our advanced party nearly caught one of the enemy
planting ranjaus, and in retreating he wounded himself with them. 25th.
Passed many small rivulets discharging themselves into the lake at this
place.

COME UP WITH THE ENEMY.

26th. The officer commanding the advanced party sent word that the enemy
were at a short distance ahead; that they had felled a number of trees to
obstruct the road, and had thrown an entrenchment across it, extending
from one swamp and precipice to another, where they waited to receive us.
When the whole of the detachment had come up we marched on to the attack,
scrambled over the trees, and with great difficulty got the mortar over.

FIRST ATTACK FAILS.

The first onset was not attended with success, and our men were dropping
fast, not being able to advance on account of the ranjaus, which almost
pinned their feet to the ground. Seeing that the entrenchments were not
to be carried in front, a subedar with thirty sepoys and the bugis-guard
were ordered to endeavour to pass the swamp on the right, find out a
pathway, and attack the enemy on the flank and rear, while the remainder
should, on a preconcerted signal, make an attack on the front at the same
time. To prevent the enemy from discovering our intentions the drums were
kept beating, and a few random shots fired. Upon the signal being given a
general attack commenced, and our success was complete.

ENTRENCHMENTS CARRIED.

The enemy, of whom there were, as we reckon, three or four hundred within
the entrenchments, were soon put to the rout, and, after losing great
numbers, among whom was the head dupati, a principal instigator of the
disturbances, fled in all directions. We lost two sepoys killed and seven
wounded, beside several much hurt by the ranjaus. The mortar played
during the time, but is not supposed to have done much execution on
account of the surrounding trees.

THEIR CONSTRUCTION.

The entrenchments were constructed of large trees laid horizontally
between stakes driven into the ground, about seven feet high, with
loopholes for firing. Being laid about six feet thick, a cannonball could
not have penetrated. They extended eighty or ninety yards. The headman's
quarters were a large tree hollowed at the root.

As soon as litters could be made for the wounded, and the killed were
buried, we continued our march in an eastern direction, and in about an
hour arrived at another battery, which however was not defended. In front
of this the enemy had tied a number of long sharp stakes to a stone,
which was suspended to the bough of a tree, and by swinging it their plan
was to wound us.

ARRIVE AT A STREAM RUNNING INTO THE JAMBI RIVER.

Crossed the Tambesi rivulet, flowing from south to north, and one of the
contributary streams to the Jambi River, which discharges itself into the
sea on the eastern side of the Island. Built our huts near a field of
maize and padi.

KOTO TUGGOH.

27th. Marched to Koto Tuggoh, from whence the inhabitants fled on our
throwing one shell and firing a few muskets, and we took possession of
the place. It is situated on a high hill, nearly perpendicular on three
sides, the easiest entrance being on the west, but it is there defended
by a ditch seven fathoms deep and five wide. The place contains the
ballei and about twenty houses, built in general of plank very neatly put
together, and carved; and some of them were also roofed with planks or
shingles about two feet long and one broad. The others with the leaves of
the puar or cardamum, which are again very thinly covered with iju. This
is said to last long, but harbours vermin, as we experienced. When we
entered the village we met with only one person, who was deformed, dumb,
and had more the appearance of a monkey than a human creature.

DESTROYED. ENTER KOTO BHARU.

March 1st. After completely destroying Koto Tuggoh we marched in a north
and afterwards an east direction, and arrived at Koto Bharu. The head
dupati requesting a parley, it was granted, and, on our promising not to
injure his village, he allowed us to take possession of it. We found in
the place a number of Batang Asei and other people, armed with muskets,
blunderbusses, and spears. At our desire, he sent off people to the other
Sungei-tenang villages to summon their chiefs to meet us if they chose to
show themselves friends, or otherwise we should proceed against them as
we had done against Koto Tuggoh.

PEACE CONCLUDED.

This dupati was a respectable-looking old man, and tears trickled down
his cheeks when matters were amicably settled between us: indeed for some
time he could hardly be convinced of it, and repeatedly asked, "Are we
friends?" 2nd. The chiefs met as desired, and after a short conversation
agreed to all that we proposed. Papers were thereupon drawn up and signed
and sworn to under the British colours. After this a shell was thrown
into the air at the request of the chiefs, who were desirous of
witnessing the sight.

MODE OF TAKING AN OATH.

Their method of swearing was as follows: The young shoots of the
anau-tree were made into a kind of rope, with the leaves hanging, and
this was attached to four stakes stuck in the ground, forming an area of
five or six feet square, within which a mat was spread, where those about
to take the oath seated themselves. A small branch of the prickly bamboo
was planted in the area also, and benzoin was kept burning during the
ceremony. The chiefs then laid their hands on the koran, held to them by
a priest, and one of them repeated to the rest the substance of the oath,
who, at the pauses he made, gave a nod of assent; after which they
severally said, "may the earth become barren, the air and water
poisonous, and may dreadful calamities fall on us and our posterity, if
we do not fulfil what we now agree to and promise."

ACCOUNT OF SUNGEI-TENANG COUNTRY.

We met here with little or no fruit excepting plantains and pineapples,
and these of an indifferent sort. The general produce of the country was
maize, padi, potatoes, sweet-potatoes, tobacco, and sugar-cane. The
principal part of their clothing was procured from the eastern side of
the island. They appear to have no regular season for sowing the grain,
and we saw plantations where in one part they had taken in the crop, in
another part it was nearly ripe, in a third not above five inches high,
and in a fourth they had but just prepared the ground for sowing. Upon
the whole, there appeared more cultivation than near the coast.

MANNERS OF PEOPLE.

It is a practice with many individuals among these people (as with
mountaineers in some parts of Europe) to leave their country in order to
seek employment where they can find it, and at the end of three or four
years revisit their native soil, bringing with them the produce of their
labours. If they happen to be successful they become itinerant merchants,
and travel to almost all parts of the island, particularly where fairs
are held, or else purchase a matchlock gun and become soldiers of
fortune, hiring themselves to whoever will pay them, but always ready to
come forward in defence of their country and families. They are a thick
stout dark race of people, something resembling the Achinese; and in
general they are addicted to smoking opium. We had no opportunity of
seeing the Sungei-tenang women. The men are very fantastical in their
dress. Their bajus have the sleeves blue perhaps whilst the body is
white, with stripes of red or any other colour over the shoulders, and
their short breeches are generally one half blue and the other white,
just as fancy leads them. Others again are dressed entirely in blue
cotton cloth, the same as the inhabitants of the west coast. The bag
containing their sirih or betel hangs over the shoulder by a string, if
it may be so termed, of brass wire. Many of them have also twisted brass
wire round the waist, in which they stick their krises.

CHARMS.

They commonly carry charms about their persons to preserve them from
accidents; one of which was shown to us, printed (at Batavia or Samarang
in Java) in Dutch, Portuguese, and French. It purported that the writer
was acquainted with the occult sciences, and that whoever possessed one
of the papers impressed with his mark (which was the figure of a hand
with the thumb and fingers extended) was invulnerable and free from all
kinds of harm. It desired the people to be very cautious of taking any
such printed in London (where certainly none were ever printed), as the
English would endeavour to counterfeit them and to impose on the
purchasers,
being all cheats. (Whether we consider this as a political or a
mercantile speculation it is not a little extraordinary and ridiculous).
The houses here, as well as in the Serampei country, are all built on
posts of what they call paku gajah (elephant-fern, Chamaerops palma,
Lour.), a tree something resembling a fern, and when full-grown a
palm-tree. It is of a fibrous nature, black, and lasts for a great length
of time. Every dusun has a ballei or town hall, about a hundred and
twenty feet long and proportionably broad, the woodwork of which is
neatly carved. The dwelling-houses contain five, six, or seven families
each, and the country is populous. The inhabitants both of Sungei-tenang
and Serampei are Mahometans, and acknowledge themselves subjects of
Jambi. The former country, so well as we were able to ascertain, is
bounded on the north and north-west by Korinchi and Serampei, on the west
and south-west by the Anak-sungei or Moco-moco and Ipu districts, on the
south by Labun, and on the east by Batang Asei and Pakalang-jambu. 3rd.
Marched on our return to the coast, many of the principal people
attending us as far as the last of their plantations. It rained hard
almost the whole of this day.

RETURN TO THE COAST.

On the 14th arrived at Moco-moco; on the 22nd proceeded for Bencoolen,
and arrived there on the 30th March 1805, after one of the most fatiguing
and harassing expeditions any detachment of troops ever served upon;
attended with the sickness of the whole of the party, and the death of
many, particularly of Mr. Alexander, the surgeon.

End of Lieutenant Dare's narrative.

It is almost unnecessary to observe that these were the consequences of
the extreme impolicy of sending an expedition up the country in the heart
of the rainy season. The public orders issued on the occasion were highly
creditable to Lieutenant Dare.


CHAPTER 18.

MALAYAN STATES.
ANCIENT EMPIRE OF MENANGKABAU.
ORIGIN OF THE MALAYS AND GENERAL ACCEPTATION OF NAME.
EVIDENCES OF THEIR MIGRATION FROM SUMATRA.
SUCCESSION OF MALAYAN PRINCES.
PRESENT STATE OF THE EMPIRE.
TITLES OF THE SULTAN.
CEREMONIES.
CONVERSION TO MAHOMETAN RELIGION.
LITERATURE.
ARTS.
WARFARE.
GOVERNMENT.

MALAYAN STATES.

I shall now take a more particular view of the Malayan states, as
distinguished from those of the people termed orang ulu or countrymen,
and orang dusun or villagers, who, not being generally converted to the
Mahometan religion, have thereby preserved a more original character.

EMPIRE OF MENANGKABAU.

The principal government, and whose jurisdiction in ancient times is
understood to have comprehended the whole of Sumatra, is Menangkabau,*
situated under the equinoctial line, beyond the western range of high
mountains, and nearly in the centre of the island; in which respect it
differs from Malayan establishments in other parts, which are almost
universally near the mouths of large rivers. The appellations however of
orang menangkabau and orang malayo are so much identified that,
previously to entering upon an account of the former, it will be useful
to throw as much light as possible upon the latter, and to ascertain to
what description of people the name of Malays, bestowed by Europeans upon
all who resemble them in features and complexion, properly belongs.

(*Footnote. The name is said to be derived from the words menang,
signifying to win, and karbau, a buffalo; from a story, carrying a very
fabulous air, of a famous engagement on that spot between the buffaloes
and tigers, in which the former are stated to have acquired a complete
victory. Such is the account the natives give; but they are fond of
dealing in fiction, and the etymology has probably no better foundation
than a fanciful resemblance of sound.)

ORIGIN OF MALAYS.

It has hitherto been considered as an obvious truth, and admitted without
examination that, wherever they are found upon the numerous islands
forming this archipelago, they or their ancestors must have migrated from
the country named by Europeans (and by them alone) the Malayan peninsula
or peninsula of Malacca, of which the indigenous and proper inhabitants
were understood to be Malays; and accordingly in the former editions of
this work I spoke of the natives of Menangkabau as having acquired their
religion, language, manners, and other national characteristics from the
settling among them of genuine Malays from the neighbouring continent. It
will however appear from the authorities I shall produce, amounting as
nearly to positive evidence as the nature of the subject will admit, that
the present possessors of the coasts of the peninsula were on the
contrary in the first instance adventurers from Sumatra, who in the
twelfth century formed an establishment there, and that the indigenous
inhabitants, gradually driven by them to the woods and mountains, so far
from being the stock from whence the Malays were propagated, are an
entirely different race of men, nearly approaching in their physical
character to the negroes of Africa.

MIGRATION FROM SUMATRA.

The evidences of this migration from Sumatra are chiefly found in two
Malayan books well known, by character at least, to those who are
conversant with the written language, the one named Taju assalatin or
Makuta segala raja-raja, The Crown of all Kings, and the other, more
immediately to the purpose, Sulalat assalatin or Penurun-an segala
raja­raja, The Descent of all (Malayan) Kings. Of these it has not been
my good fortune to obtain copies, but the contents, so far as they apply
to the present subject, have been fully detailed by two eminent Dutch
writers to whom the literature of this part of the East was familiar.
Petrus van der Worm first communicated the knowledge of these historical
treatises in his learned Introduction to the Malayan Vocabulary of
Gueynier, printed at Batavia in the year 1677; and extracts to the same
effect were afterwards given by Valentyn in Volume 5 pages 316 to 320 of
his elaborate work, published at Amsterdam in 1726. The books are
likewise mentioned in a list of Malayan Authors by G.H. Werndly, at the
end of his Maleische Spraak-kunst, and by the ingenious Dr. Leyden in his
Paper on the Languages and Literature of the Indo-Chinese Nations,
recently published in Volume 10 of the Asiatic Researches. The substance
of the information conveyed by them is as follows; and I trust it will
not be thought that the mixture of a portion of mythological fable in
accounts of this nature invalidates what might otherwise have credit as
historical fact. The utmost indeed we can pretend to ascertain is what
the natives themselves believe to have been their ancient history; and it
is proper to remark that in the present question there can be no
suspicion of bias from national vanity, as we have reason to presume that
the authors of these books were not Sumatrans.

The original country inhabited by the Malayan race (according to these
authorities) was the kingdom of Palembang in the island of Indalus, now
Sumatra, on the river Malayo, which flows by the mountain named
Maha-meru, and discharges itself into the river Tatang (on which
Palembang stands) before it joins the sea. Having chosen for their king
or leader a prince named Sri Turi Buwana, who boasted his descent from
Iskander the Great, and to whom, on that account, their natural chief
Demang Lebar Daun submitted his authority, they emigrated, under his
command (about the year 1160), to the south-eastern extremity of the
opposite peninsula, named Ujong Tanah, where they were at first
distinguished by the appellation of orang de-bawah angin or the Leeward
people, but in time the coast became generally known by that of Tanah
malayo or the Malayan land.

SINGAPURA BUILT.

In this situation they built their first city, which they called
Singapura (vulgarly Sincapore), and their rising consequence excited the
jealousy of the kings of Maja-pahit, a powerful state in the island of
Java. To Sri Turi Buwana, who died in 1208, succeeded Paduka Pikaram
Wira, who reigned fifteen years; to him Sri Rama Vikaram, who reigned
thirteen, and to him Sri Maharaja, who reigned twelve.

MALAKA BUILT.

His successor, Sri Iskander Shah, was the last king of Singapura. During
three years he withstood the forces of the king of Maja-pahit, but in
1252, being hard pressed, he retired first to the northward, and
afterwards to the western, coast of the peninsula, where in the following
year he founded a new city, which under his wise government became of
considerable importance. To this he gave the name of Malaka, from a
fruit-bearing tree so called (myrabolanum) found in abundance on the hill
which gives natural strength to the situation. Having reigned here
twenty-two years, beloved by his subjects and feared by his neighbours,
Iskander Shah died in 1274, and was succeeded by Sultan Magat, who
reigned only two years. Up to this period the Malayan princes were
pagans. Sultan Muhammed Shah, who ascended the throne in 1276, was the
first Mahometan prince, and by the propagation of this faith acquired
great celebrity during a long reign of fifty-seven years. His influence
appears to have extended over the neighbouring islands of Lingga and
Bintan, together with Johor, Patani, Kedah, and Perak, on the coasts of
the peninsula, and Campar and Aru in Sumatra; all of which acquired the
appellative of Malayo, although it was now more especially applied to the
people of Malaka, or, as it is commonly written, Malacca. He left the
peaceful possession of his dominions to his son Sultan Abu Shahid, who
had reigned only one year and five months when he was murdered in 1334 by
the king of Arrakan, with whose family his father had contracted a
marriage. His successor was Sultan Modafar or Mozafar Shah, who was
distinguished for the wisdom of his government, of which he left a
memorial in a Book of Institutes or Laws of Malaka, held to this day in
high estimation. This city was now regarded as the third in rank (after
Maja-pahit on Java, and Pase on Sumatra) in that part of the East.

(*Footnote. The account given by Juan de Barros of the abandonment of the
Malayan city of Singapura and foundation of Malacca differs materially
from the above; and although the authority of a writer, who collected his
materials in Lisbon, cannot be put in competition with that of Valentyn,
who passed a long and laborious life amongst the people, and quotes the
native historians, I shall give an abstract of his relation, from the
sixth book of the second Decade. "At the period when Cingapura flourished
its king was named Sangesinga; and in the neighbouring island of Java
reigned Pararisa, upon whose death the latter country became subject to
the tyranny of his brother, who put one of his nephews to death, and
forced many of the nobles, who took part against him, to seek refuge
abroad. Among these was one named Paramisora, whom Sangesinga received
with hospitality that was badly requited, for the stranger soon found
means to put him to death, and, by the assistance of the Javans who
accompanied him in his flight, to take possession of the city. The king
of Siam, whose son-in-law and vassal the deceased was, assembled a large
force by sea and land, and compelled the usurper to evacuate Cingapura
with two thousand followers, a part of whom were Cellates (orang sellat
men of the Straits) accustomed to live by fishing and piracy, who had
assisted him in seizing and keeping the throne during five years. They
disembarked at a place called Muar, a hundred and fifty leagues from
thence, where Paramisora and his own people fortified themselves. The
Cellates, whom he did not choose to trust, proceeded five leagues
farther, and occupied a bank of the river where the fortress of Malacca
now stands. Here they united with the half-savage natives, who like
themselves spoke the Malayan language, and, the spot they had chosen
becoming too confined for their increasing numbers, they moved a league
higher up, to one more convenient, and were at length joined by their
former chief and his companions. During the government of his son, named
Xaquen Darxa (a strange Portuguese corruption of Iskander or Sekander
Shah) they again descended the river, in order to enjoy the advantages of
a sea-port, and built a town, which, from the fortunes of his father, was
named Malacca, signifying an exile." Every person conversant with the
language must know that the word does not bear that nor any similar
meaning, and an error so palpable throws discredit on the whole
narrative.)

About the year 1340 the king of Siam, being jealous of the growing power
of Malaka, invaded the country, and in a second expedition laid siege to
the capital; but his armies were defeated by the general of Modafar,
named Sri Nara Dirija. After these events Modafar reigned some years with
much reputation, and died in 1374. His son, originally named Sultan
Abdul, took the title of Sultan Mansur Shah upon his accession. At the
time that the king of Maja-pahit drove the Malays from Singapura, as
above related, he likewise subdued the country of Indragiri in Sumatra;
but upon the occasion of Mansur Shah's marriage (about the year 1380)
with the daughter of the then reigning king, a princess of great
celebrity, named Radin Gala Chendra Kiran, it was assigned to him as her
portion, and has since continued (according to Valentyn) under the
dominion of the princes of Malaka. Mansur appears to have been engaged in
continual wars, and to have obtained successes against Pahang, Pase, and
Makasar. His reign extended to the almost incredible period of
seventy-three years, being succeeded in 1447 by his son Sultan
Ala-wa-eddin. During his reign of thirty years nothing particular is
recorded; but there is reason to believe that his country during some
part of that time was under the power of the Siamese. Sultan Mahmud Shah,
who succeeded him, was the twelfth Malayan king, and the seventh and last
king of Malaka.

JOHOR FOUNDED.

In 1509 he repelled the aggression of the king of Siam; but in 1511 was
conquered by the Portuguese under Alfonso d'Alboquerque, and forced, with
the principal inhabitants, to fly to the neighbourhood of the first
Malayan establishment at the extremity of the peninsula, where he founded
the city of Johor, which still subsists, but has never attained to any
considerable importance, owing as it may be presumed to the European
influence that has ever since, under the Portuguese, Hollanders, and
English, predominated in that quarter.*

(*Footnote. It was subdued by the Portuguese in 1608. In 1641 Malacca was
taken from them by the Hollanders, who held it till the present war,
which has thrown it into the possession of the English. The interior
boundaries of its territory, according to the Transactions of the
Batavian Society, are the mountains of Rombou, inhabited by a Malayan
people named Maning Cabou, and Mount Ophir, called by the natives
Gunong-Ledang. These limits, say they, it is impracticable for a European
to pass, the whole coast, for some leagues from the sea, being either a
morass or impenetrable forest; and these natural difficulties are
aggravated by the treacherous and bloodthirsty character of the natives.
The description, which will be found in Volume 4 pages 333 to 334, is
evidently overcharged. In speaking of Johor the original emigration of a
Malayan colony from Sumatra to the mouth of that river, which gave its
name to the whole coast, is briefly mentioned.)

ANCIENT RELIGION.

With respect to the religion professed by the Malayan princes at the time
of their migration from Sumatra, and for about 116 years after, little
can be known, because the writers, whose works have reached us, lived
since the period of conversion, and as good Mahometans would have thought
it profane to enter into the detail of superstitions which they regard
with abhorrence; but from the internal evidence we can entertain little
doubt of its having been the religion of Brahma, much corrupted however
and blended with the antecedent rude idolatry of the country, such as we
now find it amongst the Battas. Their proper names or titles are
obviously Hindu, with occasional mixture of Persian, and their mountain
of Maha-meru, elsewhere so well known as the seat of Indra and the dewas,
sufficiently points out the mythology adopted in the country. I am not
aware that at the present day there is any mountain in Sumatra called by
that name; but it is reasonable to presume that appellations decidedly
connected with Paganism may have been changed by the zealous propagators
of the new faith, and I am much inclined to believe that by the Maha-meru
of the Malays is to be understood the mountain of Sungei-pagu in the
Menangkabau country, from whence issue rivers that flow to both sides of
the island. In the neighbourhood of this reside the chiefs of the four
great tribes, called ampat suku or four quarters, one of which is named
Malayo (the others, Kampi, Pani, and Tiga-lara); and it is probable that
to it belonged the adventurers who undertook the expedition to Ujong
Tanah, and perpetuated the name of their particular race in the rising
fortunes of the new colony. From what circumstances they were led to
collect their vessels for embarkation at Palembang rather than at
Indragiri or Siak, so much more convenient in point of local position,
cannot now be ascertained.

Having proposed some queries upon this subject to the late Mr. Francis
Light, who first settled the island of Pinang or Prince of Wales island,
in the Straits of Malacca, granted to him by the king of Kedah as the
marriage portion of his daughter, he furnished me in answer with the
following notices. "The origin of the Malays, like that of other people,
is involved in fable; every raja is descended from some demigod, and the
people sprung from the ocean. According to their traditions however their
first city of Singapura, near the present Johor, was peopled from
Palembang, from whence they proceeded to settle at Malacca (naming their
city from the fruit so called), and spread along the coast. The peninsula
is at present inhabited by distinct races of people. The Siamese possess
the northern part to latitude 7 degrees, extending from the east to the
west side. The Malays possess the whole of the sea-coast on both sides,
from that latitude to Point Romania; being mixed in some places with the
Bugis from Celebes, who have still a small settlement at Salmigor. The
inland parts to the northward are inhabited by the Patani people, who
appear to be a mixture of Siamese and Malays, and occupy independent
dusuns or villages. Among the forests and in the mountains are a race of
Caffres, in every respect resembling those of Africa excepting in
stature, which does not exceed four feet eight inches. The Menangkabau
people of the peninsula are so named from an inland country in Pulo
Percha (Sumatra). A distinction is made between them and the Malays of
Johor, but none is perceptible."

To these authorities I shall add that of Mr. Thomas Raffles, at this time
Secretary to the government of Pulo Pinang, a gentleman whose
intelligence and zeal in the pursuit of knowledge give the strongest hope
of his becoming an ornament to oriental literature. To his correspondence
I am indebted for much useful information in the line of my researches,
and the following passages corroborate the opinions I had formed. "With
respect to the Menangkabaus, after a good deal of inquiry, I have not yet
been able decidedly to ascertain the relation between those of that name
in the peninsula and the Menangkabaus of Pulo Percha. The Malays affirm
without hesitation that they all came originally from the latter island."
In a recent communication he adds, "I am more confident than ever that
the Menangkabaus of the peninsula derive their origin from the country of
that name in Sumatra. Inland of Malacca about sixty miles is situated the
Malay kingdom of Rumbo, whose sultan and all the principal officers of
state hold their authority immediately from Menangkabau, and have written
commissions for their respective offices. This shows the extent of that
ancient power even now, reduced as it must be, in common with that of the
Malay people in general. I had many opportunities of communicating with
the natives of Rumbo, and they have clearly a peculiar dialect,
resembling exactly what you mention of substituting the final o for a, as
in the word ambo for amba. In fact, the dialect is called by the Malacca
people the language of Menangkabau."

HISTORY OF MENANGKABAU IMPERFECTLY KNOWN.

Returning from this discussion I shall resume the consideration of what
is termed the Sumatran empire of Menangkabau, believed by the natives of
all descriptions to have subsisted from the remotest times. With its
annals, either ancient or modern, we are little acquainted, and the
existence of any historical records in the country has generally been
doubted; yet, as those of Malacca and of Achin have been preserved, it is
not hastily to be concluded that these people, who are the equals of the
former, and much superior to the latter in point of literature, are
destitute of theirs, although they have not reached our hands. It is
known that they deduce their origin from two brothers, named
Pera­pati-si-batang and Kei Tamanggungan, who are described as being
among the forty companions of Noah in the ark, and whose landing at
Palembang, or at a small island near it, named Langkapura, is attended
with the circumstance of the dry land being first discovered by the
resting upon it of a bird that flew from the vessel. From thence they
proceeded to the mountain named Siguntang-guntang, and afterwards to
Priangan in the neighbourhood of the great volcano, which at this day is
spoken of as the ancient capital of Menangkabau. Unfortunately I possess
only an imperfect abstract of this narrative, obviously intended for an
introduction to the genealogy of its kings, but, even as a fable,
extremely confused and unsatisfactory; and when the writer brings it down
to what may be considered as the historical period he abruptly leaves
off, with a declaration that the offer of a sum of money (which was
unquestionably his object) should not tempt him to proceed.

LIMITS.

At a period not very remote its limits were included between the river of
Palembang and that of Siak, on the eastern side of the island, and on the
western side between those of Manjuta (near Indrapura) and Singkel, where
(as well as at Siak) it borders on the independent country of the Battas.
The present seat, or more properly seats, of the divided government lie
at the back of a mountainous district named the Tiga-blas koto
(signifying the thirteen fortified and confederated towns) inland of the
settlement of Padang. The country is described as a large plain
surrounded by hills producing much gold, clear of woods, and
comparatively well cultivated. Although nearer to the western coast its
communications with the eastern side are much facilitated by
water-carriage.

LAKE.

Advantage is taken in the first place of a large lake, called Laut-danau,
situated at the foot of the range of high mountains named gunong Besi,
inland of the country of Priaman, the length of which is described by
some as being equal to a day's sailing, and by others as no more than
twenty-five or thirty miles, abounding with fish (especially of two
species, known by the names of sasau and bili), and free from alligators.

RIVERS.

From this, according to the authority of a map drawn by a native, issues
a river called Ayer Ambelan, which afterwards takes the name of
Indragiri, along which, as well as the two other great rivers of Siak to
the northward, and Jambi to the southward, the navigation is frequent,
the banks of all of them being peopled with Malayan colonies. Between
Menangkabau and Palembang the intercourse must, on account of the
distance, be very rare, and the assertion that in the intermediate
country there exists another great lake, which sends its streams to both
sides of the island, appears not only to be without foundation in fact,
but also at variance with the usual operations of nature; as I believe it
may be safely maintained that, however numerous the streams which furnish
the water of a lake, it can have only one outlet; excepting, perhaps, in
flat countries, where the course of the waters has scarcely any
determination, or under such a nice balance of physical circumstances as
is not likely to occur.

POLITICAL DECLINE.

When the island was first visited by European navigators this state must
have been in its decline, as appears from the political importance at
that period of the kings of Achin, Pedir, and Pase, who, whilst they
acknowledged their authority to be derived from him as their lord
paramount, and some of them paid him a trifling complimentary tribute,
acted as independent sovereigns. Subsequently to this an Achinese
monarch, under the sanction of a real or pretended grant, obtained from
one of the sultans, who, having married his daughter, treated her with
nuptial slight, and occasioned her to implore her father's interference,
extended his dominion along the western coast, and established his
panglimas or governors in many places within the territory of
Menangkabau, particularly at Priaman, near the great volcano-mountain.
This grant is said to have been extorted not by the force of arms but by
an appeal to the decision of some high court of justice similar to that
of the imperial chamber in Germany, and to have included all the low or
strand-countries (pasisir barat) as far southward as Bengkaulu or
Silebar. About the year 1613 however he claimed no farther than Padang,
and his actual possessions reached only to Barus.*

(*Footnote. The following instances occur of mention made by writers at
different periods of the kingdom of Menangkabau. ODOARDUS BARBOSA, 1519.
"Sumatra, a most large and beautiful island; Pedir, the principal city on
the northern side, where are also Pacem and Achem. Campar is opposite to
Malacca. Monancabo, to the southward, is the principal source of gold, as
well from mines as collected in the banks of the rivers." DE BARROS,
1553. "Malacca had the epithet of aurea given to it on account of the
abundance of gold brought from Monancabo and Barros, countries in the
island of Camatra, where it is procured." DIOGO de COUTO, 1600. "He gives
an account of a Portuguese ship wrecked on the coast of Sumatra, near to
the country of Manancabo, in 1560. Six hundred persons got on shore,
among whom were some women, one of them, Dona Francisca Sardinha, was of
such remarkable beauty that the people of the country resolved to carry
her off for their king; and they effected it, after a struggle in which
sixty of the Europeans lost their lives. At this period there was a great
intercourse between Manancabo and Malacca, many vessels going yearly with
gold to purchase cotton goods and other merchandise. In ancient times the
country was so rich in this metal that several hundredweight (seis, sete,
e mais candiz, de que trez fazem hum moyo) were exported in one season.
Volume 3 page 178. LINSCHOTEN, 1601. "At Menancabo excellent poniards
made, called creeses; best weapons of all the orient. Islands along the
coast of Sumatra, called islands of Menancabo." ARGENSOLA, 1609. "A
vessel loaded with creeses manufactured at Menancabo and a great quantity
of artillery; a species of warlike machine known and fabricated in
Sumatra many years before they were introduced by Europeans." LANCASTER,
1602. "Menangcabo lies eight or ten leagues inland of Priaman." BEST,
1613. " A man arrived from Menangcaboo at Ticoo, and brought news from
Jambee." BEAULIEU, 1622. "Du cote du ponant apres Padang suit le royaume
de Manimcabo; puis celuy d'Andripoura-Il y a (a Jambi) grand trafic d'or,
qu'ils ont avec ceux de Manimcabo." Vies des Gouverneurs Gen. Hollandois,
1763. Il est bon de remarquer ici que presque toute la cote occidentale
avoit ete reduite par la flotte du Sieur Pierre de Bitter en 1664.
L'annee suivante, les habitans de Pauw massacrerent le Commissaire Gruis,
etc.; mais apres avoir venge ce meurtre, et dissipe les revoltes en 1666,
les Hollandois etoient restes les maitres de toute cette etendue de cotes
entre Sillebar et Baros, ou ils etablirent divers comptoirs, dont celui
de Padang est le principal depuis 1667. Le commandant, qui y reside, est
en meme temps Stadhouder (Lieutenant) de l'Empereur de Maningcabo, a qui
la Compagnie a cede, sous diverses restrictions & limitations, la
souverainete sur tous les peuples qui babitent le long du rivage" etc.)

DIVISION OF THE GOVERNMENT.

In consequence of disturbances that ensued upon the death of a sultan
Alif in the year 1680, without direct heirs, the government became
divided amongst three chiefs, presumed to have been of the royal family
and at the same time great officers of state, who resided at places named
Suruwasa, Pagar-ruyong, and Sungei-trap; and in that state it continues
to the present time. Upon the capture of Padang by the English in 1781
deputations arrived from two of these chiefs with congratulations upon
the success of our arms; which will be repeated with equal sincerity to
those who may chance to succeed us. The influence of the Dutch (and it
would have been the same with any other European power) has certainly
contributed to undermine the political consequence of Menangkabau by
giving countenance and support to its disobedient vassals, who in their
turn have often experienced the dangerous effects of receiving favours
from too powerful an ally. Pasaman, a populous country, and rich in gold,
cassia, and camphor, one of its nearest provinces, and governed by a
panglima from thence, now disclaims all manner of dependence. Its
sovereignty is divided between the two rajas of Sabluan and Kanali, who,
in imitation of their former masters, boast an origin of high antiquity.
One of them preserves as his sacred relic the bark of a tree in which his
ancestor was nursed in the woods before the Pasaman people had reached
their present polished state. The other, to be on a level with him,
possesses the beard of a reverend predecessor (perhaps an anchorite),
which was so bushy that a large bird had built its nest in it. Raja
Kanali supported a long war with the Hollanders, attended with many
reverses of fortune.

Whether the three sultans maintain a struggle of hostile rivalship, or
act with an appearance of concert, as holding the nominal sovereignty
under a species of joint-regency, I am not informed, but each of them in
the preamble of his letters assumes all the royal titles, without any
allusion to competitors; and although their power and resources are not
much beyond those of a common raja they do not fail to assert all the
ancient rights and prerogatives of the empire, which are not disputed so
long as they are not attempted to be carried into force. Pompous
dictatorial edicts are issued and received by the neighbouring states
(including the European chiefs of Padang), with demonstration of profound
respect, but no farther obeyed than may happen to consist with the
political interests of the parties to whom they are addressed. Their
authority in short resembles not a little that of the sovereign pontiffs
of Rome during the latter centuries, founded as it is in the superstition
of remote ages; holding terrors over the weak, and contemned by the
stronger powers. The district of Suruwasa, containing the site of the old
capital, or Menangkabau proper, seems to have been considered by the
Dutch as entitled to a degree of pre-eminence; but I have not been able
to discover any marks of superiority or inferiority amongst them. In
distant parts the schism is either unknown, or the three who exercise the
royal functions are regarded as co-existing members of the same family,
and their government, in the abstract, however insignificant in itself,
is there an object of veneration. Indeed to such an unaccountable excess
is this carried that every relative of the sacred family, and many who
have no pretensions to it assume that character, are treated wherever
they appear, not only with the most profound respect by the chiefs who go
out to meet them, fire salutes on their entering the dusuns, and allow
them to level contributions for their maintenance; but by the country
people with such a degree of superstitious awe that they submit to be
insulted, plundered, and even wounded by them, without making resistance,
which they would esteem a dangerous profanation. Their appropriate title
(not uncommon in other Malayan countries) is Iang de per-tuan, literally
signifying he who ruleth.

A person of this description, who called himself Sri Ahmed Shah, heir to
the empire of Menangkabau, in consequence of some differences with the
Dutch, came and settled amongst the English at Bencoolen in the year
1687, on his return from a journey to the southward as far as Lampong,
and being much respected by the people of the country gained the entire
confidence of Mr. Bloom, the governor. He subdued some of the
neighbouring chiefs who were disaffected to the English, particularly
Raja mudo of Sungei-lamo, and also a Jennang or deputy from the king of
Bantam; he coined money, established a market, and wrote a letter to the
East India Company promising to put them in possession of the trade of
the whole island. But shortly afterwards a discovery was made of his
having formed a design to cut off the settlement, and he was in
consequence driven from the place. The records mention at a subsequent
period that the sultan of Indrapura was raising troops to oppose him.*

(*Footnote. The following anecdote of one of these personages was
communicated to me by my friend, the late Mr. Crisp. "Some years ago,
when I was resident of Manna, there was a man who had long worked in the
place as a coolie when someone arrived from the northward, who happened
to discover that he was an Iang de per-tuan or relation of the imperial
family. Immediately all the bazaar united to raise him to honour and
independence; he was never suffered to walk without a high umbrella
carried over him, was followed by numerous attendants, and addressed by
the title of tuanku, equivalent to your highness. After this he became an
intriguing, troublesome fellow in the Residency, and occasioned much
annoyance. The prejudice in favour of these people is said to extend over
all the islands to the eastward where the Malay tongue is spoken.")

HIS TITLES.

The titles and epithets assumed by the sultans are the most extravagantly
absurd that it is possible to imagine. Many of them descend to mere
childishness; and it is difficult to conceive how any people, so far
advanced in civilization as to be able to write, could display such
evidences of barbarism. A specimen of a warrant of recent date, addressed
to Tuanku Sungei-Pagu, a high-priest residing near Bencoolen, is as
follows:

Three circular Seals with inscriptions in Arabic characters.

(Eldest brother) Sultan of Rum. Key Dummul Alum. Maharaja Alif.

(Second brother) Sultan of China. Nour Alum. Maharaja Dempang or Dipang.

(Youngest brother) Sultan of Menangkabau. Aour Alum. Maharaja Dirja or
Durja.

TRANSLATION OF A WARRANT.

The sultan of Menangkabau, whose residence is at Pagar-ruyong, who is
king of kings; a descendant of raja Iskander zu'lkarnaini; possessed of
the crown brought from heaven by the prophet Adam; of a third part of the
wood kamat, one extremity of which is in the kingdom of Rum and another
in that of China; of the lance named lambing lambura ornamented with the
beard of janggi; of the palace in the city of Rum, whose entertainments
and diversions are exhibited in the month of zul'hijah, and where all
alims, fakiahs, and mulanakaris praise and supplicate Allah; possessor of
the gold-mine named kudarat-kudarati, which yields pure gold of twelve
carats, and of the gold named jati-jati which snaps the dalik wood; of
the sword named churak-simandang-giri, which received one hundred and
ninety gaps in conflict with the fiend Si Kati­muno, whom it slew; of the
kris formed of the soul of steel, which expresses an unwillingness at
being sheathed and shows itself pleased when drawn; of a date coeval with
the creation; master of fresh water in the ocean, to the extent of a
day's sailing; of a lance formed of a twig of iju ; the sultan who
receives his taxes in gold by the lessong measure; whose betel-stand is
of gold set with diamonds; who is possessor of the web named sangsista
kala, which weaves itself and adds one thread yearly, adorned with
pearls, and when that web shall be completed the world will be no more;
of horses of the race of sorimborani, superior to all others; of the
mountain Si guntang-guntang, which divides Palembang and Jambi, and of
the burning mountain; of the elephant named Hasti
Dewah; who is vicegerent of heaven; sultan of the golden river; lord of
the air and clouds; master of a ballei whose pillars are of the shrub
jalatang; of gandarangs (drums) made of the hollow stems of the
diminutive plants pulut and silosuri; of the anchor named paduka jati
employed to recover the crown which fell into the deep sea of Kulzum; of
the gong that resounds to the skies; of the buffalo named Si Binuwang
Sati, whose horns are ten feet asunder; of the unconquered cock,
Sen­gunani; of the coconut-tree which, from its amazing height and being
infested with serpents and other noxious reptiles, it is impossible to
climb; of the blue champaka flower, not to be found in any other country
than his (being yellow elsewhere); of the flowering shrub named
Sri­menjeri, of ambrosial scent; of the mountain on which the celestial
spirits dwell; who when he goes to rest wakes not until the gandarang
nobat sounds; He the sultan Sri Maharaja Durja furthermore declares,
etc.*

(*Footnote. The following Letter from the sultan of Menangkabau to the
father of the present sultan of Moco-moco, and apparently written about
fifty years ago, was communicated to me by Mr. Alexander Dalrymple, and
though it is in part a repetition I esteem it too curious to hesitate
about inserting it. The style is much more rational than that of the
foregoing. "Praised be Almighty God! Sultan Gagar Alum the great and
noble King, whose extensive power reacheth unto the limits of the wide
ocean; unto whom God grants whatever he desires, and over whom no evil
spirit, nor even Satan himself has any influence; who is invested with an
authority to punish evil-doers; and has the most tender heart in the
support of the innocent; has no malice in his mind, but preserveth the
righteous with the greatest reverence, and nourisheth the poor and needy,
feeding them daily from his own table. His authority reacheth over the
whole universe, and his candour and goodness is known to all men.
(Mention made of the three brothers.) The ambassador of God and his
prophet Mahomet; the beloved of mankind; and ruler of the island called
Percho. At the time God made the heavens, the earth, the sun, the moon,
and even before evil spirits were created, this sultan Gagar Alum had his
residence in the clouds; but when the world was habitable God gave him a
bird called Hocinet, that had the gift of speech; this he sent down on
earth to look out for a spot where he might establish an inheritance, and
the first place he alighted upon was the fertile island of Lankapura,
situated between Palembang and Jambi, and from thence sprang the famous
kingdom of Manancabow, which will be renowned and mighty until the
Judgment Day.

"This Maha Raja Durja is blessed with a long life and an uninterrupted
course of prosperity, which he will maintain in the name, and through the
grace of the holy prophet, to the end that God's divine Will may be
fulfilled upon earth. He is endowed with the highest abilities, and the
most profound wisdom and circumspection in governing the many tributary
kings and subjects. He is righteous and charitable, and preserveth the
honour and glory of his ancestors. His justice and clemency are felt in
distant regions, and his name will be revered until the last day. When he
openeth his mouth he is full of goodness, and his words are as grateful
as rosewater to the thirsty. His breath is like the soft winds of the
heavens, and his lips are the instruments of truth; sending forth
perfumes more delightful than benjamin or myrrh. His nostrils breathe
ambergris and musk; and his countenance has the lustre of diamonds. He is
dreadful in battle, and not to be conquered, his courage and valour being
matchless. He, the sultan Maha Raja Durja, was crowned with a sacred
crown from God; and possesses the wood called Kamat, in conjunction with
the emperors of Rome and China. (Here follows an account of his
possessions nearly corresponding to those above recited.)

"After this salutation, and the information I have given of my greatness
and power, which I attribute to the good and holy prophet Mahomet, I am
to acquaint you with the commands of the sultan whose presence bringeth
death to all who attempt to approach him without permission; and also
those of the sultan of Indrapura who has four breasts. This friendly
sheet of paper is brought from the two sultans above named, by their bird
anggas, unto their son, sultan Gandam Shah, to acquaint him with their
intention under this great seal, which is that they order their son
sultan Gandam Shah to oblige the English Company to settle in the
district called Biangnur, at a place called the field of sheep, that they
may not have occasion to be ashamed at their frequent refusal of our
goodness in permitting them to trade with us and with our subjects; and
that in case he cannot succeed in this affair we hereby advise him that
the ties of friendship subsisting between us and our son is broken; and
we direct that he send us an answer immediately, that we may know the
result--for all this island is our own." It is difficult to determine
whether the preamble, or the purport of the letter be the more
extraordinary.)

Probably no records upon earth can furnish an example of more
unintelligible jargon; yet these attributes are believed to be
indisputably true by the Malays and others residing at a distance from
his immediate dominions, who possess a greater degree of faith than wit;
and with this addition, that he dwells in a palace without covering, free
from inconvenience. It is at the same time but justice to these people to
observe that, in the ordinary concerns of life, their writings are as
sober, consistent, and rational as those of their neighbours.

REMARKS ON WARRANT.

The seals prefixed to the warrant are, beside his own and that of the
emperor of China, whose consequence is well known to the inhabitants of
the eastern islands, that of the sultan of Rum, by which is understood in
modern times, Constantinople, the seat of the emperor of the Turks, who
is looked up to by Mahometans, since the ruin of the khalifat, as the
head of their religion; but I have reason to think that the appellation
of Rumi was at an earlier period given by oriental writers to the
subjects of the great Turkoman empire of the Seljuks, whose capital was
Iconium or Kuniyah in Asia minor, of which the Ottoman was a branch. This
personage he honours with the title of his eldest brother, the descendant
of Iskander the two-horned, by which epithet the Macedonian hero is
always distinguished in eastern story, in consequence, as may be
presumed, of the horned figure on his coins,* which must long have
circulated in Persia and Arabia. Upon the obscure history of these
supposed brothers some light is thrown by the following legend
communicated to me as the belief of the people of Johor. "It is related
that Iskander dived into the sea, and there married a daughter of the
king of the ocean, by whom he had three sons, who, when they arrived at
manhood, were sent by their mother to the residence of their father. He
gave them a makuta or crown, and ordered them to find kingdoms where they
should establish themselves. Arriving in the straits of Singapura they
determined to try whose head the crown fitted. The eldest trying first
could not lift it to his head. The second the same. The third had nearly
effected it when it fell from his hand into the sea. After this the
eldest turned to the west and became king of Rome, the second to the east
and became king of China. The third remained at Johor. At this time Pulo
Percha (Sumatra) had not risen from the waters. When it began to appear,
this king of Johor, being on a fishing party, and observing it oppressed
by a huge snake named Si Kati-muno, attacked the monster with his sword
called Simandang-giri, and killed it, but not till the sword had received
one hundred and ninety notches in the encounter. The island being thus
allowed to rise, he went and settled by the burning mountain, and his
descendants became kings of Menangkabau." This has much the air of a tale
invented by the people of the peninsula to exalt the idea of their own
antiquity at the expense of their Sumatran neighbours. The blue
champaka-flower of which the sultan boasts possession I conceive to be an
imaginary and not an existent plant. The late respected Sir W. Jones, in
his Botanical Observations printed in the Asiatic Researches Volume 4
suspects that by it must be meant the Kaempferia bhuchampac, a plant
entirely different from the michelia; but as this supposition is built on
a mere resemblance of sounds it is necessary to state that the Malayan
term is champaka biru, and that nothing can be inferred from the
accidental coincidence of the Sanskrit word bhu, signifying ground, with
the English term for the blue colour.

(*Footnote. See a beautiful engraving of one of these coins preserved in
the Bodleian collection, Oxford, prefixed to Dr. Vincent's Translation of
the Voyage of Nearchus printed in 1809.)

CEREMONIES.

With the ceremonies of the court we are very imperfectly acquainted. The
royal salute is one gun; which may be considered as a refinement in
ceremony; for as no additional number could be supposed to convey an
adequate idea of respect, but must on the contrary establish a definite
proportion between his dignity and that of his nobles, or of other
princes, the sultan chooses to leave the measure of his importance
indefinite by this policy and save his gunpowder. It must be observed
that the Malays are in general extremely fond of the parade of firing
guns, which they never neglect on high days, and on the appearance of the
new moon, particularly that which marks the commencement and the
conclusion of their puasa or annual fast. Yellow being esteemed, as in
China, the royal colour, is said to be constantly and exclusively worn by
the sultan and his household. His usual present on sending an embassy
(for no Sumatran or other oriental has an idea of making a formal address
on any occasion without a present in hand, be it never so trifling), is a
pair of white horses; being emblematic of the purity of his character and
intentions.

CONVERSION TO MAHOMETAN RELIGION.

The immediate subjects of this empire, properly denominated Malays, are
all of the Mahometan religion, and in that respect distinguished from the
generality of inland inhabitants. How it has happened that the most
central people of the island should have become the most perfectly
converted is difficult to account for unless we suppose that its
political importance and the richness of its gold trade might have drawn
thither its pious instructors, from temporal as well as spiritual
motives. Be this as it may, the country of Menangkabau is regarded as the
supreme seat of civil and religious authority in this part of the East,
and next to a voyage to Mecca to have visited its metropolis stamps a man
learned, and confers the character of superior sanctity. Accordingly the
most eminent of those who bear the titles of imam, mulana, khatib, and
pandita either proceed from thence or repair thither for their degree,
and bring away with them a certificate or diploma from the sultan or his
minister.

In attempting to ascertain the period of this conversion much accuracy is
not to be expected; the natives are either ignorant on the subject or
have not communicated their knowledge, and we can only approximate the
truth by comparing the authorities of different old writers. Marco Polo,
the Venetian traveller who visited Sumatra under the name of Java minor
(see above) says that the inhabitants of the seashore were addicted to
the Mahometan law, which they had learned from Saracon merchants. This
must have been about the year 1290, when, in his voyage from China, he
was detained for several months at a port in the Straits, waiting the
change of the monsoon; and though I am scrupulous of insisting upon his
authority (questioned as it is), yet in a fact of this nature he could
scarcely be mistaken, and the assertion corresponds with the annals of
the princes of Malacca, which state, as we have seen above, that sultan
Muhammed Shah, who reigned from 1276 to 1333, was the first royal
convert. Juan De Barros, a Portuguese historian of great industry, says
that, according to the tradition of the inhabitants, the city of Malacca
was founded about the year 1260, and that about 1400 the Mahometan faith
had spread considerably there and extended itself to the neighbouring
islands. Diogo do Couto, another celebrated historian, who prosecuted his
inquiries in India, mentions the arrival at Malacca of an Arabian priest
who converted its monarch to the faith of the khalifs, and gave him the
name of Shah Muhammed in the year 1384. This date however is evidently
incorrect, as that king's reign was earlier by fifty years. Corneille le
Brun was informed by the king of Bantam in 1706 that the people of Java
were made converts to that sect about three hundred years before.
Valentyn states that Sheik Mulana, by whom this conversion was effected
in 1406, had already disseminated his doctrine at Ache, Pase (places in
Sumatra), and Johor. From these several sources of information, which are
sufficiently distinct from each other, we may draw this conclusion, that
the religion, which sprang up in Arabia in the seventh century, had not
made any considerable progress in the interior of Sumatra earlier than
the fourteenth, and that the period of its introduction, considering the
vicinity to Malacca, could not be much later. I have been told indeed,
but cannot vouch for its authenticity, that in 1782 these people counted
670 years from the first preaching of their religion, which would carry
the period back to 1112. It may be added that in the island of Ternate
the first Mahometan prince reigned from 1466 to 1486; that Francis
Xavier, a celebrated Jesuit missionary, when he was at Amboina in 1546
observed the people then beginning to learn to write from the Arabians;
that the Malays were allowed to build a mosque at Goak in Makasar
subsequently to the arrival of the Portuguese in 1512; and that in 1603
the whole kingdom had become Mahometan. These islands, lying far to the
eastward, and being of less considerable account in that age than
subsequent transactions have rendered them, the zeal of religious
adventurers did not happen to be directed thither so soon as to the
countries bordering on the sea of India.

By some it has been asserted that the first sultan of Menangkabau was a
Xerif from Mecca, or descendant of the khalifs, named Paduka Sri Sultan
Ibrahim, who, settling in Sumatra, was received with honour by the
princes of the country, Perapati-si-batang and his brother, and acquired
sovereign authority. They add that the sultans who now reside at
Pagar-ruyong and at Suruwasa are lineally descended from that Xerif,
whilst he who resides at Sungei Trap, styled Datu Bandhara putih, derives
his origin from Perapati. But to this supposition there are strong
objections. The idea so generally entertained by the natives, and
strengthened by the glimmering lights that the old writers afford us,
bespeaks an antiquity to this empire that stretches far beyond the
probable era of the establishment of the Mahometan religion in the
island. Radin Tamanggung, son of a king of Madura, a very intelligent
person, and who as a prince himself was conversant with these topics,
positively asserted to me that it was an original Sumatran empire,
antecedent to the introduction of the Arabian faith; instructed, but by
no means conquered, as some had imagined, by people from the peninsula.
So memorable an event as the elevation of a Xerif to the throne would
have been long preserved by annals or tradition, and the sultan in the
list of his titles would not fail to boast of this sacred extraction from
the prophet, to which however he does not at all allude; and to this we
may add that the superstitious veneration attached to the family extends
itself not only where Mahometanism has made a progress, but also among
the Battas and other people still unconverted to that faith, with whom it
would not be the case if the claim to such respect was grounded on the
introduction of a foreign religion which they have refused to accept.

Perhaps it is less surprising that this one kingdom should have been
completely converted than that so many districts of the island should
remain to this day without any religion whatever. It is observable that a
person of this latter description, coming to reside among the Malays,
soon assimilates to them in manners, and conforms to their religious
practices. The love of novelty, the vanity of learning, the fascination
of ceremony, the contagion of example, veneration for what appears above
his immediate comprehension, and the innate activity of man's
intellectual faculties, which, spurred by curiosity, prompts him to the
acquisition of knowledge, whether true or false--all conspire to make him
embrace a system of belief and scheme of instruction in which there is
nothing that militates against prejudices already imbibed. He
relinquishes no favourite ancient worship to adopt a new, and is
manifestly a gainer by the exchange, when he barters, for a paradise and
eternal pleasures, so small a consideration as the flesh of his foreskin.

TOLERANT PRINCIPLES.

The Malays, as far as my observation went, did not appear to possess much
of the bigotry so commonly found amongst the western Mahometans, or to
show antipathy to or contempt for unbelievers. To this indifference is to
be attributed my not having positively ascertained whether they are
followers of the sunni or the shiah sect, although from their tolerant
principles and frequent passages in their writings in praise of Ali I
conclude them to be the latter. Even in regard to the practice of
ceremonies they do not imitate the punctuality of the Arabs and others of
the mussulman faith. Excepting such as were in the orders of the
priesthood I rarely noticed persons in the act of making their
prostrations. Men of rank I am told have their religious periods, during
which they scrupulously attend to their duties and refrain from
gratifications of the appetite, together with gambling and cockfighting;
but these are not long nor very frequent. Even their great Fast or puasa
(the ramadan of the Turks) is only partially observed. All those who have
a regard for character fast more or less according to the degree of their
zeal or strength of their constitutions; some for a week, others for a
fortnight; but to abstain from food and betel whilst the sun is above the
horizon during the whole of a lunar month is a very rare instance of
devotion.

LITERATURE.

Malayan literature consists chiefly of transcripts and versions of the
koran, commentaries on the mussulman law, and historic tales both in
prose and verse, resembling in some respect our old romances. Many of
these are original compositions, and others are translations of the
popular tales current in Arabia, Persia, India, and the neighbouring
island of Java, where the Hindu languages and mythology appear to have
made at a remote period considerable progress. Among several works of
this description I possess their translation (but much compressed) of the
Ramayan, a celebrated Sanskrit poem, and also of some of the Arabian
stories lately published in France as a Continuation of the Thousand and
one Nights, first made known to the European world by M. Galland. If
doubts have been entertained of the authenticity of these additions to
his immortal collection the circumstance of their being (however
partially) discovered in the Malayan language will serve to remove them.
Beside these they have a variety of poetic works, abounding rather with
moral reflections and complaints of the frowns of fortune or of
ill-requited love than with flights of fancy. The pantun or short
proverbial stanza has been already described. They are composed in all
parts of the island, and often extempore; but such as proceed from
Menangkabau, the most favoured seat of the Muses, are held in the first
esteem. Their writing is entirely in the modified Arabic character, and
upon paper previously ruled by means of threads drawn tight and arranged
in a peculiar manner.

ARTS.

The arts in general are carried among these people to a greater degree of
perfection than by the other natives of Sumatra. The Malays are the sole
fabricators of the exquisite gold and silver filigree, the manufacture of
which has been particularly described.

FIREARMS.

In the country of Menangkabau they have from the earliest times
manufactured arms for their own use and to supply the northern
inhabitants of the island, who are the most warlike, and which trade they
continue to this day, smelting, forging, and preparing, by a process of
their own, the iron and steel for this purpose, although much is at the
same time purchased from Europeans.*

(*Footnote. The principal iron mines are at a place called Padang Luar,
where the ore is sold at the rate of half a fanam or forty-eighth part of
a dollar for a man's load, and carried to another place in the
Menangkabau country called Selimpuwong, where it is smelted and
manufactured.)

CANNON.

The use of cannon in this and other parts of India is mentioned by the
oldest Portuguese historians, and it must consequently have been known
there before the discovery of the passage by the Cape of Good Hope. Their
guns are those pieces called matchlocks, the improvement of springs and
flints not being yet adopted by them; the barrels are well tempered and
of the justest bore, as is evident from the excellence of their aim,
which they always take by lowering, instead of raising the muzzle of the
piece to the object. They are wrought by rolling a flatted bar of iron of
proportionate dimensions spirally round a circular rod, and beating it
till the parts of the former unite; which method seems preferable in
point of strength to that of folding and soldering the bar
longitudinally. The art of boring may well be supposed unknown to these
people. Firelocks are called by them snapang, from the Dutch name.
Gunpowder they make in great quantities, but either from the injudicious
proportion of the ingredients in the composition, or the imperfect
granulation, it is very defective in strength.

SIDE-ARMS.

The tombak, lambing, and kujur or kunjur are names for weapons of the
lance or spear kind; the pedang, rudus, pamandap, and kalewang are of the
sword kind, and slung at the side, the siwar is a small instrument of the
nature of a stiletto, chiefly used for assassination; and the kris is a
species of dagger of a particular construction, very generally worn,
being stuck in front through the folds of a belt that goes several times
round the body.


(PLATE 17. SUMATRAN WEAPONS.
A. A Malay Gadoobang.
B. A Batta Weapon.
C. A Malay Creese.
One-third of the size of the Originals.
W. Williams del. and sculpt.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)


(PLATE 17a. SUMATRAN WEAPONS.
D. A Malay Creese.
E. An Achenese Creese.
F. A Malay Sewar.
One-third of the size of the Originals.
W. Williams del. and sculpt.)


KRIS-BLADE.

The blade is about fourteen inches in length, not straight nor uniformly
curved, but waving in and out, as we see depicted the flaming swords that
guarded the gates of paradise; which probably may render a wound given
with it the more fatal. It is not smooth or polished like those of our
weapons, but by a peculiar process made to resemble a composition, in
which veins of a different metal are apparent. This damasking (as I was
informed by the late Mr. Boulton) is produced by beating together steel
and iron wire whilst in a state of half fusion, and eating them with
acids, by which the softest part is the most corroded; the edges being of
pure steel. Their temper is uncommonly hard. The head or haft is either
of ivory, the tooth of the duyong (sea-cow), that of the hippopotamus,
the snout of the ikan layer (voilier), of black coral, or of fine-grained
wood. This is ornamented with gold or a mixture of that and copper, which
they call swasa, highly polished and carved into curious figures, some of
which have the beak of a bird with the arms of a human creature, and bear
a resemblance to the Egyptian Isis. The sheath also is formed of some
beautiful species of wood, hollowed out, with a neat lacing of split
rattan, stained red round the lower parts; or sometimes it is plated with
gold. The value of a kris is supposed to be enhanced in proportion to the
number of persons it has slain. One that has been the instrument of much
bloodshed is regarded with a degree of veneration as something sacred.
The horror or enthusiasm inspired by the contemplation of such actions is
transferred to the weapon, which accordingly acquires sanctity from the
principle that leads ignorant men to reverence whatever possesses the
power of effecting mischief. Other circumstances also contribute to give
them celebrity, and they are distinguished by pompous names. Some have a
cushion by their bedside on which is placed their favourite weapon. I
have a manuscript treatise on krises, accompanied with drawings,
describing their imaginary properties and value, estimated at the price
of one or more slaves. The abominable custom of poisoning them, though
much talked of, is rarely practised I believe in modern times. They are
frequently seen rubbing the blades with lime-juice, which has been
considered as a precaution against danger of this kind, but it is rather
for the purpose of removing common stains or of improving the damasked
appearance.

MODES OF WARFARE.

Although much parade attends their preparations for war and their
marches, displaying colours of scarlet cloth, and beating drums, gongs,
and chennangs, yet their operations are carried on rather in the way of
ambuscade and surprise of straggling parties than open combat, firing
irregularly from behind entrenchments, which the enemy takes care not to
approach too near.

HORSES.

They are said to go frequently to war on horseback, but I shall not
venture to give their force the name of cavalry. The chiefs may probably
avail themselves of the service of this useful animal from motives of
personal indulgence or state, but on account of the ranjaus or
sharp-pointed stakes so commonly planted in the passes (see the preceding
journal of Lieutenant Dare's march, where they are particularly
described), it is scarcely possible that horse could be employed as an
effective part of an army. It is also to be observed that neither the
natives nor even Europeans ever shoe them, the nature of the roads in
general not rendering it necessary. The breed of them is small but well
made, hardy, and vigorous. The soldiers serve without pay, but the
plunder they obtain is thrown into a common stock, and divided amongst
them. Whatever might formerly have been the degree of their prowess they
are not now much celebrated for it; yet the Dutch at Padang have often
found them troublesome enemies from their numbers, and been obliged to
secure themselves within their walls. Between the Menangkabau people,
those of Rau or Aru, and the Achinese, settled at Natal, wars used to be
incessant until they were checked by the influence of our authority at
that place. The factory itself was raised upon one of the breast-works
thrown up by them for defence, of which several are to be met with in
walking a few miles into the country, and some of them very substantial.
Their campaigns in this petty warfare were carried on very deliberately.
They made a regular practice of commencing a truce at sunset, when they
remained in mutual security, and sometimes agreed that hostilities should
take place only between certain hours of the day. The English resident,
Mr. Carter, was frequently chosen their umpire, and upon these occasions
used to fix in the ground his golden-headed cane, on the spot where the
deputies should meet and concert terms of accommodation; until at length
the parties, grown weary of their fruitless contests, resolved to place
themselves respectively under the dependence and protection of the
company. The fortified villages, in some parts of the country named
dusun, and in others kampong, are here, as on the continent of India,
denominated kota or forts, and the districts are distinguished from each
other by the number of confederated villages they contain.

GOVERNMENT.

The government, like that of all Malayan states, is founded on principles
entirely feudal. The prince is styled raja, maha-raja, iang de pertuan,
or sultan; the nobles have the appellation of orang kaya or datu, which
properly belongs to the chiefs of tribes, and implies their being at the
head of a numerous train of immediate dependants or vassals, whose
service they command. The heir-apparent has the title of raja muda.

OFFICERS OF STATE.

From amongst the orang kayas the sultan appoints the officers of state,
who as members of his council are called mantri, and differ in number and
authority according to the situation and importance of the kingdom. Of
these the first in rank, or prime minister, has the appellation of
perdana mantri, mangko bumi, and not seldom, however anomalously,
maharaja. Next to him generally is the bandhara, treasurer or high
steward; then the laksamana and tamanggung, commanders-in-chief by sea
and land, and lastly the shahbandara, whose office it is to superintend
the business of the customs (in sea-port towns) and to manage the trade
for the king. The governors of provinces are named panglima, the heads of
departments pangulu. The ulubalang are military officers forming the
bodyguard of the sovereign, and prepared on all occasions to execute his
orders. From their fighting singly, when required, in the cause of the
prince or noble who maintains them, the name is commonly translated
champion; but when employed by a weak but arbitrary and cruel prince to
remove by stealth obnoxious persons whom he dares not to attack openly
they may be compared more properly to the Ismaelians or Assassins, so
celebrated in the history of the Crusades, as the devoted subjects of the
Sheikh al-jabal, or Old Man of the Mountain, as this chief of Persian
Irak is vulgarly termed. I have not reason however to believe that such
assassinations are by any means frequent. The immediate vassals of the
king are called amba raja; and for the subjects in general the word rayet
has been adopted. Beside those above named there is a great variety of
officers of government of an inferior class; and even among the superior
there is not at every period, nor in every Malayan state, a consistent
uniformity of rank and title.

GOVERNMENT BY FOUR DATUS.

The smaller Malayan establishments are governed by their datus or heads
of tribes, of whom there are generally four; as at Bencoolen (properly
Bengkaulu) near to which the English settlement of Fort Marlborough is
situated, and where Fort York formerly stood. These are under the
protection or dominion of two native chiefs or princes, the pangerans of
Sungei-lamo and Sungei-etam, the origin of whose authority has been
already explained. Each of these has possessions on different parts of
the river, the principal sway being in the hands of him of the two who
has most personal ability. They are constant rivals, though living upon
familiar terms, and are only restrained from open war by the authority of
the English. Limun likewise, and the neighbouring places of Batang-asei
and Pakalang-jambu, near the sources of Jambi River, where gold is
collected and carried chiefly to Bencoolen and the settlement of Laye,
where I had opportunities of seeing the traders, are each governed by
four datus, who, though not immediately nominated by the sultan, are
confirmed by, and pay tribute to, him. The first of these, whose
situation is most southerly, receive also an investiture (baju, garment,
and destar, turband) from the sultan of Palembang, being a politic
measure adopted by these merchants for the convenience attending it in
their occasional trading concerns with that place.

HOT SPRINGS.

At Priangan, near Gunong-berapi, are several hot mineral springs, called
in the Malayan map already mentioned, panchuran tujuh or the seven
conduits, where the natives from time immemorial have been in the
practice of bathing; some being appropriated to the men, and others to
the women; with two of cold water, styled the king's. It will be
recollected that in ancient times this place was the seat of government.

ANCIENT SCULPTURE.

Near to these springs is a large stone or rock of very hard substance,
one part of which is smoothed to a perpendicular face of about ten or
twelve feet long and four high, on which are engraved characters supposed
to be European, the space being entirely filled with them and certain
chaps or marks at the corners. The natives presume them to be Dutch, but
say that the latter do not resemble the present mark of the Company.
There is some appearance of the date 1100. The informant (named Raja
Intan), who had repeatedly seen and examined it, added that M. Palm,
governor of Padang, once sent Malays with paper and paint to endeavour to
take off the inscription, but they did not succeed; and the Dutch, whose
arms never penetrated to that part of the country, are ignorant of its
meaning. It is noticed in the Malayan map. Should it prove to be a Hindu
monument it will be thought curious.


CHAPTER 19.

KINGDOMS OF INDRAPURA, ANAK-SUNGEI, PASSAMMAN, SIAK.


INDRAPURA.

Among the earliest dismemberments of the Menangkabau empire was the
establishment of Indrapura as an independent kingdom. Though now in its
turn reduced to a state of little importance, it was formerly powerful in
comparison with its neighbours, and of considerable magnitude, including
Anak-Sungei and extending as far as Kattaun. Some idea of its antiquity
may be formed from a historical account given by the Sultan of Bantam to
the intelligent traveller Corneille le Brun, in which it is related that
the son of the Arabian prince who first converted the Javans to the
religion of the Prophet, about the year 1400, having obtained for himself
the sovereignty of Bantam, under the title of pangeran, married the
daughter of the raja of Indrapura, and received as her portion the
country of the Sillabares, a people of Banca-houlou.

CLAIMS OF THE SULTAN OF BANTAM.

Upon this cession appears to be grounded the modern claim of the sultan
to this part of the coast, which, previously to the treaty of Paris in
1763, was often urged by his sovereigns, the Dutch East India Company.
His dominion is said indeed to have extended from the southward as far as
Urei river, and at an early period to Betta or Ayer Etam, between Ipu and
Moco-moco, but that the intermediate space was ceded by him to the raja
of Indrapura, in satisfaction for the murder of a prince, and that a
small annual tax was laid by the latter on the Anak­sungei people on
account of the same murder (being the fourth part of a dollar, a bamboo
of rice, and a fowl, from each village), which is now paid to the sultan
of Moco-moco. In the year 1682 the district of Ayer Aji threw off its
dependence on Indrapura. In 1696 Raja Pasisir Barat, under the influence
of the Dutch, was placed on the throne, at the age of six years, and his
grandfather appointed guardian; but in 1701, in consequence of a quarrel
with his protectors, the European settlers were massacred.

WAR WITH THE DUTCH.

This was the occasion of a destructive war, in the event of which the
raja and his mantris were obliged to fly, and the country was nearly
depopulated. In 1705 he was reinstated, and reigned till about 1732.

DECLINE OF THE KINGDOM.

But the kingdom never recovered the shock it had received, and dwindled
into obscurity. Its river, which descends from the mountains of Korinchi,
is considered as one of the largest in the southern part of the west
coast, and is capable of admitting sloops. The country formerly produced
a large quantity of pepper, and some gold was brought down from the
interior, which now finds another channel. An English factory was
established there about the year 1684, but never became of any
importance.

KINGDOM OF ANAK-SUNGEI.

From the ruins of Indrapura has sprung the kingdom of Anak-sungei,
extending along the sea-coast from Manjuta River to that of Urei. Its
chief bears the title of sultan, and his capital, if such places deserve
the appellation, is Moco-moco. A description of it will be found above.
Although the government is Malayan, and the ministers of the sultan are
termed mantri (a title borrowed from the Hindus) the greatest part of the
country dependent on it is inhabited by the original dusun people, and
accordingly their proper chiefs are styled proattin, who are obliged to
attend their prince at stated periods, and to carry to him their
contribution or tax. His power over them however is very limited.

The first monarch of this new kingdom was named sultan Gulemat, who in
1695 established himself at Manjuta, by the assistance of the English, in
consequence of a revolution at Indrapura, by which the prince who had
afforded them protection on their first settling was driven out through
the intrigues, as they are termed, of the Dutch. It was a struggle, in
short, between the rival Companies, whose assistance was courted by the
different factions as it happened to suit their purpose, or who, becoming
strong enough to consider themselves as principals, made the native
chiefs the tools of their commercial ambition. In the year 1717 Gulemat
was removed from the throne by an assembly of the chiefs styling
themselves the mantris of Lima-kota and proattins of Anak-sungei, who set
up a person named Raja Kechil-besar in his room, appointing at the same
time, as his minister and successor, Raja Gandam Shah, by whom, upon his
accession in 1728, the seat of government was removed from Manjuta to
Moco-moco. He was father of sultan Pasisir Barat shah mualim shah, still
reigning in the year 1780, but harassed by the frequent rebellions of his
eldest son. The space of time occupied by the reigns of these two
sovereigns is extraordinary when we consider that the former must have
been at man's estate when he became minister or assessor in 1717. Nor is
it less remarkable that the son of the deposed sultan Gulemat, called
sultan Ala ed-din, was also living, at Tappanuli, about the year 1780,
being then supposed ninety years of age. He was confined as a state
prisoner at Madras during the government of Mr. Morse, and is mentioned
by Captain Forrest (Voyage to the Mergui Archipelago, page 57) as uncle
to the king of Achin, who reigned in 1784. The first English settlement
at Moco-moco was formed in 1717.

PASSAMMAN.

Passamman was the most northern of the provinces immediately dependant on
Menangkabau, and afterwards, together with Priaman and many other places
on the coast, fell under the dominion of the kings of Achin. It is now
divided into two petty kingdoms, each of which is governed by a raja and
fourteen pangulus. Formerly it was a place of considerable trade, and,
beside a great export of pepper, received much fine gold from the
mountains of the Rau country, lying about three days' journey inland. The
inhabitants of these are said to be Battas converted to Mahometanism and
mixed with Malays. They are governed by datus. The peculiarity of dress
remarked of the Korinchi people is also observable here, the men wearing
drawers that reach just below the calf, having one leg of red and the
other of white or blue cloth, and the baju or garment also
party-coloured. The greater part of the gold they collect finds its way
to Patapahan on the river of Siak, and from thence to the eastern side of
the island and straits of Malacca. The Agam tribe adjoining to the Rau,
and connecting to the southward with Menangkabau, differs little from
Malays, and is likewise governed by datus.

SIAK.

The great river of Siak has its source in the mountains of the
Menangkabau country, and empties itself nearly opposite to Malacca, with
which place it formerly carried on a considerable trade. From the Dutch
charts we had a general knowledge of its course as far as a place called
Mandau or Mandol, as they write the name, and where they had a small
establishment on account of its abounding with valuable ship­timber.

SURVEY.

A recent survey executed by Mr. Francis Lynch, under the orders of the
government of Pulo Pinang, has made us more particularly acquainted with
its size, its advantages, and defects. From the place where it discharges
itself into the straits of Kampar or Bencalis, to the town of Siak is,
according to the scale of his chart, about sixty-five geographical miles,
and from thence to a place called Pakan bharu or Newmarket, where the
survey discontinues, is about one hundred more. The width of the river is
in general from about three-quarters to half a mile, and its depth from
fifteen to seven fathoms; but on the bar at low-water spring-tides there
are only fifteen feet, and several shoals near its mouth. The tides rise
about eleven feet at the town, where at full and change it is high-water
at nine A.M. Not far within the river is a small island on which the
Dutch had formerly a factory. The shores are flat on both sides to a
considerable distance up the country, and the whole of the soil is
probably alluvial; but about a hundred and twenty-five or thirty miles up
Mr. Lynch marks the appearance of high land, giving it the name of
Princess Augusta Sophia hill, and points it out as a commanding situation
for a settlement.

SHIP-TIMBER.

He speaks in favourable terms of the facility with which ship-timber of
any dimensions or shape may be procured and loaded. Respecting the size
or population of the town no information is given.

GOVERNMENT.

The government of it was (in October 1808) in the hands of the Tuanku
Pangeran, brother to the Raja, who in consequence of some civil
disturbance had withdrawn to the entrance of the river. His name is not
mentioned, but from the Transactions of the Batavian Society we learn
that the prince who reigned about the year 1780 was Raja Ismael, "one of
the greatest pirates in those seas." The maritime power of the kingdom of
Siak has always been considerable, and in the history of the Malayan
states we repeatedly read of expeditions fitted out from thence making
attacks upon Johor, Malacca, and various other places on the two coasts
of the peninsula. Most of the neighbouring states (or rivers) on the
eastern coast of Sumatra, from Langat to Jambi, are said to have been
brought in modern times under its subjection.

TRADE.

The trade is chiefly carried on by Kling vessels, as they are called,
from the coast of Coromandel, which supply cargoes of piece-goods, and
also raw silk, opium, and other articles, which they provide at Pinang or
Malacca; in return for which they receive gold, wax, sago, salted fish,
and fish-roes, elephants' teeth, gambir, camphor, rattans, and other
canes. According to the information of the natives the river is navigable
for sloops to a place called Panti Chermin, being eight days' sail with
the assistance of the tide, and within half a day's journey by land of
another named Patapahan, which boats also, of ten to twenty tons, reach
in two days. This is a great mart of trade with the Menangkabau country,
whither its merchants resort with their gold. Pakan-bharu, the limit of
Mr. Lynch's voyage, is much lower down, and the above­mentioned places
are consequently not noticed by him. The Dutch Company procured annually
from Siak, for the use of Batavia, several rafts of spars for masts, and
if the plan of building ships at Pinang should be encouraged large
supplies of frame-timber for the purpose may be obtained from this river,
provided a sense of interest shall be found sufficiently strong to
correct or restrain the habits of treachery and desperate enterprise for
which these people have in all ages been notorious.

RAKAN.

The river Rakan, to the northward of Siak, by much the largest in the
island, if it should not rather be considered as an inlet of the sea,
takes its rise in the Rau country, and is navigable for sloops to a great
distance from the sea; but vessels are deterred from entering it by the
rapidity of the current, or more probably the reflux of the tide, and
that peculiar swell known in the Ganges and elsewhere by the appellation
of the bore.

KAMPAR.

That of Kampar, to the southward, is said by the natives to labour under
the same inconvenience, and Mr. Lynch was informed that the tides there
rise from eighteen to twenty-four feet. If these circumstances render the
navigation dangerous it appears difficult to account for its having been
a place of considerable note at the period of the Portuguese conquest of
Malacca, and repeatedly the scene of naval actions with the fleets of
Achin, whilst Siak, which possesses many natural advantages, is rarely
mentioned. In modern times it has been scarcely at all known to
Europeans, and even its situation is doubtful.

INDRAGIRI.

The river of Indragiri is said by the natives to have its source in a
lake of the Menangkabau country, from whence it issues by the name of
Ayer Ambelan. Sloops tide it up for five or six weeks (as they assert),
anchoring as the ebb begins to make. From a place called Lubok ramo-ramo
they use boats of from five to twenty tons, and the smaller sort can
proceed until they are stopped by a fall or cascade at Seluka, on the
borders of Menangkabau. This extraordinary distance to which the
influence of the tides extends is a proof of the absolute flatness of the
country through which these rivers take the greater part of their course.

JAMBI.

Jambi River has its principal source in the Limun country. Although of
considerable size it is inferior to Siak and Indragiri. At an early stage
of European commerce in these parts it was of some importance, and both
the English and Dutch had factories there; the former on a small island
near the mouth, and the latter at some distance up the river. The town of
Jambi is situated at the distance of about sixty miles from the sea, and
we find in the work of the historian, Faria y Sousa, that in the year
1629 a Portuguese squadron was employed twenty-two days in ascending the
river, in order to destroy some Dutch ships which had taken shelter near
the town. Lionel Wafer, who was there in 1678 (at which time the river
was blockaded by a fleet of praws from Johor), makes the distance a
hundred miles. The trade consists chiefly in gold-dust, pepper, and
canes, but the most of what is collected of the first article proceeds
across the country to the western coast, and the quality of the second is
not held in esteem. The port is therefore but little frequented by any
other than native merchants. Sometimes, but rarely, a private trading
ship from Bengal endeavours to dispose of a few chests of opium in this
or one of the other rivers; but the masters scarcely ever venture on
shore, and deal with such of the Malays as come off to them at the sword
point, so strong is the idea of their treacherous character.

PALEMBANG.

The kingdom of Palembang is one of considerable importance, and its river
ranks amongst the largest in the island. It takes its rise in the
district of Musi, immediately at the back of the range of hills visible
from Bencoolen, and on that account has the name of Ayer Musi in the
early part of its course, but in the lower is more properly named the
Tatong.

SIZE OF RIVER.

Opposite to the city of Palembang and the Dutch Company's factory it is
upwards of a mile in breadth, and is conveniently navigated by vessels
whose draft of water does not exceed fourteen feet. Those of a larger
description have been carried thither for military purposes (as in 1660,
when the place was attacked and destroyed by the Hollanders) but the
operation is attended with difficulty on account of numerous shoals.

FOREIGN TRADE.

The port is much frequented by trading vessels, chiefly from Java,
Madura, Balli, and Celebes, which bring rice, salt, and cloths, the
manufacture of those islands. With opium, the piece-goods of the west of
India, and European commodities it is supplied by the Dutch from Batavia,
or by those who are termed interlopers. These in return receive pepper
and tin, which, by an old agreement made with the sultan, and formally
renewed in 1777, are to be exclusively delivered to the Company at
stipulated prices, and no other Europeans are to be allowed to trade or
navigate within his jurisdiction.

DUTCH FACTORY.

In order to enforce these conditions the Dutch are permitted to maintain
a fort on the river with a garrison of fifty or sixty men (which cannot
be exceeded without giving umbrage), and to keep its own cruisers to
prevent smuggling. The quantity of pepper thus furnished was from one to
two millions of pounds per annum. Of tin the quantity was about two
millions of pounds, one third of which was shipped (at Batavia) for
Holland, and the remainder sent to China. It has already been stated that
this tin is the produce of the island of Bangka, situated near the mouth
of the river, which may be considered as an entire hill of tin-sand. The
works, of which a particular account is given in Volume 3 of the Batavian
Transactions, are entirely in the hands of Chinese settlers. In the year
1778 the Company likewise received thirty-seven thousand bundles of
rattans.

LOW COUNTRY.

The lower parts of the country of Palembang towards the sea-coast are
described as being flat marshy land, and with the exception of some few
tracts entirely unfit for the purposes of cultivation. It is generally
understood to have been all covered by the sea in former ages, not only
from its being observed that the strand yearly gains an accession, but
also that, upon digging the earth at some distance inland, sea-shells,
and even pieces of boat-timber, are discovered.

INTERIOR COUNTRY. ITS TRADE.

The interior or upland districts on the contrary are very productive, and
there the pepper is cultivated, which the king's agent (for trade in
these parts is usually monopolized by the sovereign power) purchases at a
cheap rate. In return he supplies the country people with opium, salt,
and piece-goods, forming the cargoes of large boats (some of them
sixty-six feet in length and seven in breadth, from a single tree) which
are towed against the stream. The goods intended for Passummah are
conveyed to a place called Muara Mulang, which is performed in fourteen
days, and from thence by land to the borders of that country is only one
day's journey. This being situated beyond the district where the pepper
flourishes their returns are chiefly made in pulas twine, raw silk in its
roughest state, and elephants' teeth. From Musi they send likewise
sulphur, alum, arsenic, and tobacco. Dragons-blood and gambir are also
the produce of the country.

ITS GOVERNMENT.

These interior parts are divided into provinces, each of which is
assigned as a fief or government to one of the royal family or of the
nobles, who commit the management to deputies and give themselves little
concern about the treatment of their subjects. The pangerans, who are the
descendants of the ancient princes of the country, experience much
oppression, and when compelled to make their appearance at court are
denied every mark of ceremonious distinction.

SETTLERS FROM JAVA.

The present rulers of the kingdom of Palembang and a great portion of the
inhabitants of the city originally came from the island of Java, in
consequence, as some suppose, of an early conquest by the sovereigns of
Majapahit; or, according to others, by those of Bantam, in more modern
times; and in proof of its subjection, either real or nominal, to the
latter, we find in the account of the first Dutch voyages, that "in 1596
a king of Bantam fell before Palembang, a rebel town of Sumatra, which he
was besieging."

ROYAL FAMILY.

The Dutch claim the honour of having placed on the throne the family of
the reigning sultan (1780), named Ratu Akhmet Bahar ed-din, whose eldest
son bears the title of Pangeran Ratu, answering to the RaJa muda of the
Malays. The power of the monarch is unlimited by any legal restriction,
but not keeping a regular body of troops in pay his orders are often
disregarded by the nobles. Although without any established revenue from
taxes or contributions, the profit arising from the trade of pepper and
tin (especially the latter) is so great, and the consequent influx of
silver, without any apparent outlet, so considerable, that he must
necessarily be possessed of treasure to a large amount. The customs on
merchandize imported remain in the hands of the shabhandaras, who are
required to furnish the king's household with provisions and other
necessaries. The domestic attendants on the prince are for the most part
females.

CURRENCY.

The currency of the country and the only money allowed to be received at
the king's treasury is Spanish dollars; but there is also in general
circulation a species of small base coin, issued by royal authority, and
named pitis. These are cut out of plates composed of lead and tin, and,
having a square hole in the middle (like the Chinese cash), are strung in
parcels of five hundred each, sixteen of which (according to the Batavian
Transactions) are equivalent to the dollar. In weighing gold the tail is
considered as the tenth part of the katti (of a pound and a third), or
equal to the weight of two Spanish dollars and a quarter.

CITY.

The city is situated in a flat marshy tract, a few miles above the delta
of the river, about sixty miles from the sea, and yet so far from the
mountains of the interior that they are not visible. It extends about
eight miles along both banks, and is mostly confined to them and to the
creeks which open into the river. The buildings, with the exception of
the king's palace and mosque, being all of wood or bamboos standing on
posts and mostly covered with thatch of palm-leaves, the appearance of
the place has nothing to recommend it. There are also a great number of
floating habitations, mostly shops, upon bamboo-rafts moored to piles,
and when the owners of these are no longer pleased with their situation
they remove upwards or downwards, with the tide, to one more convenient.
Indeed, as the nature of the surrounding country, being overflowed in
high tides, scarcely admits of roads, almost all communication is carried
on by means of boats, which accordingly are seen moving by hundreds in
every direction, without intermission. The dalam or palace being
surrounded by a high wall, nothing is known to Europeans of the interior,
but it appears to be large, lofty, and much ornamented on the outside.
Immediately adjoining to this wall, on the lower side, is a strong,
square, roofed battery, commanding the river, and below it another; on
both of which many heavy cannon are mounted, and fired on particular
occasions. In the interval between the two batteries is seen the meidan
or plain, at the extremity of which appears the balerong or hall where
the sultan gives audience in public. This is an ordinary building, and
serving occasionally for a warehouse, but ornamented with weapons
arranged along the walls. The royal mosque stands behind the palace, and
from the style of architecture seems to have been constructed by a
European. It is an oblong building with glazed windows, pilasters, and a
cupola. The burial place of these sovereigns is at old Palembang, about a
league lower down the river, where the ground appears to be somewhat
raised from having long been the site of habitations.

ENCOURAGEMENT TO FOREIGNERS.

The policy of these princes, who were themselves strangers, having always
been to encourage foreign settlers, the city an lower parts of the river
are in a great measure peopled with natives of China, Cochin­china,
Camboja, Siam, Patani on the coast of the peninsula, Java, Celebes, and
other eastern places. In addition to these the Arabian priests are
described by the Dutch as constituting a very numerous and pernicious
tribe, who, although in the constant practice of imposing upon and
plundering the credulous inhabitants, are held by them in the utmost
reverence.

RELIGION.

The Mahometan religion prevails throughout all the dominions of the
sultan, with the exception of a district near the sea­coast, called
Salang, where the natives, termed orang kubu, live in the woods like wild
animals. The literature of the country is said to be confined to the
study of the koran, but opinions of this kind I have found in other
instances to be too hastily formed, or by persons not competent to obtain
the necessary information.

LANGUAGE.

The language of the king and his court is the high dialect of the Javan,
mixed with some foreign idioms. In the general intercourse with strangers
the conversation is always in Malayan, with the pronunciation (already
noticed) of the final o for a.

CHARACTER OF INHABITANTS.

Amongst the people of Palembang themselves this language (the character
of which they employ) is mixed with the common Javan. The Dutch, on whom
we must rely for an account of the manners and disposition of these
people, and which will be found in Volume 3 page 122 of the Batavian
Transactions, describe those of the low country as devoid of every good
quality and imbued with every bad one; whilst those of the interior are
spoken of as a dull, simple people who show much forbearance under
oppression*; but it is acknowledged that of these last they have little
knowledge, owing to the extreme suspicion and jealousy of the government,
which takes alarm at any attempt to penetrate into the country.

(*Footnote. A ridiculous story is told of a custom amongst the
inhabitants of a province named Blida, which I should not repeat but for
its whimsical coincidence with a jeu d'esprit of our celebrated Swift.
When a child is born there (say the Palembangers), and the father has any
doubts about the honesty of his wife, he puts it to the proof by tossing
the infant into the air and catching it on the point of a spear. If no
wound is thereby inflicted he is satisfied of its legitimacy, but if
otherwise he considers it as spurious.)

INTERIOR VISITED BY ENGLISH.

This inland district having been visited only by two servants of the
English East India Company who have left any record of their journeys, I
shall extract from their narratives such parts as serve to throw a light
upon its geography. The first of these was Mr. Charles Miller, who, on
the 19th of September 1770, proceeded from Fort Marlborough to Bentiring
on the Bencoolen river, thence to Pagar-raddin, Kadras, Gunong Raja,
Gunong Ayu, Kalindang, and Jambu, where he ascended the hills forming the
boundary of the Company's district, which he found covered with lofty
trees. The first dusun on the other side is named Kalubar, and situated
on the banks of the river Musi. From thence his route lay to places
called Kapiyong and Parahmu, from all of which the natives carry the
produce of their country to Palembang by water. The setting in of the
rains and difficulties raised by the guides prevented him from proceeding
to the country where the cassia is cut, and occasioned his return towards
the hills on the 10th of October, stopping at Tabat Bubut. The land in
the neighbourhood of the Musi he describes as being level, the soil black
and good, and the air temperate. It was his intention to have crossed the
hills to Ranne-lebar, on the 11th, but missing the road in the woods
reached next day Beyol Bagus, a dusun in the Company's district, and
thence proceeded to Gunong Raja, his way lying partly down a branch of
the Bencoolen river, called Ayer Bagus, whose bed is formed of large
pebble-stones, and partly through a level country, entirely covered with
lofty bamboos. From Gunong Raja he returned down Bencoolen River on a
bamboo raft to Bentiring, and reached Fort Marlborough on the 18th of
October. The other traveller, Mr. Charles Campbell, in a private letter
dated March 1802 (referring me, for more detailed information, to
journals which have not reached my hand), says, "We crossed the hills
nearly behind the Sugar-loaf, and entered the valley of Musi. Words
cannot do justice to the picturesque scenery of that romantic and
delightful country, locked in on all sides by lofty mountains, and
watered by the noble river here navigable for very large canoes, which,
after receiving the Lamatang and several other streams, forms the
Palembang. Directing our course behind the great hill of Sungei-lamo we
in three days discovered Labun, and crossed some considerable streams
discharging themselves into the river of Kattaun. Our object there being
completed we returned along the banks of the Musi nearly to the dusun of
Kalubat, at which place we struck into the woods, and, ascending the
mountain, reached towards evening a village high up on the Bencoolen
River. There is but a single range, and it is a fact that from the
navigable part of the Musi river to a place on that of Bencoolen where
rafts and sampans may be used is to the natives a walk of no more than
eight hours. Musi is populous, well cultivated, and the soil exceedingly
rich. The people are stout, healthy looking, and independent in their
carriage and manners, and were to us courteous and hospitable. They
acknowledge no superior authority, but are often insulted by predatory
parties from Palembang." These freebooters would perhaps call themselves
collectors of tribute. It is much to be regretted that little political
jealousies and animosities between the European powers whose influence
prevails on each side of the island prevent further discoveries of the
course of this considerable river.


CHAPTER 20.

THE COUNTRY OF THE BATTAS.
TAPPANULI-BAY.
JOURNEY INTO THE INTERIOR.
CASSIA-TREES.
GOVERNMENTS.
ARMS.
WARFARE.
TRADE.
FAIRS.
FOOD.
MANNERS.
LANGUAGE.
WRITING.
RELIGION.
FUNERALS.
CRIMES.
EXTRAORDINARY CUSTOM.

BATTAS.

One of the most considerable distinctions of people in the island, and by
many regarded as having the strongest claims to originality, is the
nation of the Battas (properly Batak), whose remarkable dissimilitude to
the other inhabitants, in the genius of their customs and manners, and
especially in some extraordinary usages, renders it necessary that a
particular degree of attention should be paid to their description.

SITUATION OF THE COUNTRY.

This country is bounded on the north by that of Achin, from which it is
separated by the mountains of Papa and Deira, and on the south by the
independent district of Rau or Rawa; extending along the sea-coast on the
western side from the river of Singkel to that of Tabuyong, but inland,
to the back of Ayer Bangis, and generally across the island, which is
narrow in that part, to the eastern coast; but more or less encroached
upon by the Malayan and Achinese establishments in the most convenient
maritime situations, for the purposes of their commerce. It is very
populous, and chiefly in the central parts, where are extensive open or
naked plains, on the borders (as it is said) of a great lake; the soil
fertile, and cultivation so much more prevalent than in the southern
countries, which are mostly covered with woods, that there is scarcely a
tree to be seen excepting those planted by the natives about their
villages, which are not, as elsewhere, on the banks of rivers, but
wherever a strong situation presents itself. Water indeed is not so
abundant as to the southward, which may be attributed to the
comparatively level surface, the chain of high mountains which extends
northwards from the straits of Sunda through the interior of the island,
in a great measure terminating with gunong Passummah or Mount Ophir.
About the bay of Tappanuli however the land is high and wooded near the
coast.

ITS DIVISIONS.

The Batta territory is divided (according to the information obtained by
the English Residents) into the following principal districts; Ankola,
Padambola, Mandiling, Toba, Selindong, and Singkel, of which the first
has five, the third three, and the fourth five subordinate tribes.
According to the Dutch account published in the Transactions of the
Batavian Society, which is very circumstantial, it is divided into three
small kingdoms. One of these named Simamora is situated far inland and
contains a number of villages, and among others those named Batong, Ria,
Allas, Batadera, Kapkap (where the district producing benzoin commences),
Batahol, Kotta-tinggi (the place of the king's residence), with two
places lying on the eastern coast called Suitara-male and Jambu-ayer.
This kingdom is said to yield much fine gold from the mines of Batong and
Sunayang. Bata-salindong also contains many districts, in some of which
benzoin, and in others fine gold, is collected. The residence of the king
is at Salindong. Bata-gopit lies at the foot of a volcano-mountain of
that name, from whence, at the time of an eruption, the natives procure
sulphur, to be afterwards employed in the manufacture of gunpowder. The
little kingdom of Butar lies north­eastward of the preceding and reaches
to the eastern coast, where are the places named Pulo Serony and Batu
Bara; the latter enjoying a considerable trade; also Longtong and
Sirigar, at the mouth of a great river named Assahan. Butar yields
neither camphor, benzoin, nor gold, and the inhabitants support
themselves by cultivation. The residence of the king is at a town of the
same name.

ANCIENT BUILDING.

High up on the river of Batu Bara, which empties itself into the straits
of Malacca, is found a large brick building, concerning the erection of
which no tradition is preserved amongst the people. It is described as a
square, or several squares, and at one corner is an extremely high
pillar, supposed by them to have been designed for carrying a flag.
Images or reliefs of human figures are carved in the walls, which they
conceive to be Chinese (perhaps Hindu) idols. The bricks, of which some
were brought to Tappanuli, are of a smaller size than those used by the
English.

SINGKEL.

Singkel River, by much the largest on the western coast of the island,
has its rise in the distant mountains of Daholi, in the territory of
Achin, and at the distance of about thirty miles from the sea receives
the waters of the Sikere, at a place called Pomoko, running through a
great extent of the Batta country. After this junction it is very broad,
and deep enough for vessels of considerable burden, but the bar is
shallow and dangerous, having no more than six feet at low-water
spring-tides, and the rise is also six feet. The breadth here is about
three-quarters of a mile. Much of the lower parts of the country through
which it has its course is overflowed during the rainy season, but not at
two places, called by Captain Forrest Rambong and Jambong, near the
mouth. The principal town lies forty miles up the river on the northern
branch. On the southern is a town named Kiking, where more trade is
carried on by the Malays and Achinese than at the former, the Samponan or
Papa mountains producing more benzoin than those of Daholi. It is said in
a Dutch manuscript that in three days' navigation above the town of
Singkel you come to a great lake, the extent of which is not known.

Barus, the next place of any consequence to the southward, is chiefly
remarkable for having given name throughout the East to the Kapur­barus
or native camphor, as it is often termed to distinguish it from that
which is imported from Japan and China, as already explained. This was
the situation of the most remote of the Dutch factories, long since
withdrawn. It is properly a Malayan establishment, governed by a raja, a
bandhara, and eight pangulus, and with this peculiarity, that the rajas
and bandharas must be alternately and reciprocally of two great families,
named Dulu and D'ilhir. The assumed jurisdiction is said to have extended
formerly to Natal. The town is situated about a league from the coast,
and two leagues farther inland are eight small villages inhabited by
Battas, the inhabitants of which purchase the camphor and benzoin from
the people of the Diri mountains, extending from the southward of Singkel
to the hill of Lasa, behind Barus, where the Tobat district commences.

TAPPANULI.

The celebrated bay of Tappanuli stretches into the heart of the Batta
country, and its shores are everywhere inhabited by that people, who
barter the produce of their land for the articles they stand in need of
from abroad, but do not themselves make voyages by sea. Navigators assert
that the natural advantages of this bay are scarcely surpassed in any
other part of the globe; that all the navies of the world might ride
there with perfect security in every weather; and that such is the
complication of anchoring-places within each other that a large ship
could be so hid in them as not to be found without a tedious search. At
the island of Punchong kechil, on which our settlement stands, it is a
common practice to moor the vessels by a hawser to a tree on shore.
Timber for masts and yards is to be procured in the various creeks with
great facility. Not being favourably situated with respect to the general
track of outward and homeward-bound shipping, and its distance from the
principal seat of our important Indian concerns being considerable, it
has not hitherto been much used for any great naval purposes; but at the
same time our government should be aware of the danger that might arise
from suffering any other maritime power to get footing in a place of this
description. The natives are in general inoffensive, and have given
little disturbance to our establishments; but parties of Achinese traders
(without the concurrence or knowledge, as there is reason to believe, of
their own government), jealous of our commercial influence, long strove
to drive us from the bay by force of arms, and we were under the
necessity of carrying on a petty warfare for many years in order to
secure our tranquillity. In the year 1760 Tappanuli was taken by a
squadron of French ships under the command of the Comte d'Estaing; and in
October 1809, being nearly defenceless, it was again taken by the Creole
French frigate, Captain Ripaud, joined afterwards by the Venus and La
Manche; under the orders of Commodore Hamelin. By the terms of the
surrender private property was to be secured, but in a few days, after
the most friendly assurances had been given to the acting resident, with
whom the French officers were living, this engagement was violated under
the ill-founded pretence that some gold had been secreted, and everything
belonging to the English gentlemen and ladies, as well as to the native
settlers, was plundered or destroyed by fire, with circumstances of
atrocity and brutality that would have disgraced savages. The
garden-house of the chief (Mr. Prince, who happened to be then absent
from Tappanuli) at Batu-buru on the main was likewise burned, together
with his horses, and his cattle were shot at and maimed. Even the books
of accounts, containing the statement of outstanding debts due to the
trading-concern of the place were, in spite of every entreaty,
maliciously destroyed or carried off, by which an irreparable loss, from
which the enemy could not derive a benefit, is sustained by the
unfortunate sufferers. It cannot be supposed that the government of a
great and proud empire can give its sanction to this disgraceful mode of
carrying on war.

In the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1778 is a brief account of
the Batta country and the manners of its inhabitants, extracted from the
private letters of Mr. Charles Miller, the Company's botanist, whose
observations I have had repeated occasion to quote. I shall now
communicate to the reader the substance of a report made by him of a
journey performed in company with Mr. Giles Holloway, then resident of
Tappanuli, through the interior of the country of which we are now
speaking, with a view to explore its productions, particularly the
cassia, which at that time was thought likely to prove an object of
commerce worthy of attention.

MR. MILLER'S JOURNEY INTO THE COUNTRY.

Says Mr. Miller:

Previously to our setting out on this journey we consulted people who had
formerly been engaged in the cassia-trade with regard to the most proper
places to visit. They informed us that the trees were to be found in two
different districts; namely in the inland parts to the northward of the
old settlement at Tappanuli; and also in the country of Padambola, which
lies between fifty and sixty miles more to the southward. They advised us
to prefer going into the Padambola country, although the more distant, on
account of the inhabitants of the Tappanuli country (as they represented)
being frequently troublesome to strangers. They also told me there were
two kinds of the kulit manis, the one of which, from their account of it,
I was in hopes might prove to be the true cinnamon-tree.

June 21st, 1772. We set out from Pulo Punchong and went in boats to the
quallo (mouth or entrance) of Pinang Suri river, which is in the bay,
about ten or twelve miles south-east of Punchong. Next morning we went up
the river in sampans, and in about six hours arrived at a place called
quallo Lumut. The whole of the land on both sides of the river is low,
covered with wood, and uninhabited. In these woods I observed camphor
trees, two species of oak, maranti, rangi, and several other
timber-trees. About a quarter of a mile from that place, on the opposite
side of the river, is a Batta kampong, situated on the summit of a
regular and very beautiful little hill, which rises in a pyramidical
form, in the middle of a small meadow. The raja of this kampong, being
informed by the Malays that we were at their houses, came over to see us,
and invited us to his house, where we were received with great ceremony,
and saluted with about thirty guns. This kampong consists of about eight
or ten houses, with their respective padi-houses. It is strongly
fortified with a double fence of strong rough camphor planks, driven deep
into the earth, and about eight or nine feet high, so placed that their
points project considerably outward. These fences are about twelve feet
asunder, and in the space between them the buffaloes are kept at night.
Without-side these fences they plant a row of a prickly kind of bamboo,
which forms an almost impenetrable hedge from twelve to twenty feet
thick. In the sapiyau or building in which the raja receives strangers we
saw a man's skull hanging up, which he told us was hung there as a
trophy, it being the skull of an enemy they had taken prisoner, whose
body (according to the custom of the Battas) they had eaten about two
months before. June 23rd. We walked through a level woody country to the
kampong of Lumut, and next day to Sa­tarong, where I observed several
plantations of benzoin-trees, some cotton, indigo, turmeric, tobacco, and
a few pepper-vines. We next proceeded to Tappolen, to Sikia, and to
Sa-pisang. This last is situated on the banks of Batang-tara river, three
or four days' journey from the sea; so that our course had hitherto been
nearly parallel to the coast.

July 1st. We left Sa-pisang and took a direction towards the hills,
following nearly the course of the Batang-tara. We travelled all this day
through a low, woody, and entirely uncultivated country, which afforded
nothing worthy of observation. Our guide had proposed to reach a kampong,
called Lumbu; but missing the road we were obliged to wade up the river
between four and five miles, and at length arrived at a ladang extremely
fatigued; where the badness of the weather obliged us to stop and take up
our quarters in an open padi-shed. The next day the river was so swelled
by the heavy rain which had fallen the preceding day that we could not
prosecute our journey, and were obliged to pass it and the remaining
night in the same uncomfortable situation. (This is the middle of the dry
season in the southern parts of the island.) July 3rd. We left the ladang
and walked through a very irregular and uninhabited tract, full of rocks
and covered with woods. We this day crossed a ridge of very steep and
high hills, and in the afternoon came to an inhabited and well-cultivated
country on the edge of the plains of Ancola. We slept this night in a
small open shed, and next day proceeded to a kampong called Koto Lambong.
July 5th. Went through a more open and very pleasant country to
Terimbaru, a large kampong on the southern edge of the plains of Ancola.
The land hereabout is entirely clear of wood, and either ploughed and
sown with padi or jagong (maize), or used as pasture for their numerous
herds of buffaloes, kine, and horses. The raja being informed of our
intentions to come there sent his son and between thirty and forty men,
armed with lances and matchlock guns, to meet us, who escorted us to
their kampong, beating gongs and firing their guns all the way. The raja
received us in great form, and with civility ordered a buffalo to be
killed, detained us a day, and when we proceeded on our journey sent his
son with a party to escort us. I observed that all the unmarried women
wore a great number of tin rings in their ears (some having fifty in each
ear), which circumstance, together with the appearance of the country,
seemed to indicate its abounding with minerals; but on making inquiry I
found that the tin was brought from the straits of Malacca. Having made
the accustomed presents to the raja we left Terimbaru, July 7th, and
proceeded to Sa-masam, the raja of which place, attended by sixty or
seventy men, well armed, met us and conducted us to his kampong, where he
had prepared a house for our reception, treating us with much hospitality
and respect. The country round Sa-masam is full of small hills but clear
of wood, and mostly pasture ground for their cattle, of which they have
great abundance. I met with nothing remarkable here excepting a prickly
shrub called by the natives Andalimon, the seed-vessels and leaves of
which have a very agreeable spicy taste, and are used by them in their
curries.

July 10th. Proceeded on our journey to Batang Onan, the kampong where the
Malays used to purchase the cassia from the Battas. After about three
hours walk over an open hilly country we again came into thick woods, in
which we were obliged to pass the night. The next morning we crossed
another ridge of very high hills, covered entirely with woods. In these
we saw the wild benzoin-tree. It grows to a much larger size than the
cultivated kind, and yields a different sort of resin called kaminian
dulong or sweet-scented benzoin. It differs in being commonly in more
detached pieces, and having a smell resembling that of almonds when
bruised. Arrived at Batang Onan in the afternoon. This kampong is
situated in a very extensive plain on the banks of a large river which
empties itself into the straits of Malacca, and is said to be navigable
for sloops to within a day's journey of Batang Onan.

CASSIA-TREES.

July 11th. Went to Panka-dulut, the raja of which place claims the
property of the cassia-trees, and his people used to cut and cure the
bark and transport it to the former place. The nearest trees are about
two hours walk from Panka-dulut on a high ridge of mountains. They grow
from forty to sixty feet high, and have large spreading heads. They are
not cultivated, but grow in the woods. The bark is commonly taken from
the bodies of the trees of a foot or foot and half diameter; the bark
being so thin, when the trees are younger, as to lose all its qualities
very soon. I here inquired for the different sorts of cassia-tree of
which I had been told, but was now informed that there was only one sort,
and that the difference they mentioned was occasioned entirely by the
soil and situation in which the trees grow; that those which grow in a
rocky dry soil have red shoots, and their bark is of superior quality to
that of trees which grow in moist clay, whose shoots are green. I also
endeavoured to get some information with regard to their method of curing
and quilling the cassia, and told them my intentions of trying some
experiments towards improving its quality and rendering it more valuable.
They told me that none had been cut for two years past, on account of a
stop being put to the purchases at Tappanuli; and that if I was come with
authority to open the trade I should call together the people of the
neighbouring kampongs, kill a buffalo for them, and assure them publicly
that the cassia would be again received; in which case they would
immediately begin to cut and cure it, and would willingly follow any
instructions I should give them; but that otherwise they would take no
trouble about it. I must observe that I was prevented from getting so
satisfactory an account of the cassia as I could have wished by the
ill-behaviour of the person who accompanied us as guide, from whom, by
his thorough knowledge of the country, and of the cassia-trade, of which
he had formerly been the chief manager, we thought we had reason to
expect all requisite assistance and information, but who not only refused
to give it, but prevented as much as possible our receiving any from the
country people. July 14th. We left Batang Onan in order to return,
stopped that night at a kampong called Koto Moran, and the next evening
reached Sa-masam; from whence we proceeded by a different road from what
we had travelled before to Sa­pisang, where we procured sampans, and went
down the Batang-tara river to the sea. July 22nd we returned to Pulo
Punchong.

End of Mr. Miller's Narrative.

It has since been understood that they were intentionally misled, and
taken by a circuitous route to prevent their seeing a particular kampong
of some consideration at the back of Tappanuli, or for some other
interested object. Near the latter place, on the main, Mr. John Marsden,
who went thither to be present at the funeral of one of their chiefs,
observed two old monuments in stone, one the figure of a man, the other
of a man on an elephant, tolerably well executed, but they know not by
whom, nor is there any among them who could do the same work now. The
features were strongly Batta.

NATAL.

Our settlement at Natal (properly Natar), some miles to the south of the
large river of Tabuyong, and on the confines of the Batta country, which
extends at the back of it, is a place of much commerce, but not from its
natural or political circumstances of importance in other respects. It is
inhabited by settlers there, for the convenience of trade, from the
countries of Achin, Rau, and Menangkabau, who render it populous and
rich. Gold of very fine quality is procured from the country (some of the
mines being said to lie within ten miles of the factory), and there is a
considerable vent for imported goods, the returns for which are chiefly
made in that article and camphor. Like other Malayan towns it is governed
by datus, the chief of whom, styled datu besar or chief magistrate, has
considerable sway; and although the influence of the Company is here
predominant its authority is by no means so firmly established as in the
pepper-districts to the southward, owing to the number of people, their
wealth, and enterprising, independent spirit.* It may be said that they
are rather managed and conciliated than ruled. They find the English
useful as moderators between their own contending factions, which often
have recourse to arms, even upon points of ceremonious precedence, and
are reasoned into accommodation by our resident going among them
unattended. At an earlier period our protection was convenient to them
against the usurpation, as they termed it, of the Dutch, of whose
attempts and claims they were particularly jealous. By an article of the
treaty of Paris in 1763 these pretensions were ascertained as they
respected the two European powers, and the settlements of Natal and
Tappanuli were expressly restored to the English. They had however
already been re-occupied. Neither in fact have any right but what
proceeds from the will and consent of the native princes.

(*Footnote. Upon the re-establishment of the factory in 1762 the resident
pointed out to the Datu besar, with a degree of indignation, the number
of dead bodies which were frequently seen floating down the river, and
proposed his cooperating to prevent assassinations in the country,
occasioned by the anarchy the place fell into during the temporary
interruption of the Company's influence. "I cannot assent to any measures
for that purpose," replied the datu: "I reap from these murders an
advantage of twenty dollars a head when the families prosecute." A
compensation of thirty dollars per month was offered him, and to this he
scarcely submitted, observing that he should be a considerable loser, as
there fell in this manner at least three men in the month. At another
time, when the resident attempted to carry some regulation into
execution, he said, "kami tradah suka begito, orang kaya!" "We do not
choose to allow it, sir;" and bared his right arm as a signal of attack
to his dependants in case the point had been insisted on. Of late years
habit and a sense of mutual interest have rendered them more
accommodating.)

BATTA GOVERNMENTS.

The government of the Batta country, although nominally in the hands of
three or more sovereign rajas, is effectively (so far as our intercourse
with the people enables us to ascertain) divided into numberless petty
chiefships, the heads of which, also styled rajas, have no appearance of
being dependant upon any superior power, but enter into associations with
each other, particularly with those belonging to the same tribe, for
mutual defence and security against any distant enemy. They are at the
same time extremely jealous of any increase of their relative power, and
on the slightest pretext a war breaks out between them. The force of
different kampongs is notwithstanding this very unequal, and some rajas
possess a much more extensive sway than others; and it must needs be so,
where every man who can get a dozen followers and two or three muskets
sets up for independence. Inland of a place called Sokum great respect
was paid to a female chief or uti (which word I conceive to be a liquid
pronunciation of putri, a princess), whose jurisdiction comprehended many
tribes. Her grandson, who was the reigning prince, had lately been
murdered by an invader, and she had assembled an army of two or three
thousand men to take revenge. An agent of the Company went up the river
about fifteen miles in hopes of being able to accommodate a matter that
threatened materially the peace of the country; but he was told by the
uti that, unless he would land his men, and take a decided part in her
favour, he had no business there, and he was obliged to reembark without
effecting anything. The aggressor followed him the same night and made
his escape. It does not appear likely, from the manners and dispositions
of the people, that the whole of the country was ever united under one
supreme head.

AUTHORITY OF RAJAS.

The more powerful rajas assume authority over the lives of their
subjects. The dependants are bound to attend their chief in his journeys
and in his wars, and when an individual refuses he is expelled from the
society without permission to take his property along with him. They are
supplied with food for their expeditions, and allowed a reward for each
person they kill. The revenues of the chief arise principally from fines
of cattle adjudged in criminal proceedings, which he always appropriates
to himself; and from the produce of the camphor and benzoin trees
throughout his district; but this is not rigorously insisted upon. When
he pays his gaming debts he imposes what arbitrary value he thinks proper
on the horses and buffaloes (no coin being used
in the country), which he delivers, and his subjects are obliged to
accept them at that rate. They are forced to work in their turns, for a
certain number of days, in his rice plantations. There is, in like
manner, a lesser kind of service for land held of any other person, the
tenant being bound to pay his landlord respect wherever he meets him, and
to provide him with entertainment whenever he comes to his house. The
people seem to have a permanent property in their possessions, selling
them to each other as they think fit. If a man plants trees and leaves
them, no future occupier can sell them, though he may eat the fruit.
Disputes and litigations of any kind that happen between people belonging
to the same kampong are settled by a magistrate appointed for that
purpose, and from him it is said there is no appeal to the raja: when
they arise between persons of different kampongs they are adjusted at a
meeting of the respective rajas. When a party is sent down to the Bay to
purchase salt or on other business it is accompanied by an officer who
takes cognizance of their behaviour, and sometimes punishes on the spot
such as are criminal or refractory. This is productive of much order and
decency.

SUCCESSION.

It is asserted that the succession to the chiefships does not go in the
first instance to the son of the deceased, but to the nephew by a sister;
and that the same extraordinary rule, with respect to property in
general, prevails also amongst the Malays of that part of the island, and
even in the neighbourhood of Padang. The authorities for this are various
and unconnected with each other, but not sufficiently circumstantial to
induce me to admit it as a generally established practice.

RESPECT FOR THE SULTAN OF MENANGKABAU.

Notwithstanding the independent spirit of the Battas, and their contempt
of all power that would affect a superiority over their little societies,
they have a superstitious veneration for the sultan of Menangkabau, and
show blind submission to his relations and emissaries, real or pretended,
when such appear among them for the purpose of levying contributions:
even when insulted and put in fear of their lives they make no attempt at
resistance: they think that their affairs would never prosper; that their
padi would be blighted, and their buffaloes die; that they would remain
under a kind of spell for offending those sacred messengers.

PERSONS.

The Battas are in their persons rather below the stature of the Malays,
and their complexions are fairer; which may perhaps be owing to their
distance, for the most part, from the sea, an element they do not at all
frequent.

DRESS.

Their dress is commonly of a sort of cotton cloth manufactured by
themselves, thick, harsh, and wiry, about four astas or cubits long, and
two in breadth, worn round the middle, with a scarf over the shoulder.
These are of mixed colours, the prevalent being a brownish red and a blue
approaching to black. They are fond of adorning them, particularly the
scarf, with strings and tassels of beads. The covering of the head is
usually the bark of a tree, but the superior class wear a strip of
foreign blue cloth in imitation of the Malayan destars, and a few have
bajus (outer garments) of chintz. The young women, beside the cloth round
the middle, have one over the breasts, and (as noticed in Mr. Miller's
journal) wear in their ears numerous rings of tin, as well as several
large rings of thick brass wire round their necks. On festival days
however they ornament themselves with earrings of gold, hair-pins, of
which the heads are fashioned like birds or dragons, a kind of
three-cornered breastplate, and hollow rings upon the upper arm, all, in
like manner, of gold. The kima shell, which abounds in the bay, is
likewise worked into arm-rings, whiter, and taking a better polish than
ivory.

ARMS.

Their arms are matchlock guns, with which they are expert marksmen,
bamboo lances or spears with long iron heads, and a side-weapon called
jono, which resembles and is worn as a sword rather than a kris. The
cartridge-boxes are provided with a number of little wooden cases, each
containing a charge for the piece. In these are carried likewise the
match, and the smaller ranjaus, the longer being in a joint of bamboo,
slung like a quiver over the shoulder. They have machines curiously
carved and formed like the beak of a large bird for holding bullets, and
others of peculiar construction for a reserve of powder. These hang in
front. On the right side hang the flint and steel, and also the
tobacco-pipe. Their guns, the locks of which {for holding the match) are
of copper, they are supplied with by traders from Menangkabau; the swords
are of their own workmanship, and they also manufacture their own
gunpowder, extracting the saltpetre, as it is said, from the soil taken
from under houses that have been long inhabited (which in consequence of
an uncleanly practice is strongly impregnated with animal salts),
together with that collected in places where goats are kept. Through this
earth water is filtered, and being afterwards suffered to evaporate the
saltpetre is found at the bottom of the vessel. Their proper standard in
war is a horse's head, from whence flows a long mane or tail; beside
which they have colours of red or white cloth. For drums they use gongs,
and in action set up a kind of war­whoop.

WARFARE.

The spirit of war is excited among these people by small provocation, and
their resolutions for carrying it into effect are soon taken. Their life
appears in fact to be a perpetual state of hostility, and they are always
prepared for attack and defence. When they proceed to put their designs
into execution the first act of defiance is firing, without ball, into
the kampong of their enemies. Three days are then allowed for the party
fired upon to propose terms of accommodation, and if this is not done, or
the terms are such as cannot be agreed to, war is then fully declared.
This ceremony of firing with powder only is styled carrying smoke to the
adversary. During the course of their wars, which sometimes last for two
or three years, they seldom meet openly in the field or attempt to decide
their contest by a general engagement, as the mutual loss of a dozen men
might go near to ruin both parties, nor do they ever engage hand to hand,
but keep at a pretty safe distance, seldom nearer than random-shot,
excepting in case of sudden surprise. They march in single files, and
usually fire kneeling. It is not often that they venture a direct attack
upon each other's works, but watch opportunities of picking off
stragglers passing through the woods. A party of three or four will
conceal themselves near the footways, and if they see any of their foes
they fire and run away immediately; planting ranjaus after them to
prevent pursuit. On these occasions a man will subsist upon a potato a
day, in which they have much the advantage of the Malays (against whom
they are often engaged in warfare), who require to be better fed.

FORTIFICATIONS.

They fortify their kampongs with large ramparts of earth, halfway up
which they plant brushwood. There is a ditch without the rampart, and on
each side of that a tall palisade of camphor timber. Beyond this is an
impenetrable hedge of prickly bamboo, which when of sufficient growth
acquires an extraordinary density, and perfectly conceals all appearance
of a town. Ranjaus, of a length both for the body and the feet, are
disposed without all these, and render the approaches hazardous to
assailants who are almost naked. At each corner of the fortress, instead
of a tower or watch-house, they contrive to have a tall tree, which they
ascend to reconnoitre or fire from. But they are not fond of remaining on
the defensive in these fortified villages, and therefore, leaving a few
to guard them, usually advance into the plains, and throw up temporary
breast-works and entrenchments.

TRADE.

The natives of the sea-coast exchange their benzoin, camphor, and cassia
(the quantity of gold-dust is very inconsiderable) for iron, steel,
brass-wire, and salt, of which last article a hundred thousand bamboo
measures are annually taken off in the bay of Tappanuli. These they
barter again with the more inland inhabitants, in the mode that shall
presently be described, for the products and manufactures of the country,
particularly the home-made cloth; a very small quantity of cotton
piece-goods being imported from the coast and disposed of to the natives.
What they do take off is chiefly blue-cloth for the head, and chintz.

FAIRS HELD.

For the convenience of carrying on the inland-trade there are established
at the back of Tappanuli, which is their great mart, four stages, at
which successively they hold public fairs or markets on every fourth day
throughout the year; each fair, of course, lasting one day. The people in
the district of the fourth stage assemble with their goods at the
appointed place, to which those of the third resort in order to purchase
them. The people of the third, in like manner, supply the wants of the
second, and the second of the first, who dispose, on the day the market
is held, of the merchandise for which they have trafficked with the
Europeans and Malays. On these occasions all hostilities are suspended.
Each man who possesses a musket carries it with a green bough in the
muzzle, as a token of peace, and afterwards, when he comes to the spot,
following the example of the director or manager of the party, discharges
the loading into a mound of earth, in which, before his departure, he
searches for his ball. There is but one house at the place where the
market is held, and that is for the purpose of gaming. The want of booths
is supplied by the shade of regular rows of fruit-trees, mostly durian,
of which one avenue is reserved for the women. The dealings are conducted
with order and fairness; the chief remaining at a little distance, to be
referred to in case of dispute, and a guard is at hand, armed with
lances, to keep the peace; yet with all this police, which bespeaks
civilization, I have been assured by those who have had an opportunity of
attending their meetings that in the whole of their appearance and
deportment there is more of savage life than is observed in the manners
of the Rejangs, or inhabitants of Lampong. Traders from the remoter Batta
districts, lying north and south, assemble at these periodical markets,
where all their traffic is carried on, and commodities bartered. They are
not however peculiar to this country, being held, among other places, at
Batang-kapas and Ipu. By the Malays they are termed onan.

ESTIMATE BY COMMODITIES INSTEAD OF COIN.

Having no coin all value is estimated among them by certain commodities.
In trade they calculate by tampangs (cakes) of benzoin; in transactions
among themselves more commonly by buffaloes: sometimes brass wire and
sometimes beads are used as a medium. A galang, or ring of brass wire,
represents about the value of a dollar. But for small payments salt is
the most in use. A measure called a salup, weighing about two pounds, is
equal to a fanam or twopence-halfpenny: a balli, another small measure,
goes for four keppeng, or three-fifths of a penny.

FOOD.

The ordinary food of the lower class of people is maize and
sweet-potatoes, the rajas and great men alone indulging themselves with
rice. Some mix them together. It is only on public occasions that they
kill cattle for food; but not being delicate in their appetites they do
not scruple to eat part of a dead buffalo, hog, rat, alligator, or any
wild animal with which they happen to meet. Their rivers are said not to
abound with fish. Horse-flesh they esteem their most exquisite meat, and
for this purpose feed them upon grain and pay great attention to their
keep. They are numerous in the country, and the Europeans at Bencoolen
are supplied with many good ones from thence, but not with the finest, as
these are reserved for their festivals. They have also, says Mr. Miller,
great quantities of small black dogs, with erect pointed ears, which they
fatten and eat. Toddy or palm-wine they drink copiously at their feasts.

BUILDINGS.

The houses are built with frames of wood, with the sides of boards, and
roof covered with iju. They usually consist of a single large room, which
is entered by a trap-door in the middle. The number seldom exceeds twenty
in one kampong; but opposite to each is a kind of open building that
serves for sitting in during the day, and as a sleeping­place for the
unmarried men at night. These together form a sort of street. To each
kampong there is also a balei, where the inhabitants assemble for
transacting public business, celebrating feasts, and the reception of
strangers, whom they entertain with frankness and hospitality. At the end
of this building is a place divided off, from whence the women see the
spectacles of fencing and dancing; and below that is a kind of orchestra
for music.

DOMESTIC MANNERS.

The men are allowed to marry as many wives as they please, or can afford,
and to have half a dozen is not uncommon. Each of these sits in a
different part of the large room, and sleeps exposed to the others; not
being separated by any partition or distinction of apartments. Yet the
husband finds it necessary to allot to each of them their several
fireplaces and cooking utensils, where they dress their own victuals
separately, and prepare his in turns. How is this domestic state and the
flimsiness of such an imaginary barrier to be reconciled with our ideas
of the furious, ungovernable passions of love and jealousy supposed to
prevail in an eastern harem? or must custom be allowed to supersede all
other influence, both moral and physical? In other respects they differ
little in their customs relating to marriage from the rest of the island.
The parents of the girl always receive a valuable consideration (in
buffaloes or horses) from the person to whom she is given in marriage;
which is returned when a divorce takes place against the man's
inclination. The daughters as elsewhere are looked upon as the riches of
the fathers.

CONDITION OF WOMEN.

The condition of the women appears to be no other than that of slaves,
the husbands having the power of selling their wives and children. They
alone, beside the domestic duties, work in the rice plantations. These
are prepared in the same mode as in the rest of the island; except that
in the central parts, the country being clearer, the plough and harrow,
drawn by buffaloes, are more used. The men, when not engaged in war,
their favourite occupation, commonly lead an idle, inactive life, passing
the day in playing on a kind of flute, crowned with garlands of flowers;
among which the globe-amaranthus, a native of the country, mostly
prevails.

HORSERACING.

They are said however to hunt deer on horseback, and to be attached to
the diversion of horseracing. They ride boldly without a saddle or
stirrups, frequently throwing their hands upwards whilst pushing their
horse to full speed. The bit of the bridle is of iron, and has several
joints; the head-stall and reins of rattan: in some parts the reins, or
halter rather, is of iju, and the bit of wood. They are, like the rest of
the Sumatrans, much addicted to gaming, and the practice is under no kind
of restraint, until it destroys itself by the ruin of one of the parties.
When a man loses more money than he is able to pay he is confined and
sold as a slave; being the most usual mode by which they become such. A
generous winner will sometimes release his unfortunate adversary upon
condition of his killing a horse and making a public entertainment.

LANGUAGE.

They have, as was before observed, a language and written character
peculiar to themselves, and which may be considered, in point of
originality, as equal at least to any other in the island, and although,
like the languages of Java, Celebes, and the Philippines, it has many
terms in common with the Malayan (being all, in my judgment, from one
common stock), yet, in the way of encroachment, from the influence, both
political and religious, acquired by its immediate neighbours, the Batta
tongue appears to have experienced less change than any other. For a
specimen of its words, its alphabet, and the rules by which the sound of
its letters is modified and governed, the reader is referred to the Table
and Plate above. It is remarkable that the proportion of the people who
are able to read and write is much greater than of those who do not; a
qualification seldom observed in such uncivilized parts of the world, and
not always found in the more polished.

WRITING.

Their writing for common purposes is, like that already described in
speaking of the Rejangs, upon pieces of bamboo.

BOOKS.

Their books (and such they may with propriety be termed) are composed of
the inner bark of a certain tree cut into long slips and folded in
squares, leaving part of the wood at each extremity to serve for the
outer covering. The bark for this purpose is shaved smooth and thin, and
afterwards rubbed over with rice-water. The pen they use is a twig or the
fibre of a leaf, and their ink is made of the soot of dammar mixed with
the juice of the sugar-cane. The contents of their books are little known
to us. The writing of most of those in my possession is mixed with
uncouth representations of scolopendra and other noxious animals, and
frequent diagrams, which imply their being works of astrology and
divination. These they are known to consult in all the transactions of
life, and the event is predicted by the application of certain characters
marked on a slip of bamboo, to the lines of the sacred book, with which a
comparison is made. But this is not their only mode of divining. Before
going to war they kill a buffalo or a fowl that is perfectly white, and
by observing the motion of the intestines judge of the good or ill
fortune likely to attend them; and the priest who performs this ceremony
had need to be infallible, for if he predicts contrary to the event it is
said that he is sometimes punished with death for his want of skill.
Exclusively however of these books of necromancy there are others
containing legendary and mythological tales, of which latter a sample
will be given under the article of religion.

REMARK BY DR. LEYDEN.

Dr. Leyden, in his Dissertation on the Languages and Literature of the
Indo-Chinese nations, says that the Batta character is written neither
from right to left, nor from left to right, nor from top to bottom, but
in a manner directly opposite to that of the Chinese, from the bottom to
the top of the line, and that I have conveyed an erroneous idea of their
natural form by arranging the characters horizontally instead of placing
them in a perpendicular line. Not having now the opportunity of verifying
by ocular proof what I understood to be the practical order of their
writing, namely, from left to right (in the manner of the Hindus, who,
there is reason to believe, were the original instructors of all these
people), I shall only observe that I have among my papers three distinct
specimens of the Batta alphabet, written by different natives at
different periods, and all of them are horizontal. But I am at the same
time aware that as this was performed in the presence of Europeans, and
upon our paper, they might have deviated from their ordinary practice,
and that the evidence is therefore not conclusive. It might be presumed
indeed that the books themselves would be sufficient criterion; but
according to the position in which they are held they may be made to
sanction either mode, although it is easy to determine by simple
inspection the commencement of the lines. In the Batavian Transactions
(Volume 3 page 23) already so often quoted, it is expressly said that
these people write like Europeans from the left hand towards the right:
and in truth it is not easy to conceive how persons making use of ink can
conduct the hand from the bottom to the top of a page without marring
their own performance. But still a matter of fact, if such it be, cannot
give way to argument, and I have no object but to ascertain the truth.

RELIGION.

Their religion, like that of all other inhabitants of the island who are
not Mahometans, is so obscure in its principles as scarcely to afford
room to say that any exists among them. Yet they have rather more of
ceremony and observance than those of Rejang or Passummah, and there is
an order of persons by them called guru (a well-known Hindu term), who
may be denominated priests, as they are employed in administering oaths,
foretelling lucky and unlucky days, making sacrifices, and the
performance of funeral rites. For a knowledge of their theogony we are
indebted to M. Siberg, governor of the Dutch settlements on the coast of
Sumatra, by whom the following account was communicated to the late M.
Radermacher, a distinguished member of the Batavian Society, and by him
published in its Transactions.

MYTHOLOGY.

The inhabitants of this country have many fabulous stories, which shall
be briefly mentioned. They acknowledge three deities as rulers of the
world, who are respectively named Batara-guru, Sori-pada, and
Mangalla-bulang. The first, say they, bears rule in heaven, is the father
of all mankind, and partly, under the following circumstances, creator of
the earth, which from the beginning of time had been supported on the
head of Naga-padoha, but, growing weary at length, he shook his head,
which occasioned the earth to sink, and nothing remained in the world
excepting water. They do not pretend to a knowledge of the creation of
this original earth and water, but say that at the period when the latter
covered everything, the chief deity, Batara­guru, had a daughter named
Puti-orla-bulan, who requested permission to descend to these lower
regions, and accordingly came down on a white owl, accompanied by a dog;
but not being able, by reason of the waters, to continue there, her
father let fall from heaven a lofty mountain, named Bakarra, now situated
in the Batta country, as a dwelling for his child; and from this mountain
all other land gradually proceeded. The earth was once more supported on
the three horns of Naga-padoha, and that he might never again suffer it
to fall off Batara-guru sent his son, named Layang-layang-mandi
(literally the dipping swallow) to bind him hand and foot. But to his
occasionally shaking his head they ascribe the effect of earthquakes.
Puti-orla-bulan had afterwards, during her residence on earth, three sons
and three daughters, from whom sprang the whole human race.

The second of their deities has the rule of the air betwixt earth and
heaven, and the third that of the earth; but these two are considered as
subordinate to the first. Besides these they have as many inferior
deities as there are sensible objects on earth, or circumstances in human
society; of which some preside over the sea, others over rivers, over
woods, over war, and the like. They believe likewise in four evil
spirits, dwelling in four separate mountains, and whatever ill befalls
them they attribute to the agency of one of these demons. On such
occasions they apply to one of their cunning men, who has recourse to his
art, and by cutting a lemon ascertains which of these has been the author
of the mischief, and by what means the evil spirit may be propitiated;
which always proves to be the sacrificing a buffalo, hog, goat, or
whatever animal the wizard happens on that day to be most inclined to
eat. When the address is made to any of the superior and beneficent
deities for assistance, and the priest directs an offering of a horse,
cow, dog, hog, or fowl, care must be taken that the animal to be
sacrificed is entirely white.

They have also a vague and confused idea of the immortality of the human
soul, and of a future state of happiness or misery. They say that the
soul of a dying person makes its escape through the nostrils, and is
borne away by the wind, to heaven, if of a person who has led a good
life, but if of an evil-doer, to a great cauldron, where it shall be
exposed to fire until such time as Batara-guru shall judge it to have
suffered punishment proportioned to its sins, and feeling compassion
shall take it to himself in heaven: that finally the time shall come when
the chains and bands of Naga-padoha shall be worn away, and he shall once
more allow the earth to sink, that the sun will be then no more than a
cubit's distance from it, and that the souls of those who, having lived
well, shall remain alive at the last day, shall in like manner go to
heaven, and those of the wicked, be consigned to the before-mentioned
cauldron, intensely heated by the near approach of the sun's rays, to be
there tormented by a minister of Batara-guru, named Suraya-guru, until,
having expiated their offences, they shall be thought worthy of reception
into the heavenly regions.

...

To the Sanskrit scholar who shall make allowances for corrupt orthography
many of these names will be familiar. For Batara he will read avatara;
and in Naga-padoha he will recognise the serpent on whom Vishnu reposes.

OATHS.

Their ceremonies that wear most the appearance of religion are those
practised on taking an oath, and at their funeral obsequies. A person
accused of a crime and who asserts his innocence is in some cases
acquitted upon solemnly swearing to it, but in others is obliged to
undergo a kind of ordeal. A cock's throat is usually cut on the occasion
by the guru. The accused then puts a little rice into his mouth (probably
dry), and wishes it may become a stone if he be guilty of the crime with
which he stands charged, or, holding up a musket bullet, prays it may be
his fate in that case to fall in battle. In more important instances they
put a small leaden or tin image into the middle of a dish of rice,
garnished with those bullets; when the man, kneeling down, prays that his
crop of rice may fail, his cattle die, and that he himself may never take
salt (a luxury as well as necessary of life), if he does not declare the
truth. These tin images may be looked upon as objects of idolatrous
worship; but I could not learn that any species of adoration was paid to
them on other occasions any more than to certain stone images which have
been mentioned. Like the relics of saints, they are merely employed to
render the form of the oath more mysterious, and thereby increase the awe
with which it should be regarded.

FUNERAL CEREMONIES.

When a raja or person of consequence dies the funeral usually occupies
several months; that is, the corpse is kept unburied until the
neighbouring and distant chiefs, or, in common cases, the relations and
creditors of the deceased, can be convened in order to celebrate the
rites with becoming dignity and respect. Perhaps the season of planting
or of harvest intervenes, and these necessary avocations must be attended
to before the funeral ceremonies can be concluded. The body however is in
the meantime deposited in a kind of coffin. To provide this they fell a
large tree (the anau in preference, because of the softness of the
central part, whilst the outer coat is hard), and, having cut a portion
of the stem of sufficient length, they split it in two parts, hollow each
part so as to form a receptacle for the body, and then fit them exactly
together. The workmen take care to sprinkle the wood with the blood of a
young hog, whose flesh is given to them as a treat. The coffin being thus
prepared and brought into the house the body is placed in it, with a mat
beneath, and a cloth laid over it. Where the family can afford the
expense it is strewed over with camphor. Having now placed the two parts
in close contact they bind them together with rattans, and cover the
whole with a thick coating of dammar or resin. In some instances they
take the precaution of inserting a bamboo-tube into the lower part,
which, passing thence through the raised floor into the ground, serves to
carry off the offensive matter; so that in fact little more than the
bones remain.

When the relations and friends are assembled, each of whom brings with
him a buffalo, hog, goat, dog, fowl, or other article of provision,
according to his ability, and the women baskets of rice, which are
presented and placed in order, the feasting begins and continues for nine
days and nights, or so long as the provisions hold out. On the last of
these days the coffin is carried out and set in an open space, where it
is surrounded by the female mourners, on their knees, with their heads
covered, and howling (ululantes) in dismal concert, whilst the younger
persons of the family are dancing near it, in solemn movement, to the
sound of gongs, kalintangs, and a kind of flageolet; at night it is
returned to the house, where the dancing and music continues, with
frequent firing of guns, and on the tenth day the body is carried to the
grave,
preceded by the guru or priest, whose limbs are tattooed in the shape of
birds and beasts, and painted of different colours,* with a large wooden
mask on his face.

(*Footnote. It is remarkable that in the Bisayan language of the
Philippines the term for people so marked, whom the Spaniards call
pintados, is batuc. This practice is common in the islands near the coast
of Sumatra, as will hereafter be noticed. It seems to have prevailed in
many parts of the farther East, as Siam, Laos, and several of the
islands.)

He takes a piece of buffalo-flesh, swings it about, throwing himself into
violent attitudes and strange contortions, and then eats the morsel in a
voracious manner. He then kills a fowl over the corpse, letting the blood
run down upon the coffin, and just before it is moved both he and the
female mourners, having each a broom in their hands, sweep violently
about it, as if to chase away the evil spirits and prevent their joining
in the procession, when suddenly four men, stationed for the purpose,
lift up the coffin, and march quickly off with it, as if escaping from
the fiend, the priest continuing to sweep after it for some distance. It
is then deposited in the ground, without any peculiar ceremony, at the
depth of three or four feet; the earth about the grave is raised, a shed
built over it, further feasting takes place on the spot for an indefinite
time, and the horns and jaw-bones of the buffaloes and other cattle
devoured on the occasion are fastened to the posts. Mr. John and Mr.
Frederick Marsden were spectators of the funeral of a raja at Tappanuli
on the main. Mr. Charles Miller mentions his having been present at
killing the hundred and sixth buffalo at the grave of a raja, in a part
of the country where the ceremony was sometimes continued even a year
after the interment; and that they seem to regard their ancestors as a
kind of superior beings, attendant always upon them.

CRIMES.

The crimes committed here against the order and peace of society are said
not to be numerous. Theft amongst themselves is almost unknown, being
strictly honest in their dealings with each other; but when discovered
the offender is made answerable for double the value of the goods stolen.
Pilfering indeed from strangers, when not restrained by the laws of
hospitality, they are expert at, and think no moral offence; because they
do not perceive that any ill results from it. Open robbery and murder are
punishable with death if the parties are unable to redeem their lives by
a sum of money. A person guilty of manslaughter is obliged to bear the
expense attending the interment of the deceased and the funeral-feast
given to his friends, or, if too poor to accomplish this it is required
of his nearest relation, who is empowered to reimburse himself by selling
the offender as a slave. In cases of double adultery the man, upon
detection, is punished with death, in the manner that shall presently be
described; but the woman is only disgraced, by having her head shaven and
being sold for a slave, which in fact she was before. This distribution
of justice must proceed upon the supposition of the females being merely
passive subjects, and of the men alone possessing the faculties of free
agents. A single man concerned in adultery with a married woman is
banished or outlawed by his own family. The lives of culprits are in
almost all cases redeemable if they or their connections possess property
sufficient, the quantum being in some measure at the discretion of the
injured party. At the same time it must be observed that, Europeans not
being settled amongst these people upon the same footing as in the
pepper-districts, we are not so well acquainted either with the principle
or the practice of their laws.

EXTRAORDINARY CUSTOM.

The most extraordinary of the Batta customs, though certainly not
peculiar to these people, remains now to be described. Many of the old
travellers had furnished the world with accounts of anthropophagi or
maneaters, whom they met with in all parts of the old and new world, and
their relations, true or false, were in those days, when people were
addicted to the marvellous, universally credited. In the succeeding ages,
when a more skeptical and scrutinizing spirit prevailed, several of these
asserted facts were found upon examination to be false; and men, from a
bias inherent in our nature, ran into the opposite extreme. It then
became established as a philosophical truth, capable almost of
demonstration, that no such race of people ever did or could exist. But
the varieties, inconsistencies, and contradictions of human manners are
so numerous and glaring that it is scarcely possible to fix any general
principle that will apply to all the incongruous races of mankind, or
even to conceive an irregularity to which some or other of them have not
been accustomed.

EAT HUMAN FLESH.

The voyages of our late famous circumnavigators, the veracity of whose
assertions is unimpeachable, have already proved to the world that human
flesh is eaten by the savages of New Zealand; and I can with equal
confidence, from conviction of the truth, though not with equal weight of
authority, assert that it is also, in these days, eaten in the island of
Sumatra by the Batta people, and by them only. Whether or not the
horrible custom prevailed more extensively in ancient times I cannot take
upon me to ascertain, but the same historians who mention it as practised
in this island, and whose accounts were undeservedly looked upon as
fabulous, relate it also of many others of the eastern people, and those
of the island of Java in particular, who since that period may have
become more humanized.*

(*Footnote. Mention is made of the Battas and their peculiar customs by
the following early writers: NICOLO DI CONTI, 1449. "In a certain part of
this island (Sumatra) called Batech, the people eat human flesh. They are
continually at war with their neighbours, preserve the skulls of their
enemies as treasure, dispose of them as money, and he is accounted the
richest man who has most of them in his house." ODOARDUS BARBOSA, 1516.
"There is another kingdom to the southward, which is the principal source
of gold; and another inland, called Aaru (contiguous to the Batta
country) where the inhabitants are pagans, who eat human flesh, and
chiefly of those they have slain in war." DE BARROS, 1563. "The natives
of that part of the island which is opposite to Malacca, who are called
Batas, eat human flesh, and are the most savage and warlike of all the
land." BEAULIEU, 1622. "The inland people are independent, and speak a
language different from the Malayan. Are idolaters, and eat human flesh;
never ransom prisoners, but eat them with pepper and salt. Have no
religion, but some polity." LUDOVICO BARTHEMA, in 1505, asserts that the
people of Java were cannibals previously to their traffic with the
Chinese.)

They do not eat human flesh as the means of satisfying the cravings of
nature, for there can be no want of sustenance to the inhabitants of such
a country and climate, who reject no animal food of any kind; nor is it
sought after as a gluttonous delicacy.

MOTIVES FOR THIS CUSTOM.

The Battas eat it as a species of ceremony; as a mode of showing their
detestation of certain crimes by an ignominious punishment; and as a
savage display of revenge and insult to their unfortunate enemies. The
objects of this barbarous repast are prisoners taken in war, especially
if badly wounded, the bodies of the slain, and offenders condemned for
certain capital crimes, especially for adultery. Prisoners unwounded (but
they are not much disposed to give quarter) may be ransomed or sold as
slaves where the quarrel is not too inveterate; and the convicts, there
is reason to believe, rarely suffer when their friends are in
circumstances to redeem them by the customary equivalent of twenty
binchangs or eighty dollars. These are tried by the people of the tribe
where the offence was committed, but cannot be executed until their own
particular raja has been made acquainted with the sentence, who, when he
acknowledges the justice of the intended punishment, sends a cloth to
cover the head of the delinquent, together with a large dish of salt and
lemons. The unhappy victim is then delivered into the hands of the
injured party (if it be a private wrong, or in the case of a prisoner to
the warriors) by whom he is tied to a stake; lances are thrown at him
from a certain distance by this person, his relations, and friends; and
when mortally wounded they run up to him, as if in a transport of
passion, cut pieces from the body with their knives, dip them in the dish
of salt, lemon-juice, and red pepper, slightly broil them over a fire
prepared for the purpose, and swallow the morsels with a degree of savage
enthusiasm. Sometimes (I presume, according to the degree of their
animosity and resentment) the whole is devoured by the bystanders; and
instances have been known where, with barbarity still aggravated, they
tear the flesh from the carcase with their teeth. To such a depth of
depravity may man be plunged when neither religion nor philosophy
enlighten his steps! All that can be said in extenuation of the horror of
this diabolical ceremony is that no view appears to be entertained of
torturing the sufferers, of increasing or lengthening out the pangs of
death; the whole fury is directed against the corpse, warm indeed with
the remains of life, but past the sensation of pain. A difference of
opinion has existed with respect to the practice of eating the bodies of
their enemies actually slain in war; but subsequent inquiry has satisfied
me of its being done, especially in the case of distinguished persons, or
those who have been accessories to the quarrel. It should be observed
that their campaigns (which may be aptly compared to the predatory
excursions of our Borderers) often terminate with the loss of not more
than half a dozen men on both sides. The skulls of the victims are hung
up as trophies in the open buildings in front of their houses, and are
occasionally ransomed by their surviving relations for a sum of money.

DOUBTS OBVIATED.

I have found that some persons (and among them my friend, the late Mr.
Alexander Dalrymple) have entertained doubts of the reality of the fact
that human flesh is anywhere eaten by mankind as a national practice, and
considered the proofs hitherto adduced as insufficient to establish a
point of so much moment in the history of the species. It is objected to
me that I never was an eyewitness of a Batta feast of this nature, and
that my authority for it is considerably weakened by coming through a
second, or perhaps a third hand. I am sensible of the weight of this
reasoning, and am not anxious to force any man's belief, much less to
deceive him by pretences to the highest degree of certainty, when my
relation can only lay claim to the next degree; but I must at the same
time observe that, according to my apprehension, the refusing assent to
fair, circumstantial evidence, because it clashes with a systematic
opinion, is equally injurious to the cause of truth with asserting that
as positive which is only doubtful. My conviction of the truth of what I
have not personally seen (and we must all be convinced of facts to which
neither ourselves nor those with whom we are immediately connected could
ever have been witnesses) has arisen from the following circumstances,
some of less, and some of greater authority. It is in the first place a
matter of general and uncontroverted notoriety throughout the island, and
I have conversed with many natives of the Batta country (some of them in
my own service), who acknowledged the practice, and became ashamed of it
after residing amongst more humanized people. It has been my chance to
have had no fewer than three brothers and brothers-in-law, beside several
intimate friends (of whom some are now in England), chiefs of our
settlements of Natal and Tappanuli, of whose information I availed
myself, and all their accounts I have found to agree in every material
point. The testimony of Mr. Charles Miller, whose name, as well as that
of his father, is advantageously known to the literary world, should
alone be sufficient for my purpose. In addition to what he has related in
his journal he has told me that at one village where he halted the
suspended head of a man, whose body had been eaten a few days before, was
extremely offensive; and that in conversation with some people of the
Ankola district, speaking of their neighbours and occasional enemies of
the Pa­dambola district, they described them as an unprincipled race,
saying, "We, indeed, eat men as a punishment for their crimes and
injuries to us; but they waylay and seize travellers in order to
ber-bantei or cut them up like cattle." It is here obviously the
admission and not the scandal that should have weight. When Mr. Giles
Holloway was leaving Tappanuli and settling his accounts with the natives
he expostulated with a Batta man who had been dilatory in his payment. "I
would," says the man, "have been here sooner, but my pangulu (superior
officer) was detected in familiarity with my wife. He was condemned, and
I stayed to eat share of him; the ceremony took us up three days, and it
was only last night that we finished him." Mr. Miller was present at this
conversation, and the man spoke with perfect seriousness. A native of the
island of Nias, who had stabbed a Batta man in a fit of frenzy at
Batang-tara river, near Tappanuli bay, and endeavoured to make his
escape, was, upon the alarm being given, seized at six in the morning,
and before eleven, without any judicial process, was tied to a stake, cut
in pieces with the utmost eagerness while yet alive, and eaten upon the
spot, partly broiled, but mostly raw. His head was buried under that of
the man whom he had murdered. This happened in December 1780, when Mr.
William Smith had charge of the settlement. A raja was fined by Mr.
Bradley for having caused a prisoner to be eaten at a place too close to
the Company's settlement, and it should have been remarked that these
feasts are never suffered to take place withinside their own kampongs.
Mr. Alexander Hall made a charge in his public accounts of a sum paid to
a raja as an inducement to him to spare a man whom he had seen preparing
for a victim: and it is in fact this commendable discouragement of the
practice by our government that occasions its being so rare a sight to
Europeans, in a country where there are no travellers from curiosity, and
where the servants of the Company, having appearances to maintain, cannot
by their presence as idle spectators give a sanction to proceedings which
it is their duty to discourage, although their influence is not
sufficient to prevent them.

A Batta chief, named raja Niabin, in the year 1775 surprised a
neighbouring kampong with which he was at enmity, killed the raja by
stealth, carried off the body, and ate it. The injured family complained
to Mr. Nairne, the English chief of Natal, and prayed for redress. He
sent a message on the subject to Niabin, who returned an insolent and
threatening answer. Mr. Nairne, influenced by his feelings rather than
his judgment (for these people were quite removed from the Company's
control, and our interference in their quarrels was not necessary)
marched with a party of fifty or sixty men, of whom twelve were
Europeans, to chastise him; but on approaching the village they found it
so perfectly enclosed with growing bamboos, within which was a strong
paling, that they could not even see the place or an enemy.

DEATH OF MR. NAIRNE.

As they advanced however to examine the defences a shot from an unseen
person struck Mr. Nairne in the breast, and he expired immediately. In
him was lost a respectable gentleman of great scientific acquirements,
and a valuable servant of the Company. It was with much difficulty that
the party was enabled to save the body. A caffree and a Malay who fell in
the struggle were afterwards eaten. Thus the experience of later days is
found to agree with the uniform testimony of old writers; and although I
am aware that each and every of these proofs taken singly may admit of
some cavil, yet in the aggregate they will be thought to amount to
satisfactory evidence that human flesh is habitually eaten by a certain
class of the inhabitants of Sumatra.

That this extraordinary nation has preserved the rude genuineness of its
character and manners may be attributed to various causes; as the want of
the precious metals in its country to excite the rapacity of invaders or
avarice of colonists, the vegetable riches of the soil being more
advantageously obtained in trade from the unmolested labours of the
natives; their total unacquaintance with navigation; the divided nature
of their government and independence of the petty chieftains. which are
circumstances unfavourable to the propagation of new opinions and
customs, as the contrary state of society may account for the complete
conversion of the subjects of Menangkabau to the faith of Mahomet; and
lastly the ideas entertained of the ferociousness of the people from the
practices above described, which may well be supposed to have damped the
ardour and restrained the zealous attempts of religious innovators.


CHAPTER 21.

KINGDOM OF ACHIN.
ITS CAPITAL.
AIR.
INHABITANTS.
COMMERCE.
MANUFACTURES.
NAVIGATION.
COIN.
GOVERNMENT.
REVENUES.
PUNISHMENTS.

Achin (properly Acheh) is the only kingdom of Sumatra that ever arrived
to such a degree of political consequence in the eyes of the western
people as to occasion its transactions becoming the subject of general
history. But its present condition is widely different from what it was
when by its power the Portuguese were prevented from gaining a footing in
the island, and its princes received embassies from all the great
potentates of Europe.

SITUATION.

Its situation occupies the north-western extreme of the island, bordering
generally on the country of the Battas; but, strictly speaking, its
extent, inland, reaches no farther than about fifty miles to the
south­east. Along the north and eastern coast its territory was
considered in 1778 as reaching to a place called Karti, not far distant
from Batu­bara river, including Pidir, Samerlonga, and Pase. On the
western coast, where it formerly boasted a dominion as far down as
Indrapura, and possessed complete jurisdiction at Tiku, it now extends no
farther than Barus; and even there, or at the intermediate ports,
although the Achinese influence is predominant and its merchants enjoy
the trade, the royal power seems to be little more than nominal. The
interior inhabitants from Achin to Singkel are distinguished into those
of Allas, Riah, and Karrau. The Achinese manners prevail among the two
former; but the last resemble the Battas, from whom they are divided by a
range of mountains.

CAPITAL.

The capital stands on a river which empties itself by several channels
near the north-west point of the island, or Achin Head, about a league
from the sea, where the shipping lies in a road rendered secure by the
shelter of several islands. The depth of water on the bar being no more
than four feet at low-water spring-tides, only the vessels of the country
can venture to pass it; and in the dry monsoon not even those of the
larger class. The town is situated on a plain, in a wide valley formed
like an amphitheatre by lofty ranges of hills. It is said to be extremely
populous, containing eight thousand houses, built of bamboos and rough
timbers, standing distinct from each other and mostly raised on piles
some feet above the ground in order to guard against the effects of
inundation. The appearance of the place and nature of the buildings
differ little from those of the generality of Malayan bazaars, excepting
that its superior wealth has occasioned the erection of a greater number
of public edifices, chiefly mosques, but without the smallest pretension
to magnificence. The country above the town is highly cultivated, and
abounds with small villages and groups of three or four houses, with
white mosques interspersed.*

(*Footnote. The following description of the appearance of Achin, by a
Jesuit missionary who touched there in his way to China in 1698, is so
picturesque, and at the same time so just, that I shall make no apology
for introducing it. Imaginez vous une foret de cocotiers, de bambous,
d'ananas, de bagnaniers, au milieu de laquelle passe une assez belle
riviere toute couverte de bateaux; mettez dans cette foret une nombre
incroyable de maisons faites avec de cannes, de roseaux, des ecorces, et
disposez les de telle maniere qu'elles forment tantot des rues, et tantot
des quartiers separes: coupez ces divers quartiers de prairies et de
bois: repandez par tout dans cette grande foret, autant d'hommes qu'on en
voit dans nos villes, lorsqu'elles sont bien peuplees; vous vous formerez
une idee assez juste d'Achen; et vous conviendrez qu'une ville de ce gout
nouveau peut faire plaisir a des etrangers qui passent. Elle me parut
d'abord comme ces paysages sortis de l'imagination d'un peintre ou d'un
poete, qui rassemble sous un coup d'oeil, tout ce que la campagne a de
plus riant. Tout est neglige et naturel, champetre et meme un peu
sauvage. Quand on est dans la rade, on n'appercoit aucun vestige, ni
aucune apparence de ville, parceque des grands arbres qui bordent le
rivage en cachent toutes les maisons; mais outre le paysage qui est tres
beau, rien n'est plus agreable que de voir de matin un infinite de petits
bateaux de pecheurs qui sortent de la riviere avec le jour, et qui ne
rentrent que le soir, lorsque le soleil se couche. Vous diriez un essaim
d'abeilles qui reviennent a la cruche chargees du fruit de leur travail.
Lettres Edifiantes Tome 1. For a more modern account of this city I beg
leave to refer the reader to Captain Thomas Forrest's Voyage to the
Mergui Archipelago pages 38 to 60, where he will find a lively and
natural description of everything worthy of observation in the place,
with a detail of the circumstances attending his own reception at the
court, illustrated with an excellent plate.)

The king's palace, if it deserves the appellation, is a very rude and
uncouth piece of architecture, designed to resist the attacks of internal
enemies, and surrounded for that purpose with a moat and strong walls,
but without any regular plan, or view to the modern system of military
defence.*

(*Footnote. Near the gate of the palace are several pieces of brass
ordnance of an extraordinary size, of which some are Portuguese; but two
in particular, of English make, attract curiosity. They were sent by king
James the first to the reigning monarch of Acheen, and have still the
founder's name and the date legible upon them. The diameter of the bore
of one is eighteen inches; of the other twenty-two or twenty-four. Their
strength however does not appear to be in proportion to the calibre, nor
do they seem in other respects to be of adequate dimensions. James, who
abhorred bloodshed himself, was resolved that his present should not be
the instrument of it to others.)

AIR.

The air is esteemed comparatively healthy, the country being more free
from woods and stagnant water than most other parts; and fevers and
dysenteries, to which these local circumstances are supposed to give
occasion, are there said to be uncommon. But this must not be too readily
credited; for the degree of insalubrity attending situations in that
climate is known so frequently to alter, from inscrutable causes, that a
person who has resided only two or three years on a spot cannot pretend
to form a judgment; and the natives, from a natural partiality, are
always ready to extol the healthiness, as well as other imputed
advantages, of their native places.

INHABITANTS.

The Achinese differ much in their persons from the other Sumatrans, being
in general taller, stouter, and of darker complexions. They are by no
means in their present state a genuine people, but thought, with great
appearance of reason, to be a mixture of Battas and Malays, with chulias,
as they term the natives of the west of India, by whom their ports have
in all ages been frequented. In their dispositions they are more active
and industrious than some of their neighbours; they possess more
sagacity, have more knowledge of other countries, and as merchants they
deal upon a more extensive and liberal footing. But this last observation
applies rather to the traders at a distance from the capital and to their
transactions than to the conduct observed at Achin, which, according to
the temper and example of the reigning monarch, is often narrow,
extortionary, and oppressive. Their language is one of the general
dialects of the eastern islands, and its affinity to the Batta may be
observed in the comparative table; but they make use of the Malayan
character. In religion they are Mahometans, and having many priests, and
much intercourse with foreigners of the same faith, its forms and
ceremonies are observed with some strictness.

COMMERCE.

Although no longer the great mart of eastern commodities, Achin still
carries on a considerable trade, as well with private European merchants
as with the natives of that part of the coast of India called Telinga,
which is properly the country lying between the Kistna and Godavery
rivers; but the name, corrupted by the Malays to Kling, is commonly
applied to the whole coast of Coromandel. These supply it with salt,
cotton piece-goods, principally those called long-cloth white and blue,
and chintz with dark grounds; receiving in return gold-dust, raw silk of
inferior quality, betel-nut, patch-leaf (Melissa lotoria, called dilam by
the Malays) pepper, sulphur, camphor, and benzoin. The two latter are
carried thither from the river of Sungkel, where they are procured from
the country of the Battas, and the pepper from Pidir; but this article is
also exported from Susu to the amount of about two thousand tons
annually, where it sells at the rate of twelve dollars the pikul, chiefly
for gold and silver. The quality is not esteemed good, being gathered
before it is sufficiently ripe, and it is not cleaned like the Company's
pepper. The Americans have been of late years the chief purchasers. The
gold collected at Achin comes partly from the mountains in the
neighbourhood but chiefly from Nalabu and Susu. Its commerce,
independently of that of the out-ports, gives employment to from eight to
ten Kling vessels, of a hundred and fifty or two hundred tons burden,
which arrive annually from Porto Novo and Coringa about the month of
August, and sail again in February and March. These are not permitted to
touch at any places under the king's jurisdiction, on the eastern or
western coast, as it would be injurious to the profits of his trade, as
well as to his revenue from the customs and from the presents exacted on
the arrival of vessels, and for which his officers at those distant
places would not account with him. It must be understood that the king of
Achin, as is usual with the princes of this part of the world, is the
chief merchant of his capital, and endeavours to be, to the utmost of his
power, the monopolizer of its trade; but this he cannot at all times
effect, and the attempt has been the cause of frequent rebellions. There
is likewise a ship or two from Surat every year, the property of native
merchants there. The country is supplied with opium, taffetas, and
muslins from Bengal, and also with iron and many other articles of
merchandise, by the European traders.

PRODUCTIONS OF THE SOIL.

The soil being light and fertile produces abundance of rice, esculent
vegetables, much cotton, and the finest tropical fruits. Both the mango
and mangustin are said to be of excellent quality. Cattle and other
articles of provision are in plenty, and reasonable in price. The plough
is there drawn by oxen, and the general style of cultivation shows a
skill in agriculture superior to what is seen in other parts of the
island.

MANUFACTURES.

Those few arts and manufactures which are known in other parts of the
island prevail likewise here, and some of them are carried to more
perfection. A considerable fabric of a thick species of cotton cloth, and
of striped or chequered stuff for the short drawers worn both by Malays
and Achinese, is established here, and supplies an extensive foreign
demand, particularly in the Rau country, where they form part of the
dress of the women as well as men. They weave also very handsome and rich
silk pieces, of a particular form, for that part of the body­dress which
the Malays call kain-sarong; but this manufacture had much decreased at
the period when my inquiries were made, owing, as the people said, to an
unavoidable failure in the breed of silkworms, but more probably to the
decay of industry amongst themselves, proceeding from their continual
civil disturbances.

NAVIGATION.

They are expert and bold navigators, and employ a variety of vessels
according to the voyages they have occasion to undertake, and the
purposes either of commerce or war for which they design them. The river
is covered with a number of small fishing vessels which go to sea with
the morning breeze and return in the afternoon with the sea-wind, full
laden. These are named koleh, are raised about two streaks on a sampan
bottom, have one mast and an upright or square sail, but long in
proportion to its breadth, which rolls up. These sometimes make their
appearance so far to the southward as Bencoolen. The banting is a trading
vessel, of a larger class, having two masts, with upright sails like the
former, rising at the stem and stern, and somewhat resembling a Chinese
junk, excepting in its size. They have also very long narrow boats, with
two masts, and double or single outriggers, called balabang and jalor.
These are chiefly used as war-boats, mount guns of the size of swivels,
and carry a number of men. For representations of various kinds of
vessels employed by these eastern people the reader is referred to the
plates in Captain Forrest's two voyages.

COIN.

They have a small thin adulterated gold coin, rudely stamped with Arabic
characters, called mas or massiah. Its current value is said to be about
fifteen, and its intrinsic about twelve pence, or five Madras fanams.
Eighty of these are equal to the bangkal, of which twenty make a katti.
The tail, here an imaginary valuation, is one-fifth of the bang­kal, and
equal to sixteen mas. The small leaden money, called pitis or cash, is
likewise struck here for the service of the bazaar; but neither these nor
the former afford any convenience to the foreign trader. Dollars and
rupees pass current, and most other species of coin are taken at a
valuation; but payments are commonly made in gold dust, and for that
purpose everyone is provided with small scales or steelyards, called
daching. They carry their gold about them, wrapped in small pieces of
bladder (or rather the integument of the heart), and often make purchases
to so small an amount as to employ grains of padi or other seeds for
weights.

GOVERNMENT.

The monarchy is hereditary, and is more or less absolute in proportion to
the talents of the reigning prince; no other bounds being set to his
authority than the counterbalance or check it meets with from the power
of the great vassals, and disaffection of the commonalty. But this
resistance is exerted in so irregular a manner, and with so little view
to the public good, that nothing like liberty results from it. They
experience only an alternative of tyranny and anarchy, or the former
under different shapes. Many of the other Sumatran people are in the
possession of a very high degree of freedom, founded upon a rigid
attachment to their old established customs and laws. The king usually
maintains a guard of a hundred sepoys (from the Coromandel coast) about
his palace, but pays them indifferently.

The grand council of the nation consists of the king or Sultan, the
maharaja, laksamana, paduka tuan, and bandhara. Inferior in rank to these
are the ulubalangs or military champions, among whom are several
gradations of rank, who sit on the king's right hand, and other officers
named kajuran, who sit on his left. At his feet sits a woman, to whom he
makes known his pleasure: by her it is communicated to a eunuch, who sits
next to her, and by him to an officer, named Kajuran Gondang, who then
proclaims it aloud to the assembly. There are also present two other
officers, one of whom has the government of the Bazaar or market, and the
other the superintending and carrying into execution the punishment of
criminals. All matters relative to commerce and the customs of the port
come under the jurisdiction of the Shabandar, who performs the ceremony
of giving the chap or licence for trade; which is done by lifting a
golden-hafted kris over the head of the merchant who arrives, and without
which he dares not to land his goods. Presents, the value of which are
become pretty regularly ascertained, are then sent to the king and his
officers. If the stranger be in the style of an ambassador the royal
elephants are sent down to carry him and his letters to the monarch's
presence; these being first delivered into the hands of a eunuch, who
places them in a silver dish, covered with rich silk, on the back of the
largest elephant, which is provided with a machine (houdar) for that
purpose. Within about a hundred yards of an open hall where the king sits
the cavalcade stops, and the ambassador dismounts and makes his obeisance
by bending his body and lifting his joined hands to his head. When he
enters the palace, if a European, he is obliged to take off his shoes,
and having made a second obeisance is seated upon a carpet on the floor,
where betel is brought to him. The throne was some years ago of ivory and
tortoiseshell; and when the place was governed by queens a curtain of
gauze was hung before it, which did not obstruct the audience, but
prevented any perfect view. The stranger, after some general discourse,
is then conducted to a separate building, where he is entertained with
the delicacies of the country by the officers of state, and in the
evening returns in the manner he came, surrounded by a prodigious number
of lights. On high days (ari raya) the king goes in great state, mounted
on an elephant richly caparisoned, to the great mosque, preceded by his
ulubalangs, who are armed nearly in the European manner.

DIVISION OF THE COUNTRY.

The whole kingdom is divided into certain small districts or communities,
called mukim, which seem to be equivalent to our parishes, and their
number is reckoned at one hundred and ninety, of which seventy­three are
situated in the valley of Achin. Of these last are formed three larger
districts, named Duo-puluh duo (twenty-two), Duo-puluh-limo
(twenty-five), and Duo-puluh-anam (twenty-six), from the number of mukims
they respectively contain; each of which is governed by a panglima or
provincial governor, with an imam and four pangichis for the service of
each mosque. The country is extremely populous; but the computations with
which I have been furnished exceed so far all probability that I do not
venture to insert them.

REVENUES.

The regular tax or imposition to which the country is subject, for the
use of the crown, is one koyan (about eight hundred gallons) of padi from
each mukim, with a bag of rice, and about the value of one Spanish dollar
and a half in money, from each proprietor of a house, to be delivered at
the king's store in person, in return for which homage he never fails to
receive nearly an equivalent in tobacco or some other article. On certain
great festivals presents of cattle are made to the king by the
orang-kayas or nobles; but it is from the import and export customs on
merchandise that the revenue of the crown properly arises, and which of
course fluctuates considerably. What Europeans pay is between five and
six per cent, but the Kling merchants are understood to be charged with
much higher duties; in the whole not less than fifteen, of which twelve
in the hundred are taken out of the bales in the first instance, a
disparity they are enabled to support by the provident and frugal manner
in which they purchase their investments, the cheap rate at which they
navigate their vessels, and the manner of retailing their goods to the
natives. These sources of wealth are independent of the profit derived
from the trade, which is managed for his master by a person who is styled
the king's merchant. The revenues of the nobles accrue from taxes which
they lay, as feudal lords, upon the produce of the land cultivated by
their vassals. At Pidir a measure of rice is paid for every measure of
padi sown, which amounts to about a twentieth part. At Nalabu there is a
capitation tax of a dollar a year; and at various places on the inland
roads there are tolls collected upon provisions and goods which pass to
the capital.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

The kings of Achin possess a grant of territory along the sea-coast as
far down as Bencoolen from the sultan of Menangkabau, whose superiority
has always been admitted by them, and will be perhaps so long as he
claims no authority over them, and exacts neither tribute nor homage.

PUNISHMENTS.

Achin has ever been remarkable for the severity with which crimes are
punished by their laws; the same rigour still subsists, and there is no
commutation admitted, as is regularly established in the southern
countries. There is great reason however to conclude that the poor alone
experience the rod of justice; the nobles being secure from retribution
in the number of their dependants. Petty theft is punished by suspending
the criminal from a tree, with a gun or heavy weight tied to his feet; or
by cutting off a finger, a hand, or leg, according to the nature of the
theft. Many of these mutilated and wretched objects are daily to be seen
in the streets. Robbery, on the highway and housebreaking, are punished
by drowning, and afterwards exposing the body on a stake for a few days.
If the robbery is committed upon an imam or priest the sacrilege is
expiated by burning the criminal alive. A man who is convicted of
adultery or rape is seldom attempted to be screened by his friends, but
is delivered up to the friends and relations of the injured husband or
father. These take him to some large plain and, forming themselves in a
circle, place him in the middle. A large weapon, called a gadubong, is
then delivered to him by one of his family, and if he can force his way
through those who surround him and make his escape he is not liable to
further prosecution; but it commonly happens that he is instantly cut to
pieces. In this case his relations bury him as they would a dead buffalo,
refusing to admit the corpse into their house, or to perform any funeral
rites. Would it not be reasonable to conclude that the Achinese, with so
much discouragement to vice both from law and prejudice, must prove a
moral and virtuous people? yet all travellers agree in representing them
as one of the most dishonest and flagitious nations of the East, which
the history of their government will tend to corroborate.


CHAPTER 22.

HISTORY OF THE KINGDOM OF ACHIN, FROM THE PERIOD OF ITS BEING VISITED BY
EUROPEANS.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE PORTUGUESE.

The Portuguese, under the conduct of Vasco de Gama, doubled the Cape of
Good Hope in the year 1497, and arrived on the coast of Malabar in the
following year. These people, whom the spirit of glory, commerce, and
plunder led to the most magnanimous undertakings, were not so entirely
engaged by their conquests on the continent of India as to prevent them
from extending their views to the discovery of regions yet more distant.
They learned from the merchants of Guzerat some account of the riches and
importance of Malacca, a great trading city in the farther peninsula of
India, supposed by them the Golden Chersonnese of Ptolemy. Intelligence
of this was transmitted to their enterprising sovereign Emanuel, who
became impressed with a strong desire to avail himself of the flattering
advantages which this celebrated country held out to his ambition.

1508.

He equipped a fleet of four ships under the command of Diogo Lopez de
Sequeira, which sailed from Lisbon on the eighth day of April 1508 with
orders to explore and establish connexions in those eastern parts of
Asia.

1509.

After touching at Madagascar Sequeira proceeded to Cochin, where a ship
was added to his fleet, and, departing from thence on the eighth of
September 1509, he made sail towards Malacca; but having doubled the
extreme promontory of Sumatra (then supposed to be the Taprobane of the
ancients) he anchored at Pidir, a principal port of that island, in which
he found vessels from Pegu, Bengal, and other countries. The king of the
place, who, like other Mahometan princes, was styled sultan, sent off a
deputation to him, accompanied with refreshments, excusing himself, on
account of illness, from paying his compliments in person, but assuring
him at the same time that he should derive much pleasure from the
friendship and alliance of the Portuguese, whose fame had reached his
ears. Sequeira answered this message in such terms that, by consent of
the sultan, a monument of their amity was erected on the shore; or, more
properly, as the token of discovery and possession usually employed by
the European nations. He was received in the same manner at a place
called Pase, lying about twenty leagues farther to the eastward on the
same coast, and there also erected a monument or cross. Having procured
at each of these ports as much pepper as could be collected in a short
time he hastened to Malacca, where the news of his appearance in these
seas had anticipated his arrival. Here he was near falling a sacrifice to
the insidious policy of Mahmud, the reigning king, to whom the Portuguese
had been represented by the Arabian and Persian merchants (and not very
unjustly) as lawless pirates, who, under the pretext of establishing
commercial treaties, had, at first by encroachments, and afterwards with
insolent rapacity, ruined and enslaved the princes who were weak enough
to put a confidence in them, or to allow them a footing in their
dominions. He escaped the snares that were laid for him but lost many of
his people, and, leaving others in captivity, he returned to Europe, and
gave an account of his proceedings to the king.

1510.

A fleet was sent out in the year 1510 under Diogo Mendez to establish the
Portuguese interests at Malacca; but Affonso d'Alboquerque, the governor
of their affairs in India, thought proper to detain this squadron on the
coast of Malabar until he could proceed thither himself with a greater
force.

1511.

And accordingly on the second of May 1511 he set sail from Cochin with
nineteen ships and fourteen hundred men. He touched at Pidir, where he
found some of his countrymen who had made their escape from Malacca in a
boat and sought protection on the Sumatran shore. They represented that,
arriving off Pase, they had been ill-treated by the natives, who killed
one of their party and obliged them to fly to Pidir, where they met with
hospitality and kindness from the prince, who seemed desirous to
conciliate the regard of their nation. Alboquerque expressed himself
sensible of this instance of friendship, and renewed with the sultan the
alliance that had been formed by Sequeira. He then proceeded to Pase,
whose monarch endeavoured to exculpate himself from the outrage committed
against the Portuguese fugitives, and as he could not tarry to take
redress he concealed his resentment. In crossing over to Malacca he fell
in with a large junk, or country vessel, which he engaged and attempted
to board, but the enemy, setting fire to a quantity of inflammable
oleaginous matter, he was deterred from his design, with a narrow escape
of the destruction of his own ship. The junk was then battered from a
distance until forty of her men were killed, when Alboquerque, admiring
the bravery of the crew, proposed to them that, if they would strike and
acknowledge themselves vassals of Portugal, he would treat them as
friends and take them under his protection. This offer was accepted, and
the valiant defender of the vessel informed the governor that his name
was Jeinal, the lawful heir of the kingdom of Pase; he by whom it was
then ruled being a usurper, who, taking advantage of his minority and his
own situation as regent, had seized the crown: that he had made attempts
to assert his rights, but had been defeated in two battles, and was now
proceeding with his adherents to Java, some of the princes of which were
his relations, and would, he hoped, enable him to obtain possession of
his throne.

1511.

Alboquerque promised to effect it for him, and desired the prince to
accompany him to Malacca, where they arrived the first of July 1511. In
order to save the lives of the Portuguese prisoners, and if possible to
effect their recovery, he negotiated with the king of Malacca before he
proceeded to an attack on the place; which conduct of his Jeinal
construed into fear, and, forsaking his new friend, passed over in the
night to the Malayan monarch, whose protection he thought of more
consequence to him. When Alboquerque had subdued the place, which made a
vigorous resistance, the prince of Pase, seeing the error of his policy,
returned, and threw himself at the governor's feet, acknowledged his
injurious mistrust, and implored his pardon, which was not denied him. He
doubted however it seems of a sincere reconciliation and forgiveness,
and, perceiving that no measures were taking for restoring him to his
kingdom, but on the contrary that Alboquerque was preparing to leave
Malacca with a small force, and talked of performing his promise when he
should return from Goa, he took the resolution of again attaching himself
to the fortunes of the conquered monarch, and secretly collecting his
dependants fled once more from the protection of the Portuguese. He
probably was not insensible that the reigning king of Pase, his
adversary, had for some time taken abundant pains to procure the favour
of Alboquerque, and found an occasion of demonstrating his zeal. The
governor, on his return from Malacca, met with a violent storm on the
coast of Sumatra near the point of Timiang, where his ship was wrecked.
Part of the crew making a raft were driven to Pase, where the king
treated them with kindness and sent them to the coast of Coromandel by a
merchant ship. Some years after these events Jeinal was enabled by his
friends to carry a force to Pase, and obtained the ascendency there, but
did not long enjoy his power.

Upon the reduction of Malacca the governor received messages from several
of the Sumatran princes, and amongst the rest from the king of a place
called Kampar, on the eastern coast, who had married a daughter of the
king of Malacca, but was on ill terms with his father-in-law. He desired
to become a vassal of the Portuguese crown, and to have leave to reside
under their jurisdiction. His view was to obtain the important office of
bandhara, or chief magistrate of the Malays, lately vacant by the
execution of him who possessed it. He sent before him a present of
lignum-aloes and gum-lac, the produce of his country, but Alboquerque,
suspecting the honesty of his intentions, and fearing that he either
aspired to the crown of Malacca or designed to entice the merchants to
resort to his own kingdom, refused to permit his coming, and gave the
superintendence of the natives to a person named Nina Chetuan.

1514.

After some years had elapsed, at the time when Jorge Alboquerque was
governor of Malacca, this king (Abdallah by name) persisting in his
views, paid him a visit, and was honourably received. At his departure he
had assurances given him of liberty to establish himself at Malacca, if
he should think proper, and Nina Chetuan was shortly afterwards removed
from his office, though no fault was alleged against him. He took the
disgrace so much to heart that, causing a pile to be erected before his
door, and setting fire to it, he threw himself into the flames.*

(*Footnote. This man was not a Mahometan but one of the unconverted
natives of the peninsula who are always distinguished from the Moors by
the Portuguese writers.)

The intention of appointing Abdallah to the office of bandhara was
quickly rumoured abroad, and, coming to the knowledge of the king of
Bintang, who was driven from Malacca and now carried on a vigorous war
against the Portuguese, under the command of the famous Laksamana, he
resolved to prevent his arrival there. For this purpose he leagued
himself with the king of Lingga, a neighbouring island, and sent out a
fleet of seventy armed boats to block up the port of Kampar. By the
valour of a small Portuguese armament this force was overcome in the
river of that name, and the king conducted in triumph to Malacca, where
he was invested in form with the important post he aspired to. But this
sacrifice of his independence proved an unfortunate measure to him; for
although he conducted himself in such a manner as should have given the
amplest satisfaction, and appears to have been irreproachable in the
execution of his trust, yet in the following year the king of Bintang
found means to inspire the governor with diffidence of his fidelity, and
jealousy of his power.

1515.

He was cruelly sentenced to death without the simplest forms of justice
and perished in the presence of an indignant multitude, whilst he called
heaven to witness his innocence and direct its vengeance against his
interested accusers. This iniquitous and impolitic proceeding had such an
effect upon the minds of the people that all of any property or repute
forsook the place, execrating the government of the Portuguese. The
consequences of this general odium reduced them to extreme difficulties
for provisions, which the neighbouring countries refused to supply them
with, and but for some grain at length procured from Siak with much
trouble the event had proved fatal to the garrison.

1516.

Fernando Perez d'Andrade, in his way to China, touched at Pase in order
to take in pepper. He found the people of the place, as well as the
merchants from Bengal, Cambay, and other parts of India, much
discontented with the measures then pursuing by the government of
Malacca, which had stationed an armed force to oblige all vessels to
resort thither with their merchandise and take in at that place, as an
emporium, the cargoes they were used to collect in the straits. The king
notwithstanding received Andrade well, and consented that the Portuguese
should have liberty to erect a fortress in his kingdom.

1520.

Extraordinary accounts having been related of certain islands abounding
in gold, which were reported by the general fame of India to lie off the
southern coast of Sumatra, a ship and small brigantine, under the command
of Diogo Pacheco, an experienced seaman, were sent in order to make the
discovery of them. Having proceeded as far as Daya the brigantine was
lost in a gale of wind. Pacheco stood on to Barus, a place renowned for
its gold trade, and for gum benzoin of a peculiar scent, which the
country produced. It was much frequented by vessels, both from the
neighbouring ports in the island, and from those in the West of India,
whence it was supplied with cotton cloths. The merchants, terrified at
the approach of the Portuguese, forsook their ships and fled
precipitately to the shore. The chiefs of the country sent to inquire the
motives of his visit, which he informed them were to establish friendly
connexions and to give them assurances of unmolested freedom of trade at
the city of Malacca. Refreshments were then ordered for his fleet, and
upon landing he was treated with respect by the inhabitants, who brought
the articles of their country to exchange with him for merchandise. His
chief view was to obtain information respecting the situation and other
circumstances of the ilhas d'Ouro, but they seemed jealous of imparting
any. At length, after giving him a laboured detail of the dangers
attending the navigation of the seas where they were said to lie, they
represented their situation to be distant a hundred leagues to the
south-east of Barus, amidst labyrinths of shoals and reefs through which
it was impossible to steer with any but the smallest boats. If these
islands, so celebrated about this time, existed anywhere but in the
regions of fancy,* they were probably those of Tiku, to which it is
possible that much gold might be brought from the neighbouring country of
Menangkabau. Pacheco, leaving Barus, proceeded to the southward, but did
not make the wished-for discovery. He reached the channel that divides
Sumatra from Java, which he called the strait of Polimban, from a city he
erroneously supposed to lie on the Javan shore, and passing through this
returned to Malacca by the east; being the first European who sailed
round the island of Sumatra. In the following year he sailed once more in
search of these islands, which were afterwards the object of many
fruitless voyages; but touching again at Barus he met with resistance
there and perished with all his companions.

(*Footnote. Linschoten makes particular mention of having seen them, and
gives practical directions for the navigation, but the golden dreams of
the Portuguese were never realized in them.)

A little before this time a ship under the command of Gaspar d'Acosta was
lost on the island of Gamispola (Pulo Gomez) near Achin Head, when the
people from Achin attacked and plundered the crew, killing many and
taking the rest prisoners. A ship also which belonged to Joano de Lima
was plundered in the road, and the Portuguese which belonged to her put
to death. These insults and others committed at Pase induced the governor
of Malacca, Garcia de Sa, to dispatch a vessel under Manuel Pacheco to
take satisfaction; which he endeavoured to effect by blocking up the
ports, and depriving the towns of all sources of provision, particularly
their fisheries. As he cruised between Achin and Pase a boat with five
men, going to take in fresh water at a river nigh to the latter, would
have been cut off had not the people, by wonderful efforts of valour,
overcome the numerous party which attacked them. The sultan, alarmed for
the consequences of this affray, sent immediately to sue for
reconciliation, offering to make atonement for the loss of property the
merchants had sustained by the licentiousness of his people, from a
participation in whose crimes he sought to vindicate himself. The
advantage derived from the connexion with this place induced the
government of Malacca to be satisfied with his apology, and cargoes of
pepper and raw silk were shortly after procured there; the former being
much wanted for the ships bound to China.

Jeinal, who had fled to the king of Malacca, as before mentioned,
followed that monarch to the island of Bintang, and received one of his
daughters in marriage. Six or seven years elapsed before the situation of
affairs enabled the king to lend him any effectual assistance, but at
length some advantages gained over the Portuguese afforded a proper
opportunity, and accordingly a fleet was fitted out, with which Jeinal
sailed for Pase. In order to form a judgment of the transactions of this
kingdom it must be understood that the people, having an idea of
predestination, always conceived present possession to constitute right,
however that possession might have been acquired; but yet they made no
scruple of deposing and murdering their sovereigns, and justified their
acts by this argument; that the fate of concerns so important as the
lives of kings was in the hands of God, whose vicegerents they were, and
that if it was not agreeable to him and the consequence of his will that
they should perish by the daggers of their subjects it could not so
happen. Thus it appears that their religious ideas were just strong
enough to banish from their minds every moral sentiment. The natural
consequence of these maxims was that their kings were merely the tyrants
of the day; and it is said that whilst a certain ship remained in the
port no less than two were murdered, and a third set up: but allowance
should perhaps be made for the medium through which these accounts have
been transmitted to us.

The maternal uncle of Jeinal, who, on account of his father's
infirmities, had been some time regent, and had deprived him of the
succession to the throne, was also king of Aru or Rou, a country not far
distant, and thus became monarch of both places. The caprices of the Pase
people, who submitted quietly to his usurpation, rendered them ere long
discontented with his government, and being a stranger they had the less
compunction in putting him to death. Another king was set up in his room,
who soon fell by the hands of some natives of Aru who resided at Pase, in
revenge for the assassination of their countryman.

1519.

A fresh monarch was elected by the people, and in his reign it was that
Jeinal appeared with a force from Bintang, who, carrying everything
before him, put his rival to death, and took possession of the throne.
The son of the deceased, a youth of about twelve years of age, made his
escape, accompanied by the Mulana or chief priest of the city, and
procured a conveyance to the west of India. There they threw themselves
at the feet of the Portuguese governor, Lopez Sequeira, then engaged in
an expedition to the Red Sea, imploring his aid to drive the invader from
their country, and to establish the young prince in his rights, who would
thenceforth consider himself as a vassal of the crown of Portugal. It was
urged that Jeinal, as being nearly allied to the king of Bintang, was an
avowed enemy to that nation, which he had manifested in some recent
outrages committed against the merchants from Malacca who traded at Pase.
Sequeira, partly from compassion, and partly from political motives,
resolved to succour this prince, and by placing him on the throne
establish a firm interest in the affairs of his kingdom. He accordingly
gave orders to Jorge Alboquerque, who was then proceeding with a strong
fleet towards Malacca, to take the youth with him, whose name was
Orfacam,* and after having expelled Jeinal to put him in possession of
the sovereignty.

(*Footnote. Evidently corrupted, as are most of the country names and
titles, which shows that the Portuguese were not at this period much
conversant in the Malayan language.)

When Jeinal entered upon the administration of the political concerns of
the kingdom, although he had promised his father-in-law to carry on the
war in concert with him, yet, being apprehensive of the effects of the
Portuguese power, he judged it more for his interest to seek a
reconciliation with them than to provoke their resentment, and in
pursuance of that system had so far recommended himself to Garcia de Sa,
the governor of Malacca, that he formed a treaty of alliance with him.
This was however soon interrupted, and chiefly by the imprudence of a man
named Diogo Vaz, who made use of such insulting language to the king,
because he delayed payment of a sum of money he owed him, that the
courtiers, seized with indignation, immediately stabbed him with their
krises, and, the alarm running through the city, others of the Portuguese
were likewise murdered. The news of this affair, reaching Goa, was an
additional motive for the resolution taken of dethroning him.

1521.

Jorge d'Alboquerque arrived at Pase in 1521 with Prince Orfacam, and the
inhabitants came off in great numbers to welcome his return. The king of
Aru had brought thither a considerable force the preceding day, designing
to take satisfaction for the murder of his relation, the uncle of Jeinal,
and now proposed to Alboquerque that they should make the attack in
conjunction, who thought proper to decline it. Jeinal, although he well
knew the intention of the enemy, yet sent a friendly message to
Alboquerque, who in answer required him to relinquish his crown in favour
of him whom he styled the lawful prince. He then represented to him the
injustice of attempting to force him from the possession of what was his,
not only by right of conquest but of hereditary descent, as was well
known to the governor himself; that he was willing to consider himself as
the vassal of the king of Portugal, and to grant every advantage in point
of trade that they could expect from the administration of his rival; and
that since his obtaining the crown he had manifested the utmost
friendship to the Portuguese, for which he appealed to the treaty formed
with him by the government of Malacca, which was not disturbed by any
fault that could in justice be imputed to himself. These arguments, like
all others that pass between states which harbour inimical designs, had
no effect upon Alboquerque, who, after reconnoitring the ground, gave
orders for the attack. The king was now sensible that there was nothing
left for him but to conquer or die, and resolved to defend himself to
extremity in an entrenchment he had formed at some distance from the town
of Pase, where he had never yet ventured to reside as the people were in
general incensed against him on account of the destruction of the late
king of their choice; for though they were ever ready to demolish those
whom they disliked, yet were they equally zealous to sacrifice their own
lives in the cause of those to whom they were attached. The Portuguese
force consisted but of three hundred men, yet such was the superiority
they possessed in war over the inhabitants of these countries that they
entirely routed Jeinal's army, which amounted to three thousand, with
many elephants, although they fought bravely. When he fell they became
dispirited, and, the people of Aru joining in the pursuit, a dreadful
slaughter succeeded, and upwards of two thousand Sumatrans lay dead, with
the loss of only five or six Europeans; but several were wounded, among
whom was Alboquerque himself.

The next measure was to place the young prince upon the throne, which was
performed with much ceremony. The mulana was appointed his governor, and
Nina Cunapan, who in several instances had shown a friendship for the
Portuguese, was continued in the office of Shabandar. It was stipulated
that the prince should do homage to the crown of Portugal, give a grant
of the whole produce of pepper of his country at a certain price, and
defray the charges of a fortress which they then prepared to erect in his
kingdom, and of which Miranda d'Azeuedo was appointed captain, with a
garrison of a hundred soldiers. The materials were mostly timber, with
which the ruins of Jeinal's entrenchment supplied them. After
Alboquerque's departure the works had nearly fallen into the hands of an
enemy, named Melek-el-adil, who called himself sultan of Pase and made
several desultory attacks upon them; but he was at length totally routed,
and the fortifications were completed without further molestation.

1521.

A fleet which sailed from the west of India a short time after that of
Alboquerque, under the command of Jorge de Brito, anchored in the road of
Achin, in their way to the Molucca Islands. There was at this time at
that place a man of the name of Joano Borba, who spoke the language of
the country, having formerly fled thither from Pase when Diogo Vaz was
assassinated. Being afterwards intrusted with the command of a trading
vessel from Goa, which foundered at sea, he again reached Achin, with
nine men in a small boat, and was hospitably received by the king, when
he learned that the ship had been destined to his port. Borba came off to
the fleet along with a messenger sent by the king to welcome the
commander and offer him refreshments for his fleet, and, being a man of
extraordinary loquacity, he gave a pompous description to Brito of a
temple in the country in which was deposited a large quantity of gold: he
mentioned likewise that the king was in possession of the artillery and
merchandise of Gaspar d'Acosta's vessel, some time since wrecked there;
and also of the goods saved from a brigantine driven on shore at Daya, in
Pacheco's expedition; as well as of Joano de Lima's ship, which he had
caused to be cut off. Brito, being tempted by the golden prize, which he
conceived already in his power, and inflamed by Borba's representation of
the king's iniquities, sent a message in return to demand the restitution
of the artillery, ship, and goods, which had been unlawfully seized. The
king replied that, if he wanted those articles to be refunded, he must
make his demand to the sea which had swallowed them up. Brito and his
captains now resolved to proceed to an attack upon the place, and so
secure did they make themselves of their prey that they refused
permission to a ship lately arrived, and which did not belong to their
squadron, to join them or participate in the profits of their adventure.
They prepared to land two hundred men in small boats; a larger, with a
more considerable detachment and their artillery, being ordered to
follow. About daybreak they had proceeded halfway up the river, and came
near to a little fort designed to defend the passage, where Brito thought
it advisable to stop till the remainder of their force should join them;
but, being importuned by his people, he advanced to make himself master
of the fort, which was readily effected. Here he again resolved to make
his stand, but by the imprudence of his ensign, who had drawn some of the
party into a skirmish with the Achinese, he was forced to quit that post
in order to save his colours, which were in danger. At this juncture the
king appeared at the head of eight hundred or a thousand men, and six
elephants. A desperate conflict ensued, in which the Portuguese received
considerable injury. Brito sent orders for the party he had left to come
up, and endeavoured to retreat to the fort, but he found himself so
situated that it could not be executed without much loss, and presently
after he received a wound from an arrow through the cheeks. No assistance
arriving, it was proposed that they should retire in the best manner they
could to their boats; but this Brito would not consent to, preferring
death to flight, and immediately a lance pierced his thighs, and he fell
to the ground. The Portuguese, rendered desperate, renewed the combat
with redoubled vigour, all crowding to the spot where their commander
lay, but their exertions availed them nothing against such unequal force,
and they only rushed on to sacrifice. Almost every man was killed, and
among these were near fifty persons of family who had embarked as
volunteers. Those who escaped belonged chiefly to the corps-de-reserve,
who did not, or could not, come up in time to succour their unfortunate
companions. Upon this merited defeat the squadron immediately weighed
anchor, and, after falling in with two vessels bound on the discovery of
the Ilhas d'Ouro, arrived at Pase, where they found Alboquerque employed
in the construction of his fortress, and went with him to make an attack
on Bintang.

STATE OF ACHIN IN 1511.

At the period when Malacca fell into the hands of the Portuguese Achin
and Daya are said by the historians of that nation to have been provinces
subject to Pidir, and governed by two slaves belonging to the sultan of
that place, to each of whom he had given a niece in marriage. Slaves, it
must be understood, are in that country on a different footing from those
in most other parts of the world, and usually treated as children of the
family. Some of them are natives of the continent of India, whom their
masters employ to trade for them; allowing them a certain proportion of
the profits and permission to reside in a separate quarter of the city.
It frequently happened also that men of good birth, finding it necessary
to obtain the protection of some person in power, became voluntary slaves
for this purpose, and the nobles, being proud of such dependants,
encouraged the practice by treating them with a degree of respect, and in
many instances they made them their heirs. The slave of this description
who held the government of Achin had two sons, the elder of whom was
named Raja Ibrahim, and the younger Raja Lella, and were brought up in
the house of their master. The father being old was recalled from his
post; but on account of his faithful services the sultan gave the
succession to his eldest son, who appears to have been a youth of an
ambitious and very sanguinary temper. A jealousy had taken place between
him and the chief of Daya whilst they were together at Pidir, and as soon
as he came into power he resolved to seek revenge, and with that view
entered in a hostile manner the district of his rival. When the sultan
interposed it not only added fuel to his resentment but inspired him with
hatred towards his master, and he showed his disrespect by refusing to
deliver up, on the requisition of the sultan, certain Portuguese
prisoners taken from a vessel lost at Pulo Gomez, and which he afterwards
complied with at the intercession of the Shabandar of Pase. This conduct
manifesting an intention of entirely throwing off his allegiance, his
father endeavoured to recall him to a sense of his duty by representing
the obligations in which the family were indebted to the sultan, and the
relationship which so nearly connected them. But so far was this
admonition from producing any good effect that he took offence at his
father's presumption, and ordered him to be confined in a cage, where he
died.

1521.

Irritated by these acts, the sultan resolved to proceed to extremities
against him; but by means of the plunder of some Portuguese vessels, as
before related, and the recent defeat of Brito's party, he became so
strong in artillery and ammunition, and so much elated with success, that
he set his master at defiance and prepared to defend himself. His force
proved superior to that of Pidir, and in the end he obliged the sultan to
fly for refuge and assistance to the European fortress at Pase,
accompanied by his nephew, the chief of Daya, who was also forced from
his possessions.

1522.

Ibrahim had for some time infested the Portuguese by sending out parties
against them, both by sea and land; but these being always baffled in
their attempts with much loss, he began to conceive a violent antipathy
against that nation, which he ever after indulged to excess. He got
possession of the city of Pidir by bribing the principal officers, a mode
of warfare that he often found successful and seldom neglected to
attempt. These he prevailed upon to write a letter to their master,
couched in artful terms, in which they besought him to come to their
assistance with a body of Portuguese, as the only chance of repelling the
enemy by whom they pretended to be invested. The sultan showed this
letter to Andre Henriquez, then governor of the fort, who, thinking it a
good opportunity to chastise the Achinese, sent by sea a detachment of
eighty Europeans and two hundred Malays under the command of his brother
Manuel, whilst the sultan marched overland with a thousand men and
fifteen elephants to the relief of the place. They arrived at Pidir in
the night, but, being secretly informed that the king of Achin was master
of the city, and that the demand for succour was a stratagem, they
endeavoured to make their retreat; which the land troops effected, but
before the tide could enable the Portuguese to get their boats afloat
they were attacked by the Achinese, who killed Manuel and thirty-five of
his men.

Henriquez, perceiving his situation at Pase was becoming critical, not
only from the force of the enemy but the sickly state of his garrison,
and the want of provisions, which the country people now withheld from
him, discontinuing the fairs that they were used to keep three times in
the week, dispatched advices to the governor of India, demanding
immediate succours, and also sent to request assistance of the king of
Aru, who had always proved the steadfast friend of Malacca, and who,
though not wealthy, because his country was not a place of trade, was yet
one of the most powerful princes in those parts. The king expressed his
joy in having an opportunity of serving his allies, and promised his
utmost aid; not only from friendship to them, but indignation against
Ibrahim, whom he regarded as a rebellious slave.

1523.

A supply of stores at length arrived from India under the charge of Lopo
d'Azuedo, who had orders to relieve Henriquez in the command; but,
disputes having arisen between them, and chiefly on the subject of
certain works which the shabandar of Pase had been permitted to erect
adjoining to the fortress, d'Azuedo, to avoid coming to an open rupture,
departed for Malacca. Ibrahim, having found means to corrupt the honesty
of this shabandar, who had received his office from Alboquerque, gained
intelligence through him of all that passed. This treason, it is
supposed, he would not have yielded to but for the desperate situation of
affairs. The country of Pase was now entirely in subjection to the
Achinese, and nothing remained unconquered but the capital, whilst the
garrison was distracted with internal divisions.

After the acquisition of Pidir the king thought it necessary to remain
there some time in order to confirm his authority, and sent his brother
Raja Lella with a large army to reduce the territories of Pase, which he
effected in the course of three months, and with the more facility
because all the principal nobility had fallen in the action with Jeinal.
He fixed his camp within half a league of the city, and gave notice to
Ibrahim of the state in which matters were, who speedily joined him,
being anxious to render himself master of the place before the promised
succours from the king of Aru could arrive. His first step was to issue a
proclamation, giving notice to the people of the town that whoever should
submit to his authority within six days should have their lives,
families, and properties secured to them, but that all others must expect
to feel the punishment due to their obstinacy. This had the effect he
looked for, the greater part of the inhabitants coming over to his camp.
He then commenced his military operations, and in the third attack got
possession of the town after much slaughter; those who escaped his fury
taking shelter in the neighbouring mountains and thick woods. He sent a
message to the commander of the fortress, requiring him to abandon it and
to deliver into his hands the kings of Pidir and Daya, to whom he had
given protection. Henriquez returned a spirited answer to this summons,
but, being sickly at the time, at best of an unsteady disposition, and
too much attached to his trading concerns for a soldier, he resolved to
relinquish the command to his relation Aires Coelho, and take passage for
the West of India.

1523.

He had not advanced farther on his voyage than the point of Pidir, when
he fell in with two Portuguese ships bound to the Moluccas, the captains
of which he made acquainted with the situation of the garrison, and they
immediately proceeded to its relief. Arriving in the night they heard
great firing of cannon, and learned next morning that the Achinese had
made a furious assault in hopes of carrying the fortress before the
ships, which were descried at a distance, could throw succours into it.
They had mastered some of the outworks, and the garrison represented that
it was impossible for them to support such another shock without aid from
the vessels. The captains, with as much force as could be spared, entered
the fort, and a sally was shortly afterwards resolved on and executed, in
which the besiegers sustained considerable damage. Every effort was
likewise employed to repair the breaches and stop up the mines that had
been made by the enemy in order to effect a passage into the place.
Ibrahim now attempted to draw them into a snare by removing his camp to a
distance and making a feint of abandoning his enterprise; but this
stratagem proved ineffectual. Reflecting then with indignation that his
own force consisted of fifteen thousand men whilst that of the Europeans
did not exceed three hundred and fifty, many of whom were sick and
wounded, and others worn out with the fatigue of continual duty
(intelligence whereof was conveyed to him), he resolved once more to
return to the siege, and make a general assault upon all parts of the
fortification at once. Two hours before daybreak he caused the place to
be surrounded with eight thousand men, who approached in perfect silence.
The nighttime was preferred by these people for making their attacks as
being then most secure from the effect of firearms, and they also
generally chose a time of rain, when the powder would not burn. As soon
as they found themselves perceived they set up a hideous shout, and,
fixing their scaling ladders, made of bamboo and wonderfully light, to
the number of six hundred, they attempted to force their way through the
embrasures for the guns; but after a strenuous contest they were at
length repulsed. Seven elephants were driven with violence against the
paling of one of the bastions, which gave way before them like a hedge,
and overset all the men who were on it. Javelins and pikes these enormous
beasts made no account of, but upon setting fire to powder under their
trunks they drew back with precipitation in spite of all the efforts of
their drivers, overthrew their own people, and, flying to the distance of
several miles, could not again be brought into the lines. The Achinese
upon receiving this check thought to take revenge by setting fire to some
vessels that were in the dockyard; but this proved an unfortunate measure
to them, for by the light which it occasioned the garrison were enabled
to point their guns, and did abundant execution.

1524.

Henriquez, after beating sometime against a contrary wind, put back to
Pase, and, coming on shore the day after this conflict, resumed his
command. A council was soon after held to determine what measures were
fittest to be pursued in the present situation of affairs, and, taking
into their consideration that no further assistance could be expected
from the west of India in less than six months, that the garrison was
sickly and provisions short, it was resolved by a majority of votes to
abandon the place, and measures were taken accordingly. In order to
conceal their intentions from the enemy they ordered such of the
artillery and stores as could be removed conveniently to be packed up in
the form of merchandise and then shipped off. A party was left to set
fire to the buildings, and trains of powder were so disposed as to lead
to the larger cannon, which they overcharged that they might burst as
soon as heated. But this was not effectually executed, and the pieces
mostly fell into the hands of the Achinese, who upon the first alarm of
the evacuation rushed in, extinguished the flames, and turned upon the
Portuguese their own artillery, many of whom were killed in the water as
they hurried to get into their boats. They now lost as much credit by
this ill conducted retreat as they had acquired by their gallant defence,
and were insulted by the reproachful shouts of the enemy, whose power was
greatly increased by this acquisition of military stores, and of which
they often severely experienced the effects. To render their disgrace
more striking it happened that as they sailed out of the harbour they met
thirty boats laden with provisions for their use from the king of Aru,
who was himself on his march overland with four thousand men: and when
they arrived at Malacca they found troops and stores embarked there for
their relief. The unfortunate princes who had sought an asylum with them
now joined in their flight; the sultan of Pase proceeded to Malacca, and
the sultan of Pidir and chief of Daya took refuge with the king of Aru.

1525.

Raja Nara, king of Indragiri, in conjunction with a force from Bintang,
attacked the king of a neighbouring island called Lingga, who was in
friendship with the Portuguese. A message which passed on this occasion
gives a just idea of the style and manners of this people. Upon their
acquainting the king of Lingga, in their summons of surrender, that they
had lately overcome the fleet of Malacca, he replied that his
intelligence informed him of the contrary; that he had just made a
festival and killed fifty goats to celebrate one defeat which they had
received, and hoped soon to kill a hundred in order to celebrate a
second. His expectations were fulfilled, or rather anticipated, for the
Portuguese, having a knowledge of the king of Indragiri's design, sent
out a small fleet which routed the combined force before the king of
Lingga was acquainted with their arrival, his capital being situated high
up on the river.

1526.

In the next year, at the conquest of Bintang, this king unsolicited sent
assistance to his European allies.

1527.

However well founded the accounts may have been which the Portuguese have
given us of the cruelties committed against their people by the king of
Achin, the barbarity does not appear to have been only on one side.
Francisco de Mello, being sent in an armed vessel with dispatches to Goa,
met near Achin Head with a ship of that nation just arrived from Mecca
and supposed to be richly laden. As she had on board three hundred
Achinese and forty Arabs he dared not venture to board her, but battered
her at a distance, when suddenly she filled and sunk, to the extreme
disappointment of the Portuguese, who thereby lost their prize; but they
wreaked their vengeance on the unfortunate crew as they endeavoured to
save themselves by swimming, and boast that they did not suffer a man to
escape. Opportunities of retaliation soon offered.

1528.

Simano de Sousa, going with a reinforcement to the Moluccas from Cochin,
was overtaken in the bay by a violent storm, which forced him to stow
many of his guns in the hold; and, having lost several of his men through
fatigue, he made for the nearest port he could take shelter in, which
proved to be Achin. The king, having the destruction of the Portuguese at
heart, and resolving if possible to seize their vessel, sent off a
message to De Sousa recommending his standing in closer to the shore,
where he would have more shelter from the gale which still continued, and
lie more conveniently for getting off water and provisions, at the same
time inviting him to land. This artifice not succeeding, he ordered out
the next morning a thousand men in twenty boats, who at first pretended
they were come to assist in mooring the ship; but the captain, aware of
their hostile design, fired amongst them, when a fierce engagement took
place in which the Achinese were repulsed with great slaughter, but not
until they had destroyed forty of the Portuguese. The king, enraged at
this disappointment, ordered a second attack, threatening to have his
admiral trampled to death by elephants if he failed of success. A boat
was sent ahead of this fleet with a signal of peace, and assurances to De
Sousa that the king, as soon as he was made acquainted with the injury
that had been committed, had caused the perpetrators of it to be
punished, and now once more requested him to come on shore and trust to
his honour. This proposal some of the crew were inclined that he should
accept, but being animated by a speech that he made to them it was
resolved that they should die with arms in their hands in preference to a
disgraceful and hazardous submission. The combat was therefore renewed,
with extreme fury on the one side, and uncommon efforts of courage on the
other, and the assailants were a second time repulsed; but one of those
who had boarded the vessel and afterwards made his escape represented to
the Achinese the reduced and helpless situation of their enemy, and,
fresh supplies coming off, they were encouraged to return to the attack.
De Sousa and his people were at length almost all cut to pieces, and
those who survived, being desperately wounded, were overpowered, and led
prisoners to the king, who unexpectedly treated them with extraordinary
kindness, in order to cover the designs he harboured, and pretended to
lament the fate of their brave commander. He directed them to fix upon
one of their companions, who should go in his name to the governor of
Malacca, to desire he would immediately send to take possession of the
ship, which he meant to restore, as well as to liberate them. He hoped by
this artifice to draw more of the Portuguese into his power, and at the
same time to effect a purpose of a political nature. A war had recently
broken out between him and the king of Aru, the latter of whom had
deputed ambassadors to Malacca, to solicit assistance, in return for his
former services, and which was readily promised to him. It was highly the
interest of the king of Achin to prevent this junction, and therefore,
though determined to relax nothing in his plans of revenge, he hastened
to dispatch Antonio Caldeira, one of the captives, with proposals of
accommodation and alliance, offering to restore not only this vessel, but
also the artillery which he had taken at Pase. These terms appeared to
the governor too advantageous to be rejected. Conceiving a favourable
idea of the king's intentions, from the confidence which Caldeira, who
was deceived by the humanity shown to the wounded captives, appeared to
place in his sincerity, he became deaf to the representations that were
made to him by more experienced persons of his insidious character. A
message was sent back, agreeing to accept his friendship on the proposed
conditions, and engaging to withhold the promised succours from the king
of Aru. Caldeira, in his way to Achin, touched at an island, where he was
cut off with those who accompanied him. The ambassadors from Aru being
acquainted with this breach of faith, retired in great disgust, and the
king, incensed at the ingratitude shown him, concluded a peace with
Achin; but not till after an engagement between their fleets had taken
place, in which the victory remained undecided.

In order that he might learn the causes of the obscurity in which his
negotiations with Malacca rested, Ibrahim dispatched a secret messenger
to Senaia Raja, bandhara of that city, with whom he held a
correspondence; desiring also to be informed of the strength of the
garrison. Hearing in answer that the governor newly arrived was inclined
to think favourably of him, he immediately sent an ambassador to wait on
him with assurances of his pacific and friendly disposition, who returned
in company with persons empowered, on the governor's part, to negotiate a
treaty of commerce. These, upon their arrival at Achin, were loaded with
favours and costly presents, the news of which quickly flew to Malacca,
and, the business they came on being adjusted, they were suffered to
depart; but they had not sailed far before they were overtaken by boats
sent after them, and were stripped and murdered. The governor, who had
heard of their setting out, concluded they were lost by accident.
Intelligence of this mistaken opinion was transmitted to the king, who
thereupon had the audacity to request that he might be honoured with the
presence of some Portuguese of rank and consequence in his capital, to
ratify in a becoming manner the articles that had been drawn up; as he
ardently wished to see that nation trafficking freely in his dominions.

1529.

The deluded governor, in compliance with this request, adopted the
resolution of sending thither a large ship under the command of Manuel
Pacheco, with a rich cargo, the property of himself and several merchants
of Malacca, who themselves embarked with the idea of making extraordinary
profits. Senaia conveyed notice of this preparation to Achin, informing
the king at the same time that, if he could make himself master of this
vessel, Malacca must fall an easy prey to him, as the place was weakened
of half its force for the equipment. When Pacheco approached the harbour
he was surrounded by a great number of boats, and some of the people
began to suspect treachery, but so strongly did the spirit of delusion
prevail in this business that they could not persuade the captain to put
himself on his guard. He soon had reason to repent his credulity.
Perceiving an arrow pass close by him, he hastened to put on his coat of
mail, when a second pierced his neck, and he soon expired. The vessel
then became an easy prey, and the people, being made prisoners, were
shortly afterwards massacred by the king's order, along with the
unfortunate remnant of De Sousa's crew, so long flattered with the hopes
of release. By this capture the king was supposed to have remained in
possession of more artillery than was left in Malacca, and he immediately
fitted out a fleet to take advantage of its exposed state. The pride of
success causing him to imagine it already in his power, he sent a
taunting message to the governor in which he thanked him for the late
instances of his liberality, and let him know he should trouble him for
the remainder of his naval force.

Senaia had promised to put the citadel into his hands, and this had
certainly been executed but for an accident that discovered his
treasonable designs. The crews of some vessels of the Achinese fleet
landed on a part of the coast not far from the city, where they were well
entertained by the natives, and in the openness of conviviality related
the transactions which had lately passed at Achin, the correspondence of
Senaia, and the scheme that was laid for rising on the Portuguese when
they should be at church, murdering them, and seizing the fortress.
Intelligence of this was reported with speed to the governor, who had
Senaia instantly apprehended and executed. This punishment served to
intimidate those among the inhabitants who were engaged in the
conspiracy, and disconcerted the plans of the king of Achin.

This appears to be the last transaction of Ibrahim's reign recorded by
the Portuguese historians. His death is stated by De Barros to have taken
place in the year 1528 in consequence of poison administered to him by
one of his wives, to revenge the injuries her brother, the chief of Daya,
had suffered at his hand. In a Malayan work (lately come into my
possession) containing the annals of the kingdom of Achin, it is said
that a king, whose title was sultan Saleh-eddin-shah, obtained the
sovereignty in a year answering to 1511 of our era, and who, after
reigning about eighteen years, was dethroned by a brother in 1529.
Notwithstanding some apparent discordance between the two accounts there
can be little doubt of the circumstances applying to the same individual,
as it may well be presumed that, according to the usual practice in the
East, he adopted upon ascending the throne a title different from the
name which he had originally borne, although that might continue to be
his more familiar appellation, especially in the mouths of his enemies.
The want of precise coincidence in the dates cannot be thought an
objection, as the event not falling under the immediate observation of
the Portuguese they cannot pretend to accuracy within a few months, and
even their account of the subsequent transactions renders it more
probable that it happened in 1529; nor are the facts of his being
dethroned by the brother, or put to death by the sister, materially at
variance with each other; and the latter circumstance, whether true or
false, might naturally enough be reported at Malacca.

1529.

His successor took the name of Ala-eddin-shah, and afterwards, from his
great enterprises, acquired the additional epithet of keher or the
powerful. By the Portuguese he is said to have styled himself king of
Achin, Barus, Pidir, Pase, Daya, and Batta, prince of the land of the two
seas, and of the mines of Menangkabau.

1537.

Nothing is recorded of his reign until the year 1537, in which he twice
attacked Malacca. The first time he sent an army of three thousand men
who landed near the city by night, unperceived by the garrison, and,
having committed some ravages in the suburbs, were advancing to the
bridge, when the governor, Estavano de Gama, sallied out with a party and
obliged them to retreat for shelter to the woods. Here they defended
themselves during the next day, but on the following night they
re-embarked, with the loss of five hundred men. A few months afterwards
the king had the place invested with a larger force; but in the interval
the works had been repaired and strengthened, and after three days
ineffectual attempt the Achinese were again constrained to retire.

1547.

In the year 1547 he once more fitted out a fleet against Malacca, where a
descent was made; but, contented with some trifling plunder, the army
re-embarked, and the vessels proceeded to the river of Parles on the
Malayan coast. Hither they were followed by a Portuguese squadron, which
attacked and defeated a division of the fleet at the mouth of the river.
This victory was rendered famous, not so much by the valour of the
combatants, as by a revelation opportunely made from heaven to the
celebrated missionary Francisco Xavier of the time and circumstances of
it, and which he announced to the garrison at a moment when the approach
of a powerful invader from another quarter had caused much alarm and
apprehension among them.

Many transactions of the reign of this prince, particularly with the
neighbouring states of Batta and Aru (about the years 1539 and 1541) are
mentioned by Ferdinand Mendez Pinto; but his writings are too apocryphal
to allow of the facts being recorded upon his authority. Yet there is the
strongest internal evidence of his having been more intimately acquainted
with the countries of which we are now speaking, the character of the
inhabitants, and the political transactions of the period, than any of
his contemporaries; and it appears highly probable that what he has
related is substantially true: but there is also reason to believe that
he composed his work from recollection after his return to Europe, and he
may not have been scrupulous in supplying from a fertile imagination the
unavoidable failures of a memory, however richly stored.

1556.

The death of Ala-eddin took place, according to the Annals, in 1556,
after a reign of twenty-eight years.

1565.

He was succeeded by sultan Hussein­shah, who reigned about eight, and
dying in 1565 was succeeded by his son, an infant. This child survived
only seven months; and in the same year the throne was occupied by Raja
Firman-shah, who was murdered soon after.

1567.

His successor, Raja Janil, experienced a similar fate when he had reigned
ten months. This event is placed in 1567. Sultan Mansur-shah, from the
kingdom of Perak in the peninsula, was the next who ascended the throne.

1567.

The western powers of India having formed a league for the purpose of
extirpating the Portuguese, the king of Achin was invited to accede to
it, and, in conformity with the engagements by which the respective
parties were bound, he prepared to attack them in Malacca, and carried
thither a numerous fleet, in which were fifteen thousand people of his
own subjects, and four hundred Turks, with two hundred pieces of
artillery of different sizes. In order to amuse the enemy he gave out
that his force was destined against Java, and sent a letter, accompanied
with a present of a kris, to the governor, professing strong sentiments
of friendship. A person whom he turned on shore with marks of ignominy,
being suspected for a spy, was taken up, and being put to the torture
confessed that he was employed by the Ottoman emperor and king of Achin
to poison the principal officers of the place, and to set fire to their
magazine. He was put to death, and his mutilated carcase was sent off to
the king. This was the signal for hostilities. He immediately landed with
all his men and commenced a regular siege. Sallies were made with various
success and very unequal numbers. In one of these the chief of Aru, the
king's eldest son, was killed. In another the Portuguese were defeated
and lost many officers. A variety of stratagems were employed to work
upon the fears and shake the fidelity of the inhabitants of the town. A
general assault was given in which, after prodigious efforts of courage,
and imminent risk of destruction, the besieged remained victorious. The
king, seeing all his attempts fruitless, at length departed, having lost
three thousand men before the walls, beside about five hundred who were
said to have died of their wounds on the passage. The king of Ujong-tanah
or Johor, who arrived with a fleet to the assistance of the place, found
the sea for a long distance covered with dead bodies. This was esteemed
one of the most desperate and honourable sieges the Portuguese
experienced in India, their whole force consisting of but fifteen hundred
men, of whom no more than two hundred were Europeans.

1568.

In the following year a vessel from Achin bound to Java, with ambassadors
on board to the queen of Japara, in whom the king wished to raise up a
new enemy against the Portuguese, was met in the straits by a vessel from
Malacca, who took her and put all the people to the sword. It appears to
have been a maxim in these wars never to give quarter to an enemy,
whether resisting or submitting.

1569.

In 1569 a single ship, commanded by Lopez Carrasco, passing near Achin,
fell in with a fleet coming out of that port, consisting of twenty large
galleys and a hundred and eighty other vessels, commanded by the king in
person, and supposed to be designed against Malacca. The situation of the
Portuguese was desperate. They could not expect to escape, and therefore
resolved to die like men. During three days they sustained a continual
attack, when, after having by incredible exertions destroyed forty of the
enemy's vessels, and being themselves reduced to the state of a wreck, a
second ship appeared in sight. The king perceiving this retired into the
harbour with his shattered forces.

It is difficult to determine which of the two is the more astonishing,
the vigorous stand made by such a handful of men as the whole strength of
Malacca consisted of, or the prodigious resources and perseverance of the
Achinese monarch.

1573.

In 1573, after forming an alliance with the queen of Japara, the object
of which was the destruction of the European power, he appeared again
before Malacca with ninety vessels, twenty-five of them large galleys,
with seven thousand men and great store of artillery. He began his
operations by sending a party to set fire to the suburbs of the town, but
a timely shower of rain prevented its taking effect. He then resolved on
a different mode of warfare, and tried to starve the place to a surrender
by blocking up the harbour and cutting off all supplies of provisions.
The Portuguese, to prevent the fatal consequences of this measure,
collected those few vessels which they were masters of, and, a merchant
ship of some force arriving opportunely, they put to sea, attacked the
enemy's fleet, killed the principal captain, and obtained a complete
victory.

1574.

In the year following Malacca was invested by an armada from the queen of
Japara, of three hundred sail, eighty of which were junks of four hundred
tons burden. After besieging the place for three months, till the very
air became corrupted by their stay, the fleet retired with little more
than five thousand men, of fifteen that embarked on the expedition.

1575.

Scarcely was the Javanese force departed when the king of Achin once more
appeared with a fleet that is described as covering the straits. He
ordered an attack upon three Portuguese frigates that were in the road
protecting some provision vessels, which was executed with such a furious
discharge of artillery that they were presently destroyed with all their
crews. This was a dreadful blow to Malacca, and lamented, as the
historian relates, with tears of blood by the little garrison, who were
not now above a hundred and fifty men, and of those a great part
non­effective. The king, elated with his success, landed his troops, and
laid siege to the fort, which he battered at intervals during seventeen
days. The fire of the Portuguese became very slack, and after some time
totally ceased, as the governor judged it prudent to reserve his small
stock of ammunition for an effort at the last extremity. The king,
alarmed at this silence, which he construed into a preparation for some
dangerous stratagem, was seized with a panic, and, suddenly raising the
siege, embarked with the utmost precipitation; unexpectedly relieving the
garrison from the ruin that hung over it, and which seemed inevitable in
the ordinary course of events.

1582.

In 1582 we find the king appearing again before Malacca with a hundred
and fifty sail of vessels. After some skirmishes with the Portuguese
ships, in which the success was nearly equal on both sides, the Achinese
proceeded to attack Johor, the king of which was then in alliance with
Malacca. Twelve ships followed them thither, and, having burned some of
their galleys, defeated the rest and obliged them to fly to Achin. The
operations of these campaigns, and particularly the valour of the
commander, named Raja Makuta, are alluded to in Queen Elizabeth's letter
to the king, delivered in 1602 by Sir James Lancaster.

About three or four years after this misfortune Mansur-shah prepared a
fleet of no less than three hundred sail of vessels, and was ready to
embark once more upon his favourite enterprise, when he was murdered,
together with his queen and many of the principal nobility, by the
general of the forces, who had long formed designs upon the crown.

1585.

This was perpetrated in May 1585, when he had reigned nearly eighteen
years. In his time the consequence of the kingdom of Achin is represented
to have arrived at a considerable height, and its friendship to have been
courted by the most powerful states. No city in India possessed a more
flourishing trade, the port being crowded with merchant vessels which
were encouraged to resort thither by the moderate rates of the customs
levied; and although the Portuguese and their ships were continually
plundered, those belonging to every Asiatic power, from Mecca in the West
to Japan in the East, appear to have enjoyed protection and security. The
despotic authority of the monarch was counterpoised by the influence of
the orang-kayas or nobility, who are described as being possessed of
great wealth, living in fortified houses, surrounded by numerous
dependants, and feeling themselves above control, often giving a
licentious range to their proud and impatient tempers.

The late monarch's daughter and only child was married to the king of
Johor,* by whom she had a son, who, being regarded as heir to the crown
of Achin, had been brought to the latter place to be educated under the
eye of his grandfather. When the general (whose name is corruptly written
Moratiza) assumed the powers of government, he declared himself the
protector of this child, and we find him mentioned in the Annals by the
title of Sultan Buyong (or the Boy).

(*Footnote. The king of Achin sent on this occasion to Johor a piece of
ordnance, such as for greatness, length, and workmanship (says
Linschoten), could hardly be matched in all Christendom. It was
afterwards taken by the Portuguese, who shipped it for Europe, but the
vessel was lost in her passage.)

1588.

But before he had completed the third year of his nominal reign he also
was dispatched, and the usurper took formal possession of the throne in
the year 1588, by the name of Ala-eddin Rayet-shah,* being then at an
advanced period of life.

(*Footnote. Valentyn, by an obvious corruption, names him Sulthan Alciden
Ryetza, and this coincidence is strongly in favour of the authenticity
and correctness of the Annals. John Davis, who will be hereafter
mentioned, calls him, with sufficient accuracy, Sultan Aladin.)

The Annals say he was the grandson of Sultan Firman-shah; but the
Europeans who visited Achin during his reign report him to have been
originally a fisherman, who, having afterwards served in the wars against
Malacca, showed so much courage, prudence, and skill in maritime affairs
that the late king made him at length the chief commander of his forces,
and gave him one of his nearest kinswomen to wife, in right of whom he is
said to have laid claim to the throne.

The French Commodore Beaulieu relates the circumstances of this
revolution in a very different manner.*

(*Footnote. The commodore had great opportunity of information, was a man
of very superior ability, and indefatigable in his inquiries upon all
subjects, as appears by the excellent account of his voyage, and of Achin
in particular, written by himself, and published in Thevenot's
collection, of which there is an English translation in Harris; but it is
possible he may, in this instance, have been amused by a plausible tale
from the grandson of this monarch, with whom he had much intercourse.
John Davis, an intelligent English navigator whose account I have
followed, might have been more likely to hear the truth as he was at
Achin (though not a frequenter of the court) during Ala-eddin's reign,
whereas Beaulieu did not arrive till twenty' years after, and the report
of his having been originally a fisherman is also mentioned by the Dutch
writers.)

He says that, upon the extinction of the ancient royal line, which
happened about forty years before the period at which he wrote, the
orang-kayas met in order to choose a king, but, every one affecting the
dignity for himself, they could not agree and resolved to decide it by
force. In this ferment the cadi or chief judge by his authority and
remonstrances persuaded them to offer the crown to a certain noble who in
all these divisions had taken no part, but had lived in the reputation of
a wise, experienced man, being then seventy years of age, and descended
from one of the most respectable families of the country. After several
excuses on his side, and entreaties and even threats on theirs, he at
length consented to accept the dignity thus imposed upon him, provided
they should regard him as a father, and receive correction from him as
his children; but no sooner was he in possession of the sovereign power
than (like Pope Sixtus the Fifth) he showed a different face, and the
first step after his accession was to invite the orang-kayas to a feast,
where, as they were separately introduced, he caused them to be seized
and murdered in a court behind the palace. He then proceeded to demolish
their fortified houses, and lodged their cannon, arms, and goods in the
castle, taking measures to prevent in future the erection of any
buildings of substantial materials that could afford him grounds of
jealousy. He raised his own adherents from the lower class of people to
the first dignities of the state, and of those who presumed to express
any disapprobation of his conduct he made great slaughter, being supposed
to have executed not less than twenty thousand persons in the first year
of his reign.

From the silence of the Portuguese writers with respect to the actions of
this king we have reason to conclude that he did not make any attempts to
disturb their settlement of Malacca; and it even appears that some
persons in the character of ambassadors or agents from that power resided
at Achin, the principal object of whose policy appears to have been that
of inspiring him with jealousy and hatred of the Hollanders, who in their
turn were actively exerting themselves to supplant the conquerors of
India.

1600.

Towards the close of the sixteenth century they began to navigate these
seas; and in June 1600 visited Achin with two ships, but had no cause to
boast of the hospitality of their reception. An attempt was made to cut
them off, and evidently by the orders or connivance of the king, who had
prevailed upon the Dutch admiral to take on board troops and military
stores for an expedition meditated, or pretended, against the city of
Johor, which these ships were to bombard. Several of the crews were
murdered, but after a desperate conflict in both ships the treacherous
assailants were overcome and driven into the water, "and it was some
pleasure (says John Davis, an Englishman, who was the principal pilot of
the squadron) to see how the base Indians did fly, how they were killed,
and how well they were drowned."* This barbarous and apparently
unprovoked attack was attributed, but perhaps without any just grounds,
to the instigation of the Portuguese.

(*Footnote. All the Dutchmen on shore at the time were made prisoners,
and many of them continued in that state for several years. Among these
was Captain Frederick Houtman, whose Vocabulary of the Malayan language
was printed at Amsterdam in 1604, being the first that was published in
Europe. My copy has the writer's autograph.)

1600.

In November 1600 Paulus van Caarden, having also the command of two Dutch
ships, was received upon his landing with much ceremony; but at his first
audience the king refused to read a letter from the Prince of Orange,
upon its being suggested to him that instead of paper it was written on
the skin of an unclean animal; and the subsequent treatment experienced
by this officer was uniformly bad. It appears however that in December
1601 the king was so far reconciled to this new power as to send two
ambassadors to Holland, one of whom died there in August 1602, and the
other returned to Achin subsequently to the death of his master.

1602.

The first English fleet that made its appearance in this part of the
world, and laid the foundation of a commerce which was in time to eclipse
that of every other European state, arrived at Achin in June 1602. Sir
James Lancaster, who commanded it, was received by the king with abundant
ceremony and respect, which seem with these monarchs to have been usually
proportioned to the number of vessels and apparent strength of their
foreign guests. The queen of England's letter was conveyed to court with
great pomp, and the general, after delivering a rich present, the most
admired article of which was a fan of feathers, declared the purpose of
his coming was to establish peace and amity between his royal mistress
and her loving brother, the great and mighty king of Achin. He was
invited to a banquet prepared for his entertainment, in which the service
was of gold, and the king's damsels, who were richly attired and adorned
with bracelets and jewels, were ordered to divert him with dancing and
music. Before he retired he was arrayed by the king in a magnificent
habit of the country, and armed with two krises. In the present sent as a
return for the queen's there was, among other matters, a valuable ruby
set in a ring. Two of the nobles, one of whom was the chief priest, were
appointed to settle with Lancaster the terms of a commercial treaty,
which was accordingly drawn up and executed in an explicit and regular
manner. The Portuguese ambassador, or more properly the Spanish, as those
kingdoms were now united, kept a watchful and jealous eye upon his
proceedings; but by bribing the spies who surrounded him he foiled them
at their own arts, and acquired intelligence that enabled him to take a
rich prize in the straits of Malacca, with which he returned to Achin;
and, having loaded what pepper he could procure there, took his departure
in November of the same year. On this occasion it was requested by the
king that he and his officers would favour him by singing one of the
psalms of David, which was performed with much solemnity.

Very little is known of the military transactions of this reign, and no
conquest but that of Pase is recorded. He had two sons, the younger of
whom he made king of Pidir, and the elder, styled Sultan Muda, he kept at
Achin, in order to succeed him in the throne. In the year 1603 he
resolved to divide the charge of government with his intended heir, as he
found his extraordinary age began to render him unequal to the task, and
accordingly invested him with royal dignity; but the effect which might
have been foreseen quickly followed this measure. The son, who was
already advanced in years, became impatient to enjoy more complete power,
and, thinking his father had possessed the crown sufficiently long, he
confined him in a prison, where his days were soon ended.

1604.

The exact period at which this event took place is not known, but,
calculating from the duration of his reign as stated in the Annals, it
must have been early in the year 1604.* He was then ninety-five years of
age,** and described to be a hale man, but extremely gross and fat.

(*Footnote. The Dutch commander Joris van Spilbergen took leave of him in
April 1603, and his ambassador to Holland, who returned in December,
1604, found his son on the throne, according to Valentyn. Commodore
Beaulieu says he died in 1603.)

(**Footnote. According to Beaulieu Davis says he was about a hundred; and
the Dutch voyages mention that his great age prevented his ever appearing
out of his palace.)

His constitution must have been uncommonly vigorous, and his muscular
strength is indicated by this ludicrous circumstance, that when he once
condescended to embrace a Dutch admiral, contrary to the usual manners of
his country, the pressure of his arms was so violent as to cause
excessive pain to the person so honoured. He was passionately addicted to
women, gaming, and drink, his favourite beverage being arrack. By the
severity of his punishments he kept his subjects in extreme awe of him;
and the merchants were obliged to submit to more exactions and
oppressions than were felt under the government of his predecessors. The
seizure of certain vessels belonging to the people of Bantam and other
arbitrary proceedings of that nature are said to have deterred the
traders of India from entering into his ports.

The new king, who took the name of Ali Maghayat-shah, proved himself,
from indolence or want of capacity, unfit to reign. He was always
surrounded by his women, who were not only his attendants but his guards,
and carried arms for that purpose. His occupations were the bath and the
chase, and the affairs of state were neglected insomuch that murders,
robberies, oppression, and an infinity of disorders took place in the
kingdom for want of a regular and strict administration of justice. A son
of the daughter of Ala-eddin had been a favourite of his grandfather, at
the time of whose death he was twenty-three years of age, and continued,
with his mother, to reside at the court after that event. His uncle the
king of Achin having given him a rebuke on some occasion, he left his
palace abruptly and fled to the king of Pidir, who received him with
affection, and refused to send him back at the desire of the elder
brother, or to offer any violence to a young prince whom their father
loved. This was the occasion of an inveterate war which cost the lives of
many thousand people. The nephew commanded the forces of Pidir, and for
some time maintained the advantage, but these, at length seeing
themselves much inferior in numbers to the army of Ali-Maghayat, refused
to march, and the king was obliged to give him up, when he was conveyed
to Achin and put in close confinement.

1606.

Not long afterwards a Portuguese squadron under Martin Alfonso, going to
the relief of Malacca, then besieged by the Dutch, anchored in Achin road
with the resolution of taking revenge on the king for receiving these
their rivals into his ports, contrary to the stipulations of a treaty
that had been entered into between them. The viceroy landed his men, who
were opposed by a strong force on the part of the Achinese; but after a
stout resistance they gained the first turf fort with two pieces of
cannon, and commenced an attack upon the second, of masonry. In this
critical juncture the young prince sent a message to his uncle requesting
he might be permitted to join the army and expose himself in the ranks,
declaring himself more willing to die in battle against the Kafers (so
they always affected to call the Portuguese) than to languish like a
slave in chains. The fears which operated upon the king's mind induced
him to consent to his release. The prince showed so much bravery on this
occasion, and conducted two or three attacks with such success that
Alfonso was obliged to order a retreat, after wasting two days and losing
three hundred men in this fruitless attempt. The reputation of the prince
was raised by this affair to a high pitch amongst the people of Achin.
His mother, who was an active, ambitious woman, formed the design of
placing him on the throne, and furnished him with large sums of money, to
be distributed in gratuities amongst the principal orang cayas. At the
same time he endeavoured to ingratiate himself by his manners with all
classes of people. To the rich he was courteous; to the poor he was
affable; and he was the constant companion of those who were in the
profession of arms. When the king had reigned between three and four
years he died suddenly, and at the hour of his death the prince got
access to the castle. He bribed the guards, made liberal promises to the
officers, advanced a large sum of money to the governor, and sending for
the chief priest obliged him by threats to crown him. In fine he managed
the revolution so happily that he was proclaimed king before night, to
the great joy of the people, who conceived vast hopes from his
liberality, courtesy, and valour. The king of Pidir was speedily
acquainted with the news of his brother's death, but not of the
subsequent transactions, and came the next day to take possession of his
inheritance. As he approached the castle with a small retinue he was
seized by orders from the reigning prince, who, forgetting the favours he
had received, kept him prisoner for a month, and then, sending him into
the country under the pretence of a commodious retreat, had him murdered
on the way. Those who put the crown on his head were not better requited;
particularly the Maharaja, or governor of the castle. In a short time his
disappointed subjects found that instead of being humane he was cruel;
instead of being liberal he displayed extreme avarice, and instead of
being affable he manifested a temper austere and inexorable.

This king, whom the Annals name Iskander Muda, was known to our
travellers by the title of sultan Paduka Sri (words equivalent to most
gracious), sovereign of Achin and of the countries of Aru, Dilli, Johor,
Pahang, Kedah, and Perak on the one side, and of Barus, Pasaman, Tiku,
Sileda, and Priaman on the other. Some of these places were conquered by
him, and others he inherited.

1613.

He showed much friendship to the Hollanders in the early part of his
reign; and in the year 1613 gave permission to the English to settle a
factory, granting them many indulgences, in consequence of a letter and
present from king James the first. He bestowed on Captain Best, who was
the bearer of them, the title of orang kaya putih, and entertained him
with the fighting of elephants, buffaloes, rams, and tigers. His answer
to king James (a translation of which is to be found in Purchas) is
couched in the most friendly terms, and he there styles himself king of
all Sumatra. He expressed a strong desire that the king of England should
send him one of his countrywomen to wife, and promised to make her eldest
son king of all the pepper countries, that so the English might be
supplied with that commodity by a monarch of their own nation. But
notwithstanding his strong professions of attachment to us, and his
natural connexion with the Hollanders, arising from their joint enmity to
the Portuguese, it was not many years before he began to oppress both
nations and use his endeavours to ruin their trade. He became jealous of
their growing power, and particularly in consequence of intelligence that
reached him concerning the encroachments made by the latter in the island
of Java.

The conquest of Aru seems never to have been thoroughly effected by the
kings of Achin. Paduka Sri carried his arms thither and boasted of having
obtained some victories.

1613.

In 1613 he subdued Siak in its neighbourhood. Early in the same year he
sent an expedition against the kingdom of Johor (which had always
maintained a political connexion with Aru) and, reducing the city after a
siege of twenty-nine days, plundered it of everything moveable, and made
slaves of the miserable inhabitants. The king fled to the island of
Bintang, but his youngest brother and coadjutor was taken prisoner and
carried to Achin. The old king of Johor, who had so often engaged the
Portuguese, left three sons, the eldest of whom succeeded him by the
title of Iang de per-tuan.*

(*Footnote. This is not an individual title or proper name, but signifies
the sovereign or reigning monarch. In like manner Rega Bongsu signifies
the king's youngest brother, as Raja Muda does the heir apparent.)

The second was made king of Siak, and the third, called Raja Bongsu,
reigned jointly with the first. He it was who assisted the Hollanders in
the first siege of Malacca, and corresponded with Prince Maurice. The
king of Achin was married to their sister, but this did not prevent a
long and cruel war between them. A Dutch factory at Johor was involved in
the consequences of this war, and several of that nation were among the
prisoners. In the course of the same year however the king of Achin
thought proper to establish Raja Bongsu on the throne of Johor, sending
him back for that purpose with great honours, assisting him to rebuild
the fort and city, and giving him one of his own sisters in marriage.

1615.

In 1615 the king of Achin sailed to the attack of Malacca in a fleet
which he had been four years employed in preparing. It consisted of above
five hundred sail, of which a hundred were large galleys, greater than
any at that time built in Europe, carrying each from six to eight hundred
men, with three large cannon and several smaller pieces. These galleys
the orang kayas were obliged to furnish, repair, and man, at the peril of
their lives. The soldiers served without pay, and carried three months
provision at their own charge. In this great fleet there were computed to
be sixty thousand men, whom the king commanded in person. His wives and
household were taken to sea with him. Coming in sight of the Portuguese
ships in the afternoon, they received many shot from them but avoided
returning any, as if from contempt. The next day they got ready for
battle, and drew up in form of a half moon. A desperate engagement took
place and lasted without intermission till midnight, during which the
Portuguese admiral was three times boarded, and repeatedly on fire. Many
vessels on both sides were also in flames and afforded light to continue
the combat. At length the Achinese gave way, after losing fifty sail of
different sizes, and twenty thousand men. They retired to Bancalis, on
the eastern coast of Sumatra, and shortly afterwards sailed for Achin,
the Portuguese not daring to pursue their victory, both on account of the
damage they had sustained and their apprehension of the Hollanders, who
were expected at Malacca. The king proposed that the prisoners taken
should be mutually given up, which was agreed to, and was the first
instance of that act of humanity and civilisation between the two powers.

1619.

Three years afterwards the king made a conquest of the cities of Kedah
and Perak on the Malayan coast, and also of a place called Dilli in
Sumatra. This last had been strongly fortified by the assistance of the
Portuguese, and gave an opportunity of displaying much skill in the
attack. Trenches were regularly opened before it and a siege carried on
for six weeks ere it fell. In the same year the king of Jorcan (a place
unknown at present by that name) fled for refuge to Malacca with eighty
sail of boats, having been expelled his dominions by the king of Achin.
The Portuguese were not in a condition to afford him relief, being
themselves surrounded with enemies and fearful of an attack from the
Achinese more especially; but the king was then making preparations
against an invasion he heard was meditated by the viceroy of Goa.
Reciprocal apprehensions kept each party on the defensive.

1621.

The French being desirous of participating in the commerce of Achin, of
which all the European nations had formed great ideas, and all found
themselves disappointed in, sent out a squadron commanded by General
Beaulieu, which arrived in January 1621, and finally left it in December
of the same year. He brought magnificent presents to the king, but these
did not content his insatiable avarice, and he employed a variety of mean
arts to draw from him further gifts. Beaulieu met also with many
difficulties, and was forced to submit to much extortion in his
endeavours to procure a loading of pepper, of which Achin itself, as has
been observed, produced but little. The king informed him that he had
some time since ordered all the plants to be destroyed, not only because
the cultivation of them proved an injury to more useful agriculture, but
also lest their produce might tempt the Europeans to serve him, as they
had served the kings of Jakatra and Bantam. From this apprehension he had
lately been induced to expel the English and Dutch from their settlements
at Priaman and Tiku, where the principal quantity of pepper was procured,
and of which places he changed the governor every third year to prevent
any connexions dangerous to his authority from being formed. He had
likewise driven the Dutch from a factory they were attempting to settle
at Padang; which place appears to be the most remote on the western coast
of the island to which the Achinese conquests at any time extended.

1628.

Still retaining a strong desire to possess himself of Malacca, so many
years the grand object of Achinese ambition, he imprisoned the ambassador
then at his court, and made extraordinary preparations for the siege,
which he designed to undertake in person. The laksamana or commander in
chief (who had effected all the king's late conquests) attempted to
oppose this resolution; but the maharaja, willing to flatter his master's
propensity, undertook to put him in possession of the city and had the
command of the fleet given to him, as the other had of the land forces.
The king set out on the expedition with a fleet of two hundred and fifty
sail (forty­seven of them not less than a hundred feet in the keel), in
which were twenty thousand men well appointed, and a great train of
artillery. After being some time on board, with his family and retinue as
usual, he determined, on account of an ill omen that was observed, to
return to the shore. The generals, proceeding without him, soon arrived
before Malacca. Having landed their men they made a judicious
disposition, and began the attack with much courage and military skill.
The Portuguese were obliged to abandon several of their posts, one of
which, after a defence of fifty days, was levelled with the ground, and
from its ruins strong works were raised by the laksamana. The maharaja
had seized another post advantageously situated. From their several camps
they had lines of communication, and the boats on the river were
stationed in such a manner that the place was completely invested.
Matters were in this posture when a force of two thousand men came to the
assistance of the besieged from the king of Pahang, and likewise five
sail of Portuguese vessels from the coast of Coromandel; but all was
insufficient to remove so powerful an enemy, although by that time they
had lost four thousand of their troops in the different attacks and
skirmishes. In the latter end of the year a fleet of thirty sail of
ships, large and small, under the command of Nunno Alvarez Botello,
having on board nine hundred European soldiers, appeared off Malacca, and
blocked up the fleet of Achin in a river about three miles from the town.
This entirely altered the complexion of affairs. The besiegers retired
from their advanced works and hastened to the defence of their galleys,
erecting batteries by the side of the river. The maharaja being summoned
to surrender returned a civil but resolute answer. In the night,
endeavouring to make his escape with the smaller vessels through the
midst of the Portuguese, he was repulsed and wounded. Next day the whole
force of the Achinese dropped down the stream with a design to fight
their way, but after an engagement of two hours their principal galley,
named the Terror of the World, was boarded and taken, after losing five
hundred men of seven which she carried. Many other vessels were
afterwards captured or sunk. The laksamana hung out a white flag and sent
to treat with Nunno, but, some difficulty arising about the terms, the
engagement was renewed with great warmth. News was brought to the
Portuguese that the maharaja was killed and that the king of Pahang was
approaching with a hundred sail of vessels to reinforce them. Still the
Achinese kept up a dreadful fire, which seemed to render the final
success doubtful; but at length they sent proposals desiring only to be
allowed three galleys of all their fleet to carry away four thousand men
who remained of twenty that came before the town. It was answered that
they must surrender at discretion; which the laksamana hesitating to do,
a furious assault took place both by water and land upon his galleys and
works, which were all effectually destroyed or captured, not a ship and
scarcely a man escaping. He himself in the last extremity fled to the
woods, but was seized ere long by the king of Pahang's scouts. Being
brought before the governor he said to him, with an undaunted
countenance, "Behold here the laksamana for the first time overcome!" He
was treated with respect but kept a prisoner, and sent on his own famous
ship to Goa in order to be from thence conveyed to Portugal: but death
deprived his enemies of that distinguished ornament of their triumph.

1635.

This signal defeat proved so important a blow to the power of Achin that
we read of no further attempts to renew the war until the year 1635, when
the king, encouraged by the feuds which at this time prevailed in
Malacca, again violated the law of nations, to him little known, by
imprisoning their ambassador, and caused all the Portuguese about his
court to be murdered. No military operations however immediately took
place in consequence of this barbarous proceeding.

1640. 1641.

In the year 1640 the Dutch with twelve men of war, and the king of Achin
with twenty-five galleys, appeared before that harassed and devoted city;
which at length, in the following year was wrested from the hands of the
Portuguese, who had so long, through such difficulties, maintained
possession of it. This year was also marked by the death of the sultan,
whom the Dutch writers name Paduka Sri, at the age of sixty, after a
reign of thirty-five years; having just lived to see his hereditary foe
subdued; and as if the opposition of the Portuguese power, which seems
first to have occasioned the rise of that of Achin, was also necessary to
its existence, the splendour and consequence of the kingdom from that
period rapidly declined.

The prodigious wealth and resources of the monarchy during his reign are
best evinced by the expeditions he was enabled to fit out; but being no
less covetous than ambitious he contrived to make the expenses fall upon
his subjects, and at the same time filled his treasury with gold by
pressing the merchants and plundering the neighbouring states. An
intelligent person (General Beaulieu), who was for some time at his
court, and had opportunities of information on the subject, uses this
strong expression--that he was infinitely rich. He constantly employed in
his castle three hundred goldsmiths. This would seem an exaggeration, but
that it is well known the Malayan princes have them always about them in
great numbers at this day, working in the manufacture of filigree, for
which the country is so famous. His naval strength has been already
sufficiently described. He was possessed of two thousand brass guns and
small arms in proportion. His trained elephants amounted to some
hundreds. His armies were probably raised only upon the occasion which
called for their acting, and that in a mode similar to what was
established under the feudal system in Europe. The valley of Achin alone
was said to be able to furnish forty thousand men upon an emergency. A
certain number of warriors however were always kept on foot for the
protection of the king and his capital. Of these the superior class were
called ulubalang, and the inferior amba-raja, who were entirely devoted
to his service and resembled the janizaries of Constantinople. Two
hundred horsemen nightly patrolled the grounds about the castle, the
inner courts and apartments of which were guarded by three thousand
women. The king's eunuchs amounted to five hundred.

The disposition of this monarch was cruel and sanguinary. A multitude of
instances are recorded of the horrible barbarity of his punishments, and
for the most trivial offences. He imprisoned his own mother and put her
to the torture, suspecting her to have been engaged in a conspiracy
against him with some of the principal nobles, whom he caused to be
executed. He murdered his nephew, the king of Johor's son, of whose
favour with his mother he was jealous. He also put to death a son of the
king of Bantam, and another of the king of Pahang, who were both his near
relations. None of the royal family survived in 1622 but his own son, a
youth of eighteen, who had been thrice banished the court, and was
thought to owe his continuance in life only to his surpassing his father,
if possible, in cruelty, and being hated by all ranks of people. He was
at one time made king of Pidir but recalled on account of his excesses,
confined in prison and put to strange tortures by his father, whom he did
not outlive. The whole territory of Achin was almost depopulated by wars,
executions, and oppression. The king endeavoured to repeople the country
by his conquests. Having ravaged the kingdoms of Johor, Pahang, Kedah,
Perak, and Dilli, he transported the inhabitants from those places to
Achin, to the number of twenty-two thousand persons. But this barbarous
policy did not produce the effect he hoped; for the unhappy people, being
brought naked to his dominions, and not allowed any kind of maintenance
on their arrival, died of hunger in the streets. In the planning his
military enterprises he was generally guided by the distresses of his
neighbours, for whom, as for his prey, he unceasingly lay in wait; and
his preparatory measures were taken with such secrecy that the execution
alone unravelled them. Insidious political craft and wanton delight in
blood united in him to complete the character of a tyrant.

It must here be observed that, with respect to the period of this
remarkable reign, the European and Malayan authorities are considerably
at variance, the latter assigning to it something less than thirty solar
years, and placing the death of Iskander Muda in December 1636. The
Annals further state that he was succeeded by sultan
Ala-eddin­Mahayat-shah, who reigned only about four years and died in
February 1641. That this is the more accurate account I have no
hesitation in believing, although Valentyn, who gives a detail of the
king's magnificent funeral, was persuaded that the reign which ended in
1641 was the same that began in 1607. But he collected his information
eighty years after the event, and as it does not appear that any European
whose journal has been given to the world was on the spot at that period,
the death of an obscure monarch who died after a short reign may well
have been confounded by persons at a distance with that of his more
celebrated predecessor. Both authorities however are agreed in the
important fact that the successor to the throne in 1641 was a female.
This person is described by Valentyn as being the wife of the old king,
and not his daughter, as by some had been asserted; but from the Annals
it appears that she was his daughter, named Taju al-alum; and as it was
in her right that Maghayat-shah (certainly her husband), obtained the
crown, so upon his decease, there being no male heir, she peaceably
succeeded him in the government, and became the first queen regent of
Achin. The succession having thenceforward continued nearly sixty years
in the female line, this may be regarded as a new era in the history of
the country. The nobles finding their power less restrained, and their
individual consequence more felt under an administration of this kind
than when ruled by kings (as sometimes they were with a rod of iron)
supported these pageants, whom they governed as they thought fit, and
thereby virtually changed the constitution into an aristocracy or
oligarchy. The business of the state was managed by twelve orang-kayas,
four of whom were superior to the rest, and among these the maharaja, or
governor of the kingdom, was considered as the chief. It does not appear,
nor is it probable, that the queen had the power of appointing or
removing any of these great officers. No applications were made to the
throne but in their presence, nor any public resolution taken but as they
determined in council. The great object of their political jealousy seems
to have been the pretensions of the king of Johor to the crown, in virtue
of repeated intermarriages between the royal families of the two
countries, and it may be presumed that the alarms excited from that
quarter materially contributed to reconcile them to the female
domination. They are accordingly said to have formed an engagement
amongst themselves never to pay obedience to a foreign prince, nor to
allow their royal mistress to contract any marriage that might eventually
lead to such a consequence.* At the same time, by a new treaty with
Johor, its king was indirectly excused from the homage to the crown of
Achin which had been insisted upon by her predecessors and was the
occasion of frequent wars.

(*Footnote. However fanciful it may be thought, I cannot doubt that the
example of our Queen Elizabeth, whose character and government were
highly popular with the Achinese on account of her triumphant contest
with the united powers of Spain and Portugal, had a strong influence in
the establishment of this new species of monarchy, and that the example
of her sister's marriage with Philip may have contributed to the
resolution taken by the nobles. The actions of our illustrious queen were
a common topic of conversation between the old tyrant and Sir James
Lancaster.)

In proportion as the political consequence of the kingdom declined, its
history, as noticed by foreigners, becomes obscure. Little is recorded of
the transactions of her reign, and it is likely that Achin took no active
part in the concerns of neighbouring powers, but suffered the Hollanders,
who maintained in general a friendly intercourse with her, to remain in
quiet possession of Malacca.

1643.

In 1643 they sent an ambassador to compliment her upon her accession, and
at the same time to solicit payment for a quantity of valuable jewels
ordered by the deceased king, but for the amount of which she declined to
make herself responsible.

1660.

It is said (but the fact will admit of much doubt) that in 1660 she was
inclined to marry one of their countrymen, and would have carried her
design into execution had not the East India Company prevented by their
authority a connexion that might, as they prudently judged, be productive
of embarrassment to their affairs.

1664.

The Dutch however complain that she gave assistance to their enemies the
people of Perak, and in 1664 it was found necessary to send a squadron
under the command of Pieter de Bitter to bring her to reason. As it
happened that she was at this time at war with some of her own dependants
he made himself master of several places on the western coast that were
nominally at least belonging to Achin.

1666.

About 1666 the English establishments at Achin and some ports to the
southward appear to have given considerable umbrage to their rivals.

1669.

In 1669 the people of Dilli on the north-eastern coast threw off their
allegiance, and the power of the kingdom became gradually more and more
circumscribed.

1675.

This queen died in 1675, after reigning, with a degree of tranquillity
little known in these countries, upwards of thirty-four years.

The people being now accustomed and reconciled to female rule, which they
found more lenient than that of their kings, acquiesced in general in the
established mode of government.

1677.

And she was immediately succeeded by another female monarch, named Nur
al-alum, who reigned little more than two years and died in 1677.

The queen who succeeded her was named Anayet-shah.

1684.

In the year 1684 she received an embassy from the English government of
Madras, and appeared at that time to be about forty years. The persons
who were on this occasion presented to her express their suspicions,
which were suggested to them by a doubt prevailing amongst the
inhabitants, that this sovereign was not a real queen, but a eunuch
dressed up in female apparel, and imposed on the public by the artifices
of the orang kayas. But as such a cheat, though managed with every
semblance of reality (which they observe was the case) could not be
carried on for any number of years without detection, and as the same
idea does not appear to have been entertained at any other period, it is
probable they were mistaken in their surmise. Her person they describe to
have been large, and her voice surprisingly strong, but not manly.*

(*Footnote. The following curious passage is extracted from the journal
of these gentlemen's proceedings. "We went to give our attendance at the
palace this day as customary. Being arrived at the place of audience with
the orang cayos, the queen was pleased to order us to come nearer, when
her majesty was very inquisitive into the use of our wearing periwigs,
and what was the convenience of them; to all which we returned
satisfactory answers. After this her majesty desired of Mr. Ord, if it
were no affront to him, that he would take off his periwig, that she
might see how he appeared without it; which, according to her majesty's
request, he did. She then told us she had heard of our business, and
would give her answer by the orang cayos; and so we retired." I venture,
with submission, to observe that this anecdote seems to put the question
of the sex beyond controversy.)

The purport of the embassy was to obtain liberty to erect a fortification
in her territory, which she peremptorily refused, being contrary to the
established rules of the kingdom; adding that if the governor of Madras
would fill her palace with gold she could not permit him to build with
brick either fort or house. To have a factory of timber and plank was the
utmost indulgence that could be allowed; and on that footing the return
of the English, who had not traded there for many years, should be
welcomed with great friendship. The queen herself, the orang kayas
represented, was not allowed to fortify lest some foreign power might
avail themselves of it to enslave the country. In the course of these
negotiations it was mentioned that the agriculture of Achin had suffered
considerably of late years by reason of a general licence given to all
the inhabitants to search for gold in the mountains and rivers which
afforded that article; whereas the business had formerly been restricted
to certain authorized persons, and the rest obliged to till the ground.

1684.

The court feared to give a public sanction for the settlement of the
English on any part of the southern coast lest it should embroil them
with the other European powers.*

(*Footnote. The design of settling a factory at this period in the
dominions of Achin was occasioned by the recent loss of our establishment
at Bantam, which had been originally fixed by Sir James Lancaster in
1603. The circumstances of this event were as follows. The old sultan had
thought proper to share the regal power with his son in the year 1677,
and this measure was attended with the obvious effect of a jealousy
between the parent and child, which soon broke forth into open
hostilities. The policy of the Dutch led them to take an active part in
favour of the young sultan, who had inclined most to their interests and
now solicited their aid. The English on the other hand discouraged what
appeared to them an unnatural rebellion, but without interfering, as they
said, in any other character than that of mediators, or affording
military assistance to either party; and which their extreme weakness
rather than their assertions renders probable. On the twenty-eighth of
March 1682 the Dutch landed a considerable force from Batavia, and soon
terminated the war. They placed the young sultan on the throne,
delivering the father into his custody, and obtained from him in return
for these favours an exclusive privilege of trade in his territories;
which was evidently the sole object they had in view. On the first day of
April possession was taken of the English factory by a party of Dutch and
country soldiers, and on the twelfth the agent and council were obliged
to embark with their property on vessels provided for the purpose, which
carried them to Batavia. From thence they proceeded to Surat on the
twenty-second of August in the following year.

In order to retain a share in the pepper-trade the English turned their
thoughts towards Achin, and a deputation, consisting of two gentlemen, of
the names of Old and Cawley, was sent thither in 1684; the success of
which is above related. It happened that at this time certain Rajas or
chiefs of the country of Priaman and other places on the west coast of
Sumatra were at Achin also to solicit aid of that court against the
Dutch, who had made war upon and otherwise molested them. These
immediately applied to Mr. Ord, expressing a strong desire that the
English should settle in their respective districts, offering ground for
a fort and the exclusive purchase of their pepper. They consented to
embark for Madras, where an agreement was formed with them by the
governor in the beginning of the year 1685 on the terms they had
proposed. In consequence of this an expedition was fitted out with the
design of establishing a settlement at Priaman; but a day or two before
the ships sailed an invitation to the like purport was received from the
chiefs of Bang­kaulu (since corruptly called Bencoolen); and as it was
known that a considerable proportion of the pepper that used to be
exported from Bantam had been collected from the neighbourhood of
Bencoolen (at a place called Silebar), it was judged advisable that Mr.
Ord, who was the person entrusted with the management of this business,
should first proceed thither; particularly as at that season of the year
it was the windward port. He arrived there on the twenty-fifth day of
June 1685, and, after taking possession of the country assigned to the
English Company, and leaving Mr. Broome in charge of the place, he sailed
for the purpose of establishing the other settlements. He stopped first
at Indrapura, where he found three Englishmen who were left of a small
factory that had been some time before settled there by a man of the name
of Du Jardin. Here he learned that the Dutch, having obtained a knowledge
of the original intention of our fixing at Priaman, had anticipated us
therein and sent a party to occupy the situation. In the meantime it was
understood in Europe that this place was the chief of our establishments
on the coast, and ships were accordingly consigned thither. The same was
supposed at Madras, and troops and stores were sent to reinforce it,
which were afterwards landed at Indrapura. A settlement was then formed
at Manjuta, and another attempted at Batang-kapas in 1686; but here the
Dutch, assisted by a party amongst the natives, assaulted and drove out
our people. Every possible opposition, as it was natural to expect, was
given by these our rivals to the success of our factories. They fixed
themselves in the neighbourhood of them and endeavoured to obstruct the
country people from carrying pepper to them or supplying them with
provisions either by sea or land. Our interests however in the end
prevailed, and Bencoolen in particular, to which the other places were
rendered subordinate in 1686, began to acquire some degree of vigour and
respectability. In 1689 encouragement was given to Chinese colonists to
settle there, whose number has been continually increasing from that
time. In 1691 the Dutch felt the loss of their influence at Silebar and
other of the southern countries, where they attempted to exert authority
in the name of the sultan of Bantam, and the produce of these places was
delivered to the English. This revolution proceeded from the works with
which about this time our factory was strengthened. In 1695 a settlement
was made at Triamang, and two years after at Kattaun and Sablat. The
first, in the year 1700, was removed to Bantal. Various applications were
made by the natives in different parts of the island for the
establishment of factories, particularly from Ayer-Bangis to the
northward, Palembang on the eastern side, and the people from the
countries south of Tallo, near Manna. A person was sent to survey these
last, as far as Pulo Pisang and Kroi, in 1715. In consequence of the
inconvenience attending the shipping of goods from Bencoolen River, which
is often impracticable from the surfs, a warehouse was built in 1701 at a
place then called the cove; which gave the first idea of removing the
settlement to the point of land which forms the bay of Bencoolen. The
unhealthiness of the old situation was thought to render this an
expedient step; and accordingly about 1714 it was in great measure
relinquished, and the foundations of Fort Marlborough were laid on a spot
two or three miles distant. Being a high plain it was judged to possess
considerable advantages; many of which however are counterbalanced by its
want of the vicinity of a river, so necessary for the ready and plentiful
supply of provisions. Some progress had been made in the erection of this
fort when an accident happened that had nearly destroyed the Company's
views. The natives incensed at ill treatment received from the Europeans,
who were then but little versed in the knowledge of their dispositions or
the art of managing them by conciliating methods, rose in a body in the
year 1719, and forced the garrison, whose ignorant fears rendered them
precipitate, to seek refuge on board their ships. These people began now
to feel alarms lest the Dutch, taking advantage of the absence of the
English, should attempt an establishment, and soon permitted some persons
from the northern factories to resettle the place; and, supplies arriving
from Madras, things returned to their former course, and the fort was
completed. The Company's affairs on this coast remained in tranquillity
for a number of years. The important settlement of Natal was established
in 1752, and that of Tappanuli a short time afterwards; which involved
the English in fresh disputes with the Dutch, who set up a claim to the
country in which they are situated. In the year 1760 the French under
Comte d'Estaing destroyed all the English settlements on the coast of
Sumatra; but they were soon reestablished and our possession secured by
the treaty of Paris in 1763. Fort Marlborough, which had been hitherto a
peculiar subordinate of Fort St. George, was now formed into an
independent presidency, and was furnished with a charter for erecting a
mayor's court, but which has never been enforced. In 1781 a detachment of
military from thence embarked upon five East India ships and took
possession of Padang and all other Dutch factories in consequence of the
war with that nation. In 1782 the magazine of Fort Marlborough, in which
were four hundred barrels of powder, was fired by lightning and blew up;
but providentially few lives were lost. In 1802 an act of parliament was
passed "to authorize the East India Company to make their settlement at
Fort Marlborough in the East Indies, a factory subordinate to the
presidency of Fort William in Bengal, and to transfer the servants who on
the reduction of that establishment shall be supernumerary, to the
presidency of Fort St. George." In 1798 plants of the nutmeg and clove
had for the first time been procured from the Moluccas; and in 1803 a
large importation of these valuable articles of cultivation took place.
As the plantations were, by the last accounts from thence, in the most
flourishing state, very important commercial advantages were expected to
be derived from the culture.)

A few years before these transactions she had invited the king of Siam to
renew the ancient connexion between their respective states, and to unite
in a league against the Dutch, by whose encroachments the commerce of her
subjects and the extent of her dominions were much circumscribed. It does
not appear however that this overture was attended with any effect, nor
have the limits of the Achinese jurisdiction since that period extended
beyond Pidir on the northern, and Barus on the western coast.

1688.

She died in 1688, having reigned something less than eleven years, and
was succeeded by a young queen named Kamalat-shah; but this did not take
place without a strong opposition from a faction amongst the orang kayas
which wanted to set up a king, and a civil war actually commenced. The
two parties drew up their forces on opposite sides of the river, and for
two or three nights continued to fire at each other, but in the daytime
followed their ordinary occupations. These opportunities of intercourse
made them sensible of their mutual folly. They agreed to throw aside
their arms and the crown remained in possession of the newly elected
queen. It was said to have been esteemed essential that she should be a
maiden, advanced in years, and connected by blood with the ancient royal
line. In this reign an English factory, which had been long discontinued,
was reestablished at Achin, but in the interval some private traders of
this nation had always resided on the spot. These usually endeavoured to
persuade the state that they represented the India Company, and sometimes
acquired great influence, which they are accused of having employed in a
manner not only detrimental to that body but to the interests of the
merchants of India in general by monopolizing the trade of the port,
throwing impediments in the way of all shipping not consigned to their
management, and embezzling the cargoes of such as were. An asylum was
also afforded, beyond the reach of law, for all persons whose crimes or
debts induced them to fly from the several European settlements. These
considerations chiefly made the Company resolve to reclaim their ancient
privileges in that kingdom, and a deputation was sent from the presidency
of Madras in the year 1695 for that purpose, with letters addressed to
her illustrious majesty the queen of Achin, desiring permission to settle
on the terms her predecessors had granted to them; which was readily
complied with, and a factory, but on a very limited scale, was
established accordingly, but soon declined and disappeared. In 1704, when
Charles Lockyer (whose account of his voyage, containing a particular
description of this place, was published in 1711) visited Achin, one of
these independent factors, named Francis Delton, carried on a flourishing
trade. In 1695 the Achinese were alarmed by the arrival of six sail of
Dutch ships of force, with a number of troops on board, in their road,
not having been visited by any of that nation for fifteen years, but they
departed without offering any molestation.

1699.

This queen was deposed by her subjects (whose grounds of complaint are
not stated) about the latter part of the year 1699, after reigning also
eleven years; and with her terminated the female dynasty, which, during
its continuance of about fifty-nine years, had attracted much notice in
Europe.

Her successor was named Beder al-alum sherif Hasham, the nature of whose
pretensions to the crown does not positively appear, but there is reason
to believe that he was her brother. When he had reigned a little more
than two years it pleased God (as the Annals express it) to afflict him
with a distemper which caused his feet and hands to contract (probably
the gout) and disqualified him for the performance of his religious
duties.

1702.

Under these circumstances he was induced to resign the government in
1702, and died about a month after his abdication.

Perkasa-alum, a priest, found means by his intrigues to acquire the
sovereignty, and one of his first acts was to attempt imposing certain
duties on the merchandise imported by English traders, who had been
indulged with an exemption from all port charges excepting the
established complimentary presents upon their arrival and receiving the
chap or licence. This had been stipulated in the treaty made by Sir James
Lancaster, and renewed by Mr. Grey when chief of the Company's factory.
The innovation excited an alarm and determined opposition on the part of
the masters of ships then at the place, and they proceeded (under the
conduct of Captain Alexander Hamilton, who published an account of his
voyage in 1727) to the very unwarrantable step of commencing hostilities
by firing upon the villages situated near the mouth of the river, and
cutting off from the city all supplies of provisions by sea. The
inhabitants, feeling severely the effects of these violent measures, grew
clamorous against the government, which was soon obliged to restore to
these insolent traders the privileges for which they contended.

1704.

Advantage was taken of the public discontents to raise an insurrection in
favour of the nephew of the late queen, or, according to the Annals, the
son of Beder al-alum (who was probably her brother), in the event of
which Perkasa-alum was deposed about the commencement of the year 1704,
and after an interregnum or anarchy of three months continuance, the
young prince obtained possession of the throne, by the name of Jemal
al-alum. From this period the native writers furnish very ample details
of the transactions of the Achinese government, as well as of the general
state of the country, whose prosperous circumstances during the early
part of this king's reign are strongly contrasted with the misery and
insignificance to which it was reduced by subsequent events. The causes
and progress of this political decline cannot be more satisfactorily set
forth than in a faithful translation of the Malayan narrative which was
drawn up, or extracted from a larger work, for my use, and is distinct
from the Annals already mentioned:

When raja Jemal al-alum reigned in Achin the country was exceedingly
populous, the nobles had large possessions, the merchants were numerous
and opulent, the judgments of the king were just, and no man could
experience the severity of punishment but through his own fault. In those
days the king could not trade on his own account, the nobles having
combined to prevent it; but the accustomed duties of the port were
considered as his revenue, and ten per cent was levied for this purpose
upon all merchandise coming into the country. The city was then of great
extent, the houses were of brick and stone. The most considerable
merchant was a man named Daniel, a Hollander; but many of different
nations were also settled there, some from Surat, some from Kutch, others
from China. When ships arrived in the port, if the merchants could not
take off all the cargoes the king advanced the funds for purchasing what
remained, and divided the goods among them, taking no profit to himself.
After the departure of the vessel the king was paid in gold the amount of
his principal, without interest.

His daily amusements were in the grounds allotted for the royal sports.
He was attended by a hundred young men, who were obliged to be constantly
near his person day and night, and who were clothed in a sumptuous manner
at a monthly expense of a hundred dollars for each man. The government of
the different parts of the country was divided, under his authority,
amongst the nobles. When a district appeared to be disturbed he took
measures for quelling the insurrection; those who resisted his orders he
caused to be apprehended; when the roads were bad he gave directions for
their repair. Such was his conduct in the government. His subjects all
feared him, and none dared to condemn his actions. At that time the
country was in peace.

When he had been a few years on the throne a country lying to the
eastward, named Batu Bara, attempted to throw off its subjection to
Achin. The chiefs were ordered to repair to court to answer for their
conduct, but they refused to obey. These proceedings raised the king's
indignation. He assembled the nobles and required of them that each
should furnish a vessel of war, to be employed on an expedition against
that place, and within two months, thirty large galleys, without counting
vessels of a smaller size, were built and equipped for sea. When the
fleet arrived off Batu Bara (by which must be understood the Malayan
district at the mouth of the river, and not the Batta territory through
which it takes its course), a letter was sent on shore addressed to the
refractory chiefs, summoning them to give proof of their allegiance by
appearing in the king's presence, or threatening the alternative of an
immediate attack. After much division in their councils it was at length
agreed to feign submission, and a deputation was sent off to the royal
fleet, carrying presents of fruit and provisions of all kinds. One of the
chiefs carried, as his complimentary offering, some fresh coconuts, of
the delicate species called kalapa-gading, into which a drug had been
secretly introduced. The king observing these directed that one should be
cut open for him, and having drunk of the juice, became affected with a
giddiness in his head. (This symptom shows the poison to have been the
upas, but too much diluted in the liquor of the nut to produce death).
Being inclined to repose, the strangers were ordered to return on shore,
and, finding his indisposition augment, he gave directions for being
conveyed back to Achin, whither his ship sailed next day. The remainder
of the fleet continued off the coast during five or six days longer, and
then returned likewise without effecting the reduction of the place,
which the chiefs had lost no time in fortifying.

About two years after this transaction the king, under pretence of
amusement, made an excursion to the country lying near the source of the
river Achin, then under the jurisdiction of a panglima or governor named
Muda Seti; for it must be understood that this part of the kingdom is
divided into three districts, known by the appellations of the
Twenty-two, Twenty-six, and Twenty-five Mukims (see above), which were
governed respectively by Muda Seti, Imam Muda, and Perbawang­Shah (or
Purba-wangsa). These three chiefs had the entire control of the country,
and when their views were united they had the power of deposing and
setting up kings. Such was the nature of the government. The king's
expedition was undertaken with the design of making himself master of the
person of Muda Seti, who had given him umbrage, and on this occasion his
followers of all ranks were so numerous that wherever they halted for the
night the fruits of the earth were all devoured, as well as great
multitudes of cattle. Muda Seti however, being aware of the designs
against him, had withdrawn himself from the place of his usual residence
and was not to be found when the king arrived there; but a report being
brought that he had collected five or six hundred followers and was
preparing to make resistance, orders were immediately given for burning
his house. This being effected, the king returned immediately to Achin,
leaving the forces that had accompanied him at a place called Pakan
Badar, distant about half a day's journey from the capital, where they
were directed to entrench themselves. From this post they were driven by
the country chief, who advanced rapidly upon them with several thousand
men, and forced them to fall back to Padang Siring, where the king was
collecting an army, and where a battle was fought soon after, that
terminated in the defeat of the royal party with great slaughter. Those
who escaped took refuge in the castle along with the king.

1723.

Under these disastrous circumstances he called upon the chiefs who
adhered to him to advise what was best to be done, surrounded as they
were by the country people, on whom he invoked the curse of God; when one
of them, named Panglima Maharaja, gave it as his opinion that the only
effectual measure by which the country could be saved from ruin would be
the king's withdrawing himself from the capital so long as the enemy
should continue in its vicinity, appointing a regent from among the
nobles to govern the country in his absence; and when subordination
should be restored he might then return and take again possession of his
throne. To this proposition he signified his assent on the condition that
Panglima Maharaja should assure him by an oath that no treachery was
intended; which oath was accordingly taken, and the king, having
nominated as his substitute Maharaja Lela, one of the least considerable
of the ulubalangs, retired with his wives and children to the country of
the Four mukims, situated about three hours journey to the westward of
the city. (The Annals say he fled to Pidir in November 1723.) Great
ravages were committed by the insurgents, but they did not attack the
palace, and after some days of popular confusion the chiefs of the Three
districts, who (says the writer) must not be confounded with the officers
about the person of the king, held a consultation amongst themselves,
and, exercising an authority of which there had been frequent examples,
set up Panglima Maharaja in the room of the abdicated king (by the title,
say the Annals, of Juhar al-alum, in December 1723). About seven days
after his elevation he was seized with a convulsive disorder in his neck
and died. A nephew of Jemal al-alum, named Undei Tebang, was then placed
upon the throne, but notwithstanding his having bribed the chiefs of the
Three districts with thirty katties of gold, they permitted him to enjoy
his dignity only a few days, and then deposed him. (The same authority
states that he was set up by the chiefs of the Four mukims, and removed
through the influence of Muda Seti.)

1724. 1735.

The person whom they next combined to raise to the throne was Maharaja
Lela (before mentioned as the king's substitute). It was his good fortune
to govern the country in tranquillity for the space of nearly twelve
years, during which period the city of Achin recovered its population.
(According to the Annals he began to reign in February 1724, by the title
of Ala ed-din Ahmed shah Juhan, and died in June 1735.) It happened that
the same day on which the event of his death took place Jemal al-alum
again made his appearance, and advanced to a mosque near the city. His
friends advised him to lose no time in possessing himself of the castle,
but for trifling reasons that mark the weakness of his character he
resolved to defer the measure till the succeeding day; and the
opportunity, as might be expected, was lost. The deceased king left five
sons, the eldest of whom, named Po-chat-au (or Po-wak, according to
another manuscript) exhorted his brothers to unite with him in the
determination of resisting a person whose pretensions were entirely
inconsistent with their security. They accordingly sent to demand
assistance of Perbawang-shah, chief of the district of the Twenty-five
mukims, which lies the nearest to that quarter. He arrived before
morning, embraced the five princes, confirmed them in their resolution,
and authorised the eldest to assume the government (which he did, say the
Annals, by the title of Ala ed-din Juhan-shah in September 1735.) But to
this measure the concurrence of the other chiefs was wanting. At daybreak
the guns of the castle began to play upon the mosque, and, some of the
shot penetrating its walls, the pusillanimous Jemal al-alum, being
alarmed at the danger, judged it advisable to retreat from thence and to
set up his standard in another quarter, called kampong Jawa, his people
at the same time retaining possession of the mosque. A regular warfare
now ensued between the two parties and continued for no less than ten
years (the great chiefs taking different sides), when at length some kind
of compromise was effected that left Po-chat-au (Juhan­shah) in the
possession of the throne, which he afterwards enjoyed peaceably for eight
years, and no further mention is made of Jemal al-alum. About this period
the chiefs took umbrage at his interfering in matters of trade, contrary
to what they asserted to be the established custom of the realm, and
assembled their forces in order to intimidate him. (The history of Achin
presents a continual struggle between the monarch and the aristocracy of
the country, which generally made the royal monopoly of trade the ground
of crimination and pretext for their rebellions).

1755.

Panglima Muda Seti, being considered as the head of the league, came down
with twenty thousand followers, and, upon the king's refusing to admit
into the castle his complimentary present (considering it only as the
prelude to humiliating negotiation), another war commenced that lasted
for two years, and was at length terminated by Muda Seti's withdrawing
from the contest and returning to his province. About five years after
this event Juhan shah died, and his son, Pochat-bangta, succeeded him,
but not (says this writer, who here concludes his abstract) with the
general concurrence of the chiefs, and the country long continued in a
disturbed state.

END OF NARRATIVE.

1760.

The death of Juhan shah is stated in the Annals to have taken place in
August 1760, and the accession of the son, who took the name of Ala-eddin
Muhammed shah, not until November of the same year. Other authorities
place these events in 1761.

1763.

Before he had completed the third year of his reign an insurrection of
his subjects obliged him to save himself by flight on board a ship in the
road. This happened in 1763 or 1764. The throne was seized by the
maharaja (first officer of state) named Sinara, who assumed the title of
Beder-eddin Juhan shah, and about the end of 1765 was put to death by the
adherents of the fugitive monarch, Muhammed shah, who thereupon returned
to the throne.*

(*Footnote. Captain Forrest acquaints us that he visited the court of
Mahomed Selim (the latter name is not given to this prince by any other
writer) in the year 1764, at which time he appeared to be about forty
years of age. It is difficult to reconcile this date with the recorded
events of this unfortunate reign, and I have doubts whether it was not
the usurper whom the Captain saw.)

He was exposed however to further revolutions. About six years after his
restoration the palace was attacked in the night by a desperate band of
two hundred men, headed by a man called Raja Udah, and he was once more
obliged to make a precipitate retreat. This usurper took the title of
sultan Suliman shah, but after a short reign of three months was driven
out in his turn and forced to fly for refuge to one of the islands in the
eastern sea. The nature of his pretensions, if he had any, have not been
stated, but he never gave any further trouble. From this period Muhammed
maintained possession of his capital, although it was generally in a
state of confusion.

1772.

"In the year 1772," says Captain Forrest, "Mr. Giles Holloway, resident
of Tappanooly, was sent to Achin by the Bencoolen government, with a
letter and present, to ask leave from the king to make a settlement
there. I carried him from his residency. Not being very well on my
arrival, I did not accompany Mr. Holloway (a very sensible and discreet
gentleman, and who spoke the Malay tongue very fluently) on shore at his
first audience; and finding his commission likely to prove abortive I did
not go to the palace at all. There was great anarchy and confusion at
this time; and the malcontents came often, as I was informed, near the
king's palace at night."

1775.

The Captain further remarks that when again there in 1775 he could not
obtain an audience.

1781.

The Annals report his death to have happened on the 2nd of June 1781, and
observe that from the commencement to the close of his reign the country
never enjoyed repose. His brother, named Ala-eddin (or Uleddin, as
commonly pronounced, and which seems to have been a favourite title with
the Achinese princes), was in exile at Madras during a considerable
period, and resided also for some time at Bencoolen.

The eldest son of the deceased king, then about eighteen years of age,
succeeded him on the 16th of the same month, by the title of Ala-eddin
Mahmud shah Juhan, in spite of an opposition attempted to be raised by
the partisans of another son by a favourite wife. Weapons had been drawn
in the court before the palace, when the tuanku agung or high priest, a
person of great respectability and influence, by whom the former had been
educated, came amidst the crowd, bareheaded and without attendance,
leading his pupil by the hand. Having placed himself between the
contending factions, he addressed them to the following effect: that the
prince who stood before them had a natural right and legal claim to the
throne of his father; that he had been educated with a view to it, and
was qualified to adorn it by his disposition and talents; that he wished
however to found his pretensions neither upon his birthright nor the
strength of the party attached to him, but upon the general voice of his
subjects calling him to the sovereignty; that if such was their sentiment
he was ready to undertake the arduous duties of the station, in which he
himself would assist him with the fruits of his experience; that if on
the contrary they felt a predilection for his rival, no blood should be
shed on his account, the prince and his tutor being resolved in that case
to yield the point without a struggle, and retire to some distant island.
This impressive appeal had the desired effect, and the young prince was
invited by unanimous acclamation to assume the reins of government.*

(*Footnote. Mr. Philip Braham, late chief of the East India Company's
settlement of Fort Marlborough, by whom the circumstances of this event
were related to me, arrived at Achin in July 1781, about a fortnight
after the transaction. He thus described his audience. The king was
seated in a gallery (to which there were no visible steps), at the
extremity of a spacious hall or court, and a curtain which hung before
him was drawn aside when it was his pleasure to appear. In this court
were great numbers of female attendants, but not armed, as they have been
described. Mr. Braham was introduced through a long file of guards armed
with blunderbusses, and then seated on a carpet in front of the gallery.
When a conversation had been carried on for some time through the
Shabandar, who communicated his answers to an interpreter, by whom they
were reported to the king, the latter perceiving that he spoke the
Malayan language addressed him directly, and asked several questions
respecting England; what number of wives and children our sovereign had;
how many ships of war the English kept in India; what was the French
force, and others of that nature. He expressed himself in friendly terms
with regard to our nation, and said he should always be happy to
countenance our traders in his ports. Even at this early period of his
reign he had abolished some vexatious imposts. Mr. Braham had an
opportunity of learning the great degree of power and control possessed
by certain of the orang kayas, who held their respective districts in
actual sovereignty, and kept the city in awe by stopping, when it suited
their purpose, the supplies of provisions. Captain Forrest, who once more
visited Achin in 1784 and was treated with much distinction (see his
Voyage to the Mergui Archipelago page 51), says he appeared to be
twenty-five years of age; but this was a misconception. Mr. Kenneth
Mackenzie, who saw him in 1782, judged him to have been at that time no
more than nineteen or twenty, which corresponds with Mr. Braham's
statement.)

Little is known of the transactions of his reign, but that little is in
favour of his personal character. The Annals (not always unexceptionable
evidence when speaking of the living monarch) describe him as being
endowed with every princely virtue, exercising the functions of
government with vigour and rectitude, of undaunted courage, attentive to
the protection of the ministers of religion, munificent to the
descendants of the prophet (seiyid, but commonly pronounced sidi) and to
men of learning, prompt at all times to administer justice, and
consequently revered and beloved by his people. I have not been enabled
to ascertain the year in which he died.

1791.

It appears by a Malayan letter from Achin that in 1791 the peace of the
capital was much disturbed, and the state of the government as well as of
private property (which induced the writer to reship his goods)
precarious.

1805.

In 1805 his son, then aged twenty-one, was on the throne, and had a
contention with his paternal uncle, and at the same time his
father-in-law, named Tuanku Raja, by whom he had been compelled to fly
(but only for a short time) to Pidir, the usual asylum of the Achinese
monarchs. Their quarrel appears to have been rather of a family than of a
political nature, and to have proceeded from the irregular conduct of the
queen-mother. The low state of this young king's finances, impoverished
by a fruitless struggle to enforce, by means of an expensive marine
establishment, his right to an exclusive trade, had induced him to make
proposals, for mutual accommodation, to the English government of Pulo
Pinang.*

(*Footnote. Since the foregoing was printed the following information
respecting the manners of the Batta people, obtained by Mr. Charles
Holloway from Mr. W.H. Hayes, has reached my hands. "In the month of July
1805 an expedition consisting of Sepoys, Malays, and Battas was sent from
Tapanuli against a chief named Punei Manungum, residing at Nega­timbul,
about thirty miles inland from Old Tapanuli, in consequence of his having
attacked a kampong under the protection of the company, murdered several
of the inhabitants, and carried others into captivity. After a siege of
three days, terms of accommodation being proposed, a cessation of
hostilities took place, when the people of each party having laid aside
their arms intermixed with the utmost confidence, and conversed together
as if in a state of perfect amity. The terms however not proving
satisfactory, each again retired to his arms and renewed the contest with
their former inveteracy. On the second day the place was evacuated, and
upon our people entering it Mr. Hayes found the bodies of one man and two
women, whom the enemy had put to death before their departure (being the
last remaining of sixteen prisoners whom they had originally carried
off), and from whose legs large pieces had been cut out, evidently for
the purpose of being eaten. During the progress of this expedition a
small party had been sent to hold in check the chiefs of Labusukum and
Singapollum (inland of Sibogah), who were confederates of Punei Manungum.
These however proved stronger than was expected, and, making a sally from
their kampongs, attacked the sergeant's party and killed a sepoy, whom he
was obliged to abandon. Mr. Hayes, on his way from Negatimbul, was
ordered to march to the support of the retreating party; but these having
taken a different route he remained ignorant of the particulars of their
loss. The village of Singapollam being immediately carried by storm, and
the enemy retreating by one gate, as our people entered at the opposite,
the accoutrements of the sepoy who had been killed the day before were
seen hanging as trophies in the front of the houses, and in the town
hall, Mr. Hayes saw the head entirely scalped, and one of the fingers
fixed upon a fork or skewer, still warm from the fire. On proceeding to
the village of Labusucom, situated little more than two hundred yards
from the former, he found a large plantain leaf full of human flesh,
mixed with lime-juice and chili-pepper, from which he inferred that they
had been surprised in the very act of feasting on the sepoy, whose body
had been divided between the two kampongs. Upon differences being settled
with the chiefs they acknowledged with perfect sangfroid that such had
been the case, saying at the same time, "you know it is our custom; why
should we conceal it?")


CHAPTER 23.

BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE ISLANDS LYING OFF THE WESTERN COAST OF SUMATRA.

ISLANDS ADJACENT TO SUMATRA.

The chain of islands which extends itself in a line nearly parallel to
the western coast, at the distance from it of little more than a degree,
being immediately connected with the principal subject of this work, and
being themselves inhabited by a race or races of people apparently from
the same original stock as those of the interior of Sumatra, whose
genuineness of character has been preserved to a remarkable degree
(whilst the islands on the eastern side are uniformly peopled with
Malays), I have thought it expedient to add such authentic information
respecting them as I have been enabled to obtain; and this I feel to be
the more necessary from observing in the maps to which I have had
recourse so much error and confusion in applying the names that the
identity and even the existence of some of them have been considered as
doubtful.

ENGANO.

Of these islands the most southern is Engano, which is still but very
imperfectly known, all attempts to open a friendly communication with the
natives having hitherto proved fruitless; and in truth they have had but
too much reason to consider strangers attempting to land on their coast
as piratical enemies. In the voyage of J.J. Saar, published in 1662, we
have an account of an expedition fitted out from Batavia in 1645 for the
purpose of examining this island, which terminated in entrapping and
carrying off with them sixty or seventy of the inhabitants, male and
female. The former died soon after their arrival, refusing to eat any
other food than coconuts, but the women, who were distributed amongst the
principal families of Batavia, proved extremely tractable and docile, and
acquired the language of the place. It is not stated, nor does it appear
from any subsequent publication, that the opportunity was taken of
forming a collection of their words.

From that period Engano had only been incidentally noticed, until in
March 1771 Mr. Richard Wyatt, then governor, and the council of Fort
Marlborough, sent Mr. Charles Miller in a vessel belonging to the Company
to explore the productions of this island. On approaching it he observed
large plantations of coconut-trees, with several spots of ground cleared
for cultivation on the hills, and at night many fires on the beach.
Landing was found to be in most parts extremely difficult on account of
the surf. Many of the natives were seen armed with lances and squatting
down amongst the coral rocks, as if to conceal their numbers. Upon rowing
into a bay with the ship's boat it was pursued by ten canoes full of men
and obliged to return. Mr. Whalfeldt, the surveyor, and the second mate
proceeded to make a survey of the bay and endeavour to speak with the
natives. They were furnished with articles for presents, and, upon seeing
a canoe on the beach of a small island, and several people fishing on the
rocks, they rowed to the island and sent two caffrees on shore with some
cloth, but the natives would not come near them. The mate then landed and
advanced towards them, when they immediately came to him. He distributed
some presents among them, and they in return gave him some fish. Several
canoes came off to the ship with coconuts, sugar-cane, toddy, and a
species of yam. The crew of one of them took an opportunity of unshipping
and carrying away the boat's rudder, and upon a musket being fired over
their heads many of them leaped into the sea.

Mr. Miller describes these people as being taller and fairer than the
Malays, their hair black, which the men cut short, and the women wear
long, and neatly turned up. The former go entirely naked except that they
sometimes throw a piece of bark of tree, or plantain-leaf over their
shoulders to protect them from the heat of the sun. The latter also are
naked except a small slip of plantain-leaf round the waist; and some had
on their heads fresh leaves made up nearly in the shape of a bonnet, with
necklaces of small pieces of shell, and a shell hanging by a string, to
be used as a comb. The ears of both men and women have large holes made
in them, an inch or two in diameter, into which they put a ring made of
coconut-shell or a roll of leaves. They do not chew betel. Their language
was not understood by any person on board, although there were people
from most parts adjacent to the coast. Their canoes are very neat, formed
of two thin planks sewn together, sharp-pointed at each end and provided
with outriggers. In general they contain six or seven men. They always
carry lances, not only as offensive weapons, but for striking fish. These
are about seven feet in length, formed of ni­bong and other hard woods;
some of them tipped with pieces of bamboo made very sharp, and the
concave part filled with fish-bones (and shark's teeth), others armed
with pieces of bone made sharp and notched, and others pointed with bits
of iron and copper sharpened. They seemed not to be unaccustomed to the
sight of vessels. (Ships bound from the ports of India to the straits of
Sunda, as well as those from Europe, when late in the season, frequently
make the land of Engano, and many must doubtless be wrecked on its
coast).

Attempts were made to find a river or fresh water, but without success,
nor even a good place to land. Two of the people from the ship having
pushed in among the rocks and landed the natives soon came to them,
snatched their handkerchiefs off their heads and ran away with them, but
dropped them on being pursued. Soon afterwards they sounded a
conch-shell, which brought numbers of them down to the beach. The bay
appeared to be well sheltered and to afford good anchorage ground. The
soil of the country for the most part a red clay. The productions Mr.
Miller thought the same as are commonly found on the coast of Sumatra;
but circumstances did not admit of his penetrating into the country,
which, contrary to expectation, was found to be so full of inhabitants.
In consequence of the loss of anchors and cables it was judged necessary
that the vessel should return to Fort Marlborough. Having taken in the
necessary supplies, the island was revisited. Finding no landing-place,
the boat was run upon the coral rocks. Signs were made to the natives,
who had collected in considerable numbers, and upon seeing our people
land had retreated towards some houses, to stop, but to no purpose until
Mr. Miller proceeded towards them unaccompanied, when they approached in
great numbers and accepted of knives, pieces of cloth, etc. Observing a
spot of cultivated ground surrounded by a sort of fence he went to it,
followed by several of the natives who made signs to deter him, and as
soon as he was out of sight of his own people began to handle his clothes
and attempt to pull them off, when he returned to the beach.

Their houses stand singly in their plantations, are circular, about eight
feet in diameter, raised about six from the ground on slender iron­wood
sticks, floored with planks, and the roof, which is thatched with long
grass, rises from the floor in a conical shape. No rice was seen among
them, nor did they appear to know the use of it when shown to them; nor
were cattle nor fowls of any kind observed about their houses.

Having anchored off a low point of marshy land in the northern part of
the bay, where the natives seemed to be more accustomed to intercourse
with strangers, the party landed in hopes of finding a path to some
houses about two miles inland. Upon observing signs made to them by some
people on the coral reef Mr. Miller and Mr. Whalfeldt went towards them
in the sampan, when some among them took an opportunity of stealing the
latter's hanger and running away with it; upon which they were
immediately fired at by some of the party, and notwithstanding Mr.
Miller's endeavours to prevent them both the officer and men continued to
fire upon and pursue the natives through the morass, but without being
able to overtake them. Meeting however with some houses they set fire to
them, and brought off two women and a boy whom the caffrees had seized.
The officers on board the vessel, alarmed at the firing and seeing Mr.
Miller alone in the sampan, whilst several canoes full of people were
rowing towards him, sent the pinnace with some sepoys to his assistance.
During the night conch-shells were heard to sound almost all over the
bay, and in the morning several large parties were observed on different
parts of the beach. All further communication with the inhabitants being
interrupted by this imprudent quarrel, and the purposes of the expedition
thereby frustrated, it was not thought advisable to remain any longer at
Engano, and Mr. Miller, after visiting some parts of the southern coast
of Sumatra, returned to Fort Marlborough.

PULO MEGA.

The next island to the north-west of Engano, but at a considerable
distance, is called by the Malays Pulo Mega (cloud-island), and by
Europeans Triste, or isle de Recif. It is small and uninhabited, and like
many others in these seas is nearly surrounded by a coral reef with a
lagoon in the centre. Coconut-trees grow in vast numbers in the sand near
the sea-shore, whose fruit serves for food to rats and squirrels, the
only quadrupeds found there. On the borders of the lagoon is a little
vegetable mould, just above the level of high water, where grow some
species of timber-trees.

PULO SANDING.

The name of Pulo Sanding or Sandiang belongs to two small islands
situated near the south-eastern extremity of the Nassau or Pagi islands,
in which group they are sometimes included. Of these the southernmost is
distinguished in the Dutch charts by the term of Laag or low, and the
other by that of Bergen or hilly. They are both uninhabited, and the only
productions worth notice is the long nutmeg, which grows wild on them,
and some good timber, particularly of the kind known by the name of
marbau (Metrosideros amboinensis). An idea was entertained of making a
settlement on one of them, and in 1769 an officer with a few men were
stationed there for some months, during which period the rains were
incessant. The scheme was afterwards abandoned as unlikely to answer any
useful purpose.

NASSAUS OR PULO PAGI.

The two islands separated by a narrow strait, to which the Dutch
navigators have given the name of the Nassaus, are called by the Malays
Pulo Pagi or Pagei, and by us commonly the Poggies. The race of people by
whom these as well as some other islands to the northward of them are
inhabited having the appellation of orang mantawei, this has been
confounded with the proper names of the islands, and, being applied
sometimes to one and sometimes to another, has occasioned much confusion
and uncertainty. The earliest accounts we have of them are the reports of
Mr. Randolph Marriot in 1749, and of Mr. John Saul in 1750 and 1751, with
Captain Thomas Forrest's observations in 1757, preserved in Mr.
Dalrymple's Historical Relation of the several Expeditions from Fort
Marlborough to the Islands adjacent to the West-coast of Sumatra; but by
much the most satisfactory information is contained in a paper
communicated by Mr. John Crisp to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, in the
sixth volume of whose Transactions it is published, and from these
documents I shall extract such particulars as may best serve to convey a
knowledge of the country and the people.

Mr. Crisp sailed from Fort Marlborough on the 12th of August 1792 in a
vessel navigated at his own expense, and with no other view than that of
gratifying a liberal curiosity. On the 14th he anchored in the straits of
See Cockup (Si Kakap), which divide the Northern from the Southern Pagi.
These straits are about two miles in length and a quarter of a mile over,
and make safe riding for ships of any size, which lie perfectly secure
from every wind, the water being literally as smooth as in a pond. The
high land of Sumatra (inland of Moco-moco and Ipu) was plainly to be
distinguished from thence. In the passage are scattered several small
islands, each of which consists of one immense rock, and which may have
been originally connected with the main island. The face of the country
is rough and irregular, consisting of high hills of sudden and steep
ascent, and covered with trees to their summits, among which the species
called bintangur or puhn, fit for the largest masts, abounds. The
sago-tree grows in plenty, and constitutes the chief article of food to
the inhabitants, who do not cultivate rice. The use of betel is unknown
to them. Coconut-trees, bamboos, and the common fruits of Sumatra are
found here. The woods are impervious to man: the species of wild animals
that inhabit them but few; the large red deer, hogs, and several kinds of
monkey, but neither buffaloes nor goats; nor are they infested with
tigers or other beasts of prey; They have the common domestic fowl, but
pork and fish are the favourite animal food of the natives.

When the vessel had been two days at anchor they began to come down from
their villages in their canoes, bringing fruit of various kinds, and on
invitation they readily came on board without showing signs of
apprehension or embarrassment. On presenting to them plates of boiled
rice they would not touch it until it had been previously tasted by one
of the ship's company. They behaved whilst on board with much decorum,
showed a strong degree of curiosity, but not the least disposition for
pilfering. They appeared to live in great friendship and harmony with
each other, and voluntarily divided amongst their companions what was
given to them. Their stature seldom exceeds five feet and a half. Their
colour is like that of the Malays, a light brown or copper-colour. Some
canoes came alongside the vessel with only women in them, and upon being
encouraged by the men several ventured on board. When on the water they
use a temporary dress to shield them from the heat of the sun, made of
the leaves of the plantain, of which they form a sort of conical cap (the
same was observed of the women of Engano), and there is also a broad
piece of the leaf fastened round the body over their breasts, and another
round their waist. This leaf readily splits, and has the appearance of a
coarse fringe. When in their villages the women, like the men, wear only
a small piece of coarse cloth, made of the bark of a tree, round their
middle. Beads and other ornaments are worn about the neck. Although
coconuts are in such plenty they have not the use of oil, and their hair,
which is black, and naturally long, is, for want of it and the use of
combs, in general matted and full of vermin. They have a method of filing
or grinding their teeth to a point, like the people of Sumatra.

The number of inhabitants of the two islands is supposed not to exceed
1400 persons. They are divided into small tribes, each occupying a small
river and living in one village. On the southern island are five of these
villages, and on the northern seven, of which Kakap is accounted the
chief, although Labu-labu is supposed to contain the greater number of
people. Their houses are built of bamboos and raised on posts; the under
part is occupied by poultry and hogs, and, as may be supposed, much filth
is collected there. Their arms consist of a bow and arrows. The former is
made of the nibong-tree, and the string of the entrails of some animal.
The arrows are of small bamboo, headed with brass or with a piece of hard
wood cut to a point. With these they kill deer, which are roused by dogs
of a mongrel breed, and also monkeys, whose flesh they eat. Some among
them wear krises. It was said that the different tribes of orang mantawei
who inhabit these islands never make war upon each other, but with people
of islands to the northward they are occasionally in a state of
hostility. The measurement of one of their war-canoes, preserved with
great care under a shed, was twenty-five feet in the length of the floor,
the prow projecting twenty-two, and the stern eighteen, making the whole
length sixty-five feet. The greatest breadth was five feet, and the depth
three feet eight inches. For navigating in their rivers and the straits
of Si Kakap, where the sea is as smooth as glass, they employ canoes,
formed with great neatness of a single tree, and the women and young
children are extremely expert in the management of the paddle. They are
strangers to the use of coin of any kind, and have little knowledge of
metals. The iron bill or chopping-knife, called parang, is in much esteem
among them, it serves as a standard for the value of other commodities,
such as articles of provision.

The religion of these people, if it deserves the name, resembles much
what has been described of the Battas; but their mode of disposing of
their dead is different, and analogous rather to the practice of the
South­sea islanders, the corpse, being deposited on a sort of stage in a
place appropriated for the purpose, and with a few leaves strewed over
it, is left to decay. Inheritance is by male descent; the house or
plantation, the weapons and tools of the father, become the property of
the sons. Their chiefs are but little distinguished from the rest of the
community by authority or possessions, their pre-eminence being chiefly
displayed at public entertainments, of which they do the honours. They
have not even judicial powers, all disputes being settled, and crimes
adjudged, by a meeting of the whole village. Murder is punishable by
retaliation, for which purpose the offender is delivered over to the
relations of the deceased, who may put him to death; but the crime is
rare. Theft, when to a considerable amount, is also capital. In cases of
adultery the injured husband has a right to seize the effects of the
paramour, and sometimes punishes his wife by cutting off her hair. When
the husband offends the wife has a right to quit him and to return to her
parents' house. Simple fornication between unmarried persons is neither
considered as a crime nor a disgrace. The state of slavery is unknown
among these people, and they do not practise circumcision.

The custom of tattooing, or imprinting figures on the skin, is general
among the inhabitants of this group of islands. They call it in their
language teetee or titi. They begin to form these marks on boys at seven
years of age, and fill them up as they advance in years. Mr. Crisp thinks
they were originally intended as marks of military distinction. The women
have a star imprinted on each shoulder, and generally some small marks on
the backs of their hands. These punctures are made with an instrument
consisting of a brass wire fixed perpendicularly into a piece of stick
about eight inches in length. The pigment made use of is the smoke
collected from dammar, mixed with water (or, according to another
account, with the juice of the sugar-cane). The operator takes a stalk of
dried grass, or a fine piece of stick, and, dipping the end in the
pigment, traces on the skin the outline of the figure, and then, dipping
the brass point in the same preparation, with very quick and light
strokes of a long, small stick, drives it into the skin, whereby an
indelible mark is produced. The pattern when completed is in all the
individuals nearly the same.

In the year 1783 the son of a raja of one of the Pagi islands came over
to Sumatra on a visit of curiosity, and, being an intelligent man, much
information was obtained from him. He could give some account of almost
every island that lies off the coast, and when a doubt arose about their
position he ascertained it by taking the rind of a pumplenose or
shaddock, and, breaking it into bits of different sizes, disposing them
on the floor in such a manner as to convey a clear idea of the relative
situation. He spoke of Engano (by what name is not mentioned) and said
that their boats were sometimes driven to that island, on which occasions
they generally lost a part, if not the whole, of their crews, from the
savage disposition of the natives. He appeared to be acquainted with
several of the constellations, and gave names for the Pleiades, Scorpion,
Great Bear, and Orion's Belt. He understood the distinction between the
fixed and wandering stars, and particularly noticed Venus, which he named
usutat-si-geb-geb or planet of the evening. To Sumatra he gave the
appellation of Seraihu. As to religion he said the rajas alone prayed and
sacrificed hogs and fowls. They addressed themselves in the first place
to the Power above the sky; next to those in the moon, who are male and
female; and lastly, to that evil being whose residence is beneath the
earth, and is the cause of earthquakes. A drawing of this man,
representing accurately the figures in which his body and limbs were
tattooed, was made by Colonel Trapaud, and obligingly given to me. He not
only stood patiently during the performance, but seemed much pleased with
the execution, and proposed that the Colonel should accompany him to his
country to have an opportunity of making a likeness of his father. To our
collectors of rare prints it is well known that there exists an engraving
of a man of this description by the title of The Painted Prince, brought
to England by Captain Dampier from one of the islands of the eastern sea
in the year 1691, and of whom a particular account is given in his
Voyage. He said that the inhabitants of the Pagi islands derived their
origin from the orang mantawei of the island called Si Biru.

SI PORAH OR GOOD FORTUNE.

North-westward of the Pagi islands, and at no great distance, lies that
of Si Porah, commonly denominated Good Fortune Island, inhabited by the
same race as the former, and with the same manners and language. The
principal towns or villages are named Si Porah, containing, when visited
by Mr. John Saul in 1750, three hundred inhabitants, Si Labah three
hundred (several of whom were originally from the neighbouring island of
Nias), Si Bagau two hundred, and Si Uban a smaller number; and when
Captain Forrest made his inquiries in 1757 there was not any material
variation. Since that period, though the island has been occasionally
visited, it does not appear that any report has been preserved of the
state of the population. The country is described as being entirely
covered with wood. The highest land is in the vicinity of Si Labah.

SI BIRU.

The next island in the same direction is named Si Biru, which, although
of considerable size, being larger than Si Porah, has commonly been
omitted in our charts, or denoted to be uncertain. It is inhabited by the
Mantawei race, and the natives both of Si Porah and the Pagi Islands
consider it as their parent country, but notwithstanding this connexion
they are generally in a state of hostility, and in 1783 no intercourse
subsisted between them. The inhabitants are distinguished only by some
small variety of the patterns in which their skins are tattooed, those of
Si Biru having them narrower on the breast and broader on the shoulders.
The island itself is rendered conspicuous by a volcano­mountain.

PULO BATU.

Next to this is Pulo Batu, situated immediately to the southward of the
equinoctial line, and, in consequence of an original mistake in
Valentyn's erroneous chart, published in 1726, usually called by
navigators Mintaon, being a corruption of the word Mantawei, which, as
already explained, is appropriated to a race inhabiting the islands of Si
Biru, Si Porah, and Pagi. Batu, on the contrary, is chiefly peopled by a
colony from Nias. These pay a yearly tax to the raja of Buluaro, a small
kampong in the interior part of the island, belonging to a race different
from both, and whose number it is said amounts only to one hundred, which
it is not allowed to exceed, so many children being reared as may replace
the deaths. They are reported to bear a resemblance to the people of
Makasar or Bugis, and may have been adventurers from that quarter. The
influence of their raja over the Nias inhabitants, who exceed his
immediate subjects in the proportion of twenty to one, is founded on the
superstitious belief that the water of the island will become salt when
they neglect to pay the tax. He in his turn, being in danger from the
power of the Malay traders who resort thither from Padang and are not
affected by the same superstition, is constrained to pay them to the
amount of sixteen ounces of gold as an annual tribute.

The food of the people, as in the other islands, is chiefly sago, and
their exports coconuts, oil in considerable quantities, and swala or
sea­slugs. No rice is planted there, nor, if we may trust to the Malayan
accounts, suffered to be imported. Upon the same authority also we are
told that the island derives its name of Batu from a large rock
resembling the hull of a vessel, which tradition states to be a
petrifaction of that in which the Buluaro people arrived. The same
fanciful story of a petrified boat is prevalent in the Serampei country
of Sumatra. From Natal Hill Pulo Batu is visible. Like the islands
already described it is entirely covered with wood.

PULO KAPINI.

Between Pulo Batu and the coast of Sumatra, but much nearer to the
latter, is a small uninhabited island, called Pulo Kapini (iron-wood
island), but to which our charts (copying from Valentyn) commonly give
the name of Batu, whilst to Batu itself, as above described, is assigned
the name of Mintaon. In confirmation of the distinctions here laid down
it will be thought sufficient to observe that, when the Company's packet,
the Greyhound, lay at what was called Lant's Bay in Mintaon, an officer
came to our settlement of Natal (of which Mr. John Marsden at that time
was chief) in a Batu oil-boat; and that a large trade for oil is carried
on from Padang and other places with the island of Batu, whilst that of
Kapini is known to be without inhabitants, and could not supply the
article.

PULO NIAS.

The most productive and important, if not the largest of this chain of
islands, is Pulo Nias. Its inhabitants are very numerous, and of a race
distinct not only from those on the main (for such we must relatively
consider Sumatra), but also from the people of all the islands to the
southward, with the exception of the last-mentioned. Their complexions,
especially the women, are lighter than those of the Malays; they are
smaller in their persons and shorter in stature; their mouths are broad,
noses very flat, and their ears are pierced and distended in so
extraordinary a manner as nearly, in many instances, to touch the
shoulders, particularly when the flap has, by excessive distension or by
accident, been rent asunder; but these pendulous excrescences are
commonly trimmed and reduced to the ordinary size when they are brought
away from their own country. Preposterous however as this custom may
appear, it is not confined to the Nias people. Some of the women of the
inland parts of Sumatra, in the vicinity of the equinoctial line
(especially those of the Rau tribes) increase the perforation of their
ears until they admit ornaments of two or three inches diameter. There is
no circumstance by which the natives of this island are more obviously
distinguished than the prevalence of a leprous scurf with which the skins
of a great proportion of both sexes are affected; in some cases covering
the whole of the body and limbs, and in others resembling rather the
effect of the tetter or ringworm, running like that partial complaint in
waving lines and concentric curves. It is seldom if ever radically cured,
although by external applications (especially in the slighter cases) its
symptoms are moderated, and a temporary smoothness given to the skin; but
it does not seem in any stage of the disease to have a tendency to
shorten life, or to be inconsistent with perfect health in other
respects, nor is there reason to suppose it infectious; and it is
remarkable that the inhabitants of Pulo Batu, who are evidently of the
same race, are exempt from this cutaneous malady. The principal food of
the common people is the sweet-potato, but much pork is also eaten by
those who can afford it, and the chiefs make a practice of ornamenting
their houses with the jaws of the hogs, as well as the skulls of the
enemies whom they slay. The cultivation of rice has become extensive in
modern times, but rather as an article of traffic than of home
consumption.

These people are remarkable for their docility and expertness in
handicraft work, and become excellent house-carpenters and joiners, and
as an instance of their skill in the arts they practise that of letting
blood by cupping, in a mode nearly similar to ours. Among the Sumatrans
blood is never drawn with so salutary an intent. They are industrious and
frugal, temperate and regular in their habits, but at the same time
avaricious, sullen, obstinate, vindictive, and sanguinary. Although much
employed as domestic slaves (particularly by the Dutch) they are always
esteemed dangerous in that capacity, a defect in their character which
philosophers will not hesitate to excuse in an independent people torn by
violence from their country and connexions. They frequently kill
themselves when disgusted with their situation or unhappy in their
families, and often their wives at the same time, who appeared, from the
circumstances under which they were found, to have been consenting to the
desperate act. They were both dressed in their best apparel (the
remainder being previously destroyed), and the female, in more than one
instance that came under notice, had struggled so little as not to
discompose her hair or remove her head from the pillow. It is said that
in their own country they expose their children by suspending them in a
bag from a tree, when they despair of being able to bring them up. The
mode seems to be adopted with the view of preserving them from animals of
prey, and giving them a chance of being saved by persons in more easy
circumstances.

The island is divided into about fifty small districts, under chiefs or
rajas who are independent of, and at perpetual variance with, each other;
the ultimate object of their wars being to make prisoners, whom they sell
for slaves, as well as all others not immediately connected with them,
whom they can seize by stratagem. These violences are doubtless
encouraged by the resort of native traders from Padang, Natal, and Achin
to purchase cargoes of slaves, who are also accused of augmenting the
profits of their voyage by occasionally surprising and carrying off whole
families. The number annually exported is reckoned at four hundred and
fifty to Natal, and one hundred and fifty to the northern ports (where
they are said to be employed by the Achinese in the gold-mines),
exclusive of those which go to Padang for the supply of Batavia, where
the females are highly valued and taught music and various
accomplishments. In catching these unfortunate victims of avarice it is
supposed that not fewer than two hundred are killed; and if the aggregate
be computed at one thousand it is a prodigious number to be supplied from
the population of so small an island.

Beside the article of slaves there is a considerable export of padi and
rice, the cultivation of which is chiefly carried on at a distance from
the sea-coasts, whither the natives retire to be secure from piratical
depredations, bringing down the produce to the harbours (of which there
are several good ones), to barter with the traders for iron, steel,
beads, tobacco, and the coarser kinds of Madras and Surat piece-goods.
Numbers of hogs are reared, and some parts of the main, especially Barus,
are supplied from hence with yams, beans, and poultry. Some of the rajas
are supposed to have amassed a sum equal to ten or twenty thousand
dollars, which is kept in ingots of gold and silver, much of the latter
consisting of small Dutch money (not the purest coin) melted down; and of
these they make an ostentatious display at weddings and other festivals.

The language scarcely differs more from the Batta and the Lampong than
these do from each other, and all evidently belong to the same stock. The
pronunciation is very guttural, and either from habit or peculiar
conformation of organs these people cannot articulate the letter p, but
in Malayan words, where the sound occurs, pronounce it as f (saying for
example Fulo Finang instead of Pulo Pinang), whilst on the contrary the
Malays never make use of the f, and pronounce as pikir the Arabic word
fikir. Indeed the Arabians themselves appear to have the same organic
defect as the people of Nias, and it may likewise be observed in the
languages of some of the South-sea islands.

PULO NAKO-NAKO.

On the western side of Nias and very near to it is a cluster of small
islands called Pulo Nako-nako, whose inhabitants (as well as others who
shall presently be noticed) are of a race termed Maros or orang maruwi,
distinct from those of the former, but equally fair-complexioned. Large
quantities of coconut-oil are prepared here and exported chiefly to
Padang, the natives having had a quarrel with the Natal traders. The
islands are governed by a single raja, who monopolizes the produce, his
subjects dealing only with him, and he with the praws or country vessels
who are regularly furnished with cargoes in the order of their arrival,
and never dispatched out of turn.

PULO BABI.

Pulo Babi or Hog island, called by the natives Si Malu, lies
north­westward from Nias, and, like Nako-Nako, is inhabited by the Maruwi
race. Buffaloes (and hogs, we may presume) are met with here in great
plenty and sold cheap.

PULO BANIAK.

The name of Pulo Baniak belongs to a cluster of islands (as the terms
imply) situated to the eastward, or in-shore of Pulo Babi, and not far
from the entrance of Singkel River. It is however most commonly applied
to one of them which is considerably larger than the others. It does not
appear to furnish any vegetable produce as an article of trade, and the
returns from thence are chiefly sea-slug and the edible birds-nest. The
inhabitants of these islands also are Maruwis, and, as well as the others
of the same race, are now Mahometans. Their language, although considered
by the natives of these parts as distinct and peculiar (which will
naturally be the case where people do not understand each other's
conversation), has much radical affinity to the Batta and Nias, and less
to the Pagi; but all belong to the same class, and may be regarded as
dialects of a general language prevailing amongst the original
inhabitants of this eastern archipelago, as far at least as the Moluccas
and Philippines.

THE END.




INDEX.


Achin or Acheh:
kingdom of, its boundaries.
Situation, buildings, and appearance of the capital.
Air esteemed healthy.
Inhabitants described.
Present state of commerce.
Productions of soil, manufactures, navigation.
Coin, government.
Officers of state, ceremonies.
Local division.
Revenues, duties.
Administration of justice and punishments.
History of.
State of the kingdom at the time when Malacca fell into the hands of the
Portuguese.
Circumstances which placed Ibrahim, a slave of the king of Pidir, on the
throne.
Rises to considerable importance during the reign of Mansur-shah.
King of, receives a letter from Queen Elizabeth.
Letter from King James the First.
Commencement of female reigns.
Their termination.
Subsequent events.

Achin Head:
situation of.

Address:
custom of, in the third instead of the second person.

Adultery:
laws respecting.

Agriculture.

Air:
temperature of.

Ala-eddin:
or Ula-eddin Shah, king of Achin, lays repeated siege to Malacca.
His death.

Alboquerque (Affonso d'):
touches at Pidir and Pase in his voyage to Malacca.

Alligators:
Superstitious dread of.

Amomum:
different species of.

Amusements.

Anak-sungei:
kingdom of.

Ancestors:
veneration for burying-places of.

Animals:
account of.

Annals:
Malayan, of the kingdom of Achin.

Ants:
variety and abundance of.
White-ant.

Arabian:
travellers, mention Sumatra by the name of Ramni.

Arabic:
character, with modifications, used by the Malays.

Arithmetic.

Arsenic:
yellow.

Arts:
and manufactures.

Aru, kingdom of.

Astronomy.

Atap:
covering for roofs of houses.

Babi:
island of.

Bamboo:
principal material for building.
Account of the.

Bangka:
island of, its tin-mines.

Baniak:
islands of.

Banyan:
tree or jawi-jawi, its peculiarities.

Bantam:
city of.
Expulsion of English from thence.

Barbosa, (Odoardus):
his account of Sumatra.

Barthema (Ludovico):
his visit to the island.

Barus:
a place chiefly remarkable for having given its name to the most valuable
sort of camphor.

Bats:
various species of.

Batta:
country of.
Its divisions.
Mr. Miller's journey into it.
Governments.
Authority of the rajas.
Succession.
Persons, dress, and weapons of the inhabitants.
Warfare.
Fortified villages or kampongs.
Trade, mode of holding fairs.
Food.
Buildings, domestic manners.
Horse-racing.
Books.
Observations on their mode of writing.
Religion.
Mythology.
Oaths.
Funeral ceremonies.
Crimes and punishments.
Practice of eating human flesh.
Motives for this custom.
Mode of proceeding.
Doubts obviated.
Testimonies.
Death of Mr. Nairne in the Batta country.
Originality of manners preserved amongst this people, and its probable
causes.

Batu (Pulo).

Batu Bara:
river.

Beards:
practice of eradicating.

Beasts.

Beaulieu:
commander of a French squadron at Achin.

Beeswax.

Bencoolen:
river and town.
Interior country visited.
Account of first English establishment at.

Benzoin:
or benjamin, mode of procuring.
Nature of the trade.
Oil distilled from.

Betel:
practice of chewing.
Preparation of.

Betel-nut:
or areca, see Pinang.

Bintang:
island of.

Birds:
Species which form the edible nests.
Modes of catching.

Birds-nest:
edible, account of.

Biru:
island of.

Blachang:
species of caviar, mode of preparing.

Blades:
of krises.
mode of damasking.

Boulton (Mr. Matthew).

Bread-fruit:
or sukun.

Breezes:
land and sea.

Braham (Mr. Philip).

Broff (Mr. Robert).

Buffalo:
or karbau, description of the.
Killed at festivals.

Building:
modes of, described.

Bukit Lintang:
a high range of hills inland of Moco-moco.

Bukit Pandang:
a high mountain inland of Ipu.

Burying-places:
ancient, veneration for.

Chameleon:
description of.

Campbell (Mr. Charles).

Camphor:
or kapur barus, a valuable drug.
Description of the tree.
Mode of procuring it.
Its price.
Camphor-oil.
Japan camphor.

Cannibalism.

Cannon:
use of, previously to Portuguese discoveries.

Carpenters' work.

Carving.

Cassia:
description of the tree.
Found in the Serampei, Musi, and Batta countries.

Cattle:
Laws respecting.

Causes:
or suits, mode of deciding.

Caut-chouc:
or elastic gum.

Cements.

Champaka:
flower.

Character:
difference in respect of it, between the Malays and other Sumatrans.

Characters:
of Rejang, Batta, and Lampong languages.

Charms.

Chastity.

Chess:
game of, Malayan terms.

Child-bearing.

Children:
treatment of.

Chinese:
colonists.

Circumcision.

Cloth:
manufacture of.

Clothing:
materials of.

Coal.

Cock-fighting:
strong propensity to this sport.
Matches.

Coconut-tree:
an important object of cultivation.
Does not bear fruit in the hill country.

Codes:
of laws.
Remarks on.

Coins:
current in Sumatra.

Commerce.

Company (English East India):
its influence.
Permission given to it to settle a factory at Achin.

Compass:
irregularity of, noticed.

Compensation:
for murder, termed bangun.

Complexion:
fairness of, comparatively with other Indians.
Darkness of, not dependent on climate.

Confinement:
modes of.

Contracts:
made with the chiefs of the country, for obliging their dependants to
plant pepper.

Conversion:
to religion of Mahomet, period of.

Cookery.

Copper.
Rich mine of.

Coral rock.

Corallines:
collection of, in the possession of Mr. John Griffiths.

Cosmetic:
used, and mode of preparing it.

Cotton:
two species of, cultivated.

Courtship.

Crisp (Mr. John).

Cultivation:
of rice.

Curry:
dish or mode of cookery so called.

Custard-apple.

Cycas circinalis:
(a palm-fern confounded with the sago-tree) described.

Dalrymple (Mr. Alexander).

Dammar:
a species of resin or turpentine.

Dancing:
amusement of.

Dare (Lieutenant Hastings).
Journal of his expedition to the Serampei and Sungei-tenang countries.

Datu:
title of.

Debts:
and debtors, laws respecting.

Deer:
diminutive species of.

Deity:
name for the, borrowed by the Rejangs from the Malays.

Dice.

Diseases:
modes of curing.

Diversion:
of tossing a ball.

Divorces:
laws respecting.

Dragons'-blood:
a drug, how procured.

Dress:
description of man's and woman's.

Dupati:
nature of title.

Durian:
fruit.

Dusuns:
or villages, description of.

Duyong:
or sea-cow.

Dye-stuffs.

Ears:
ceremony of boring.

Earthenware.

Earth-oil.

Earthquakes.

Eating:
mode of.

Eclipses:
notion respecting.

Edrisi:
his account of Sumatra by the name of Al-Rami.

Elastic gum.

Elephants.

Elizabeth:
Queen, addresses a letter to the king of Achin.

Elopements:
laws respecting.

Emblematic presents.

Engano:
island of.

English:
their first visit to Sumatra.
Settle a factory at Achin.

Europeans:
influence of.

Evidence:
rules of, and mode of giving.

Expedition:
to Serampei and Sungei-tenang countries.

Fairs.

Fencing.

Fertility:
of soil.

Festivals.

Feud:
account of a remarkable one.

Fevers:
how treated by the natives.

Filigree:
manufacture of.

Fire:
modes of kindling.
Necessary for warmth among the hills.

Firearms:
manufactured in Menangkabau.

Firefly.

Fish:
Ikan layer, a remarkable species.
Various kinds enumerated.

Fishing:
mode of.

Fish-roes:
preserved by salting.
An article of trade.

Flowers:
description of.

Foersch, (Mr.):
his account of the poison-tree.

Fogs:
dense among the hills.

Food.

Fortification:
mode of.

Fort Marlborough:
the chief English settlement on the coast of Sumatra.
Establishment of.
Reduced by Act of Parliament.

French:
settlement of Tappanuli taken by the, in the year 1760, and again in
1809, attended with circumstances of atrocity.
Sent a fleet to Achin, under General Beaulieu.

Fruits:
description of.

Funerals:
ceremonies observed at.

Furniture:
of houses.

Gambir:
mode of preparing it for eating with betel.

Gaming:
laws respecting.
Propensity for, and modes of.

Geography:
limited ideas of.

Goitres:
natives of the hills subject to.
Disease not imputable to snow-water.
In the Serampei country.

Gold:
island celebrated for its production of.
Chiefly found in the Menangkabau country.
Distinctions of.
Mode of working the mines.
Estimation of quantity procured.
Price.
Mode of cleansing.
Weights.

Government:
Malayan.

Grammar.

Graves:
form of.

Griffiths, (Mr. John).

Guana:
or iguana, animal of the lizard kind.

Guava:
fruit.

Gum-lac.

Gunpowder:
manufacture of.

Hair:
modes of dressing the.

Heat:
degree of.

Hemp:
or ganja, its inebriating qualities.

Henna:
of the Arabians used for tingeing the nails.

Herbs:
and shrubs used medicinally.

Hills:
inhabitants of, subject to goitres.

Hippopotamus.

History:
of Malayan kings.
Of Achinese.

Hollanders:
their first visit to Sumatra.

Holloway, (Mr. Giles).

Horse-racing:
practised by the Battas.

Horses:
small breed of.
Occasionally used in war.
Eaten as food by the Battas.

Hot springs.

Houses:
description of.

Human flesh:
eaten by the Battas.

Iang de per-tuan:
title of sovereignty.

Ibrahim (otherwise, Saleh-eddin shah):
king of Achin, his origin.
Enmity to the Portuguese.
Transactions of his reign, and death.

Iju:
a peculiar vegetable substance used for cordage.

Ilhas d'Ouro:
attempts of the Portuguese to discover them.

Import-trade.

Incest.

Indalas:
one of the Malayan names of Sumatra.

Indigo:
Broad-leafed or tarum akar.

Indragiri:
river of.
Has its source in a lake of the Menangkabau country.

Indrapura:
kingdom of.

Inhabitants:
general distinctions of.

Inheritance:
rules of.

Ink:
manufacture of.

Insanity.

Insects:
Various kinds of, enumerated.

Instruments:
musical.

Interest:
of money.

Investiture.

Ipu:
river of.
Sungei-ipu (a different river).

Iron:
Ore smelted.
Manufactures of.
Mines.

Iskander Muda (Paduka Sri):
king of Achin, receives a letter from king James the first, by Captain
Best, and gives permission for establishing an English factory.
Conquers Johor.
Attacks Malacca with a great fleet.
Receives an embassy from France.
Again attacks Malacca.
His death.
Wealth and power.

Islands:
near the western coast, account of.

Ivory.

Jack:
fruit.

Jaggri:
imperfect sort of sugar from a species of palm.

Jambi:
river of.
Colonies settled on branches of it, for collecting gold.
Has its source in the Limun country.
Town of.

Jambu:
fruit.

James the first:
king, writes a letter to the king of Achin.

Jeinal:
sultan of Pase, his history.

Johor:
kingdom of.

Kampar:
river of.
King of, negotiates with Alboquerque.

Kampongs:
or fortified villages.

Kananga:
flowering tree.

Kapini:
island of.

Kasumba:
name of, given to the carthamus and the bixa.

Kataun:
or Cattown, river of.

Kima:
or gigantic cockle.

Koran.

Korinchi:
country.
Mr. Campbell's visit to it.
Situation of lake.
Inhabitants and buildings.
Food, articles of commerce, gold.
Account of lepers.
Peculiar plants.
Character of the natives.

Koto-tuggoh:
a fortified village of the Sungei­tenang country.
Taken and destroyed.

Krises:
description of.

Kroi:
district of.

Kulit-kayu:
or coolicoy, the bark of certain trees used in building, and for other
purposes.

Kuwau:
argus or Sumatran pheasant.

Labun:
district of.

Lakes.

Laksamana:
a title equivalent to commander-in-chief.

Lampong:
country, limits of.
Inhabitants, language, and governments.
Wars.
Account of a peculiar people, called orang abung.
Manners and customs.
Superstitions.

Land:
unevenness of its surface.
New­formed.
Rarely considered as the subject of property.

Land:
and sea breezes, causes of.

Language:
Nature of the Malayan.
Of others spoken in Sumatra.
Court.
Specimens of.
Batta.
Nias.

Lanseh:
fruit.

Laws:
and customs.
Compilation of.

Laye:
river and district of.

Leeches:
a small kind of, very troublesome on marches.

Lemba:
district, inhabitants of, similar to the Rejangs.

Leprosy:
account of.

Lignum-aloes:
or kalambac.

Limun:
district of.
Gold-traders of.

Literature.

Lizards.

Longitude:
of Fort Marlborough, determined by observation.

Looms:
description of.

Macdonald, (Lieutenant-colonel John).

Mackenzie, (Mr. Kenneth).

Madagascar:
resemblance in customs of, to those of Sumatra.

Mahmud shah Juhan (Ala-eddin).

Mahometanism:
period of conversion to.

Maize:
or jagong, cultivation of.

Malacca:
or Malaka, city of, when founded.
Visited in 1509 by the Portuguese.
In 1511 taken by them.
Repeatedly attacked by the kings of Achin.
In 1641 taken by the Hollanders.

Malays:
name of, applied to people of Menangkabau.
Nearly synonymous with Mahometan, in these parts.
Difference in character between Malays and other Sumatrans.
Guards composed of.
Origin of.
Race of kings.
Not strict in matters of religion.
Governments of.

Malayan:
language.

Malur:
or Malati flower (nyctanthes).

Mango:
fruit, described.

Mangustin:
fruit, described.

Manjuta:
river and district of.
English settlement at.

Manna:
district of.

Mansalar:
island of.

Mansur shah:
king of Achin, besieges Malacca, and is defeated.
Renews the attack, without success.
Again appears before it with a large fleet, and proceeds to the attack of
Johor.
Murdered when preparing to sail with a considerable expedition.

Mantawei:
name of race of people inhabiting certain islands.

Manufactures.

Marco Polo:
his account of Sumatra, by the name of Java minor.
Visited it about the year 1290.

Marriage:
modes of, and laws respecting.
Rites of.
Festivals.
Consummation of.

Marsden (Mr. John).

Measures:
of capacity and length.

Measurement:
of time.

Medicinal:
shrubs and herbs.

Medicine:
art of.

Mega:
island of.

Menangkabau:
kingdom of.
History of, imperfectly known.
Limits of.
Rivers proceeding from it.
Political decline.
Early mention of it by travellers.
Division of the government.
Extraordinary respect paid to reigning family.
Titles of the sultan.
Remarks on them.
Ceremonies.
Conversion of people to the Mahometan religion.
Antiquity of the empire more remote than that event.
Sultan held in respect by the Battas.

Metempsychosis:
ideas of, as entertained by the Sumatrans.

Miller (Mr. Charles).

Minerals.

Mines:
gold.
Copper.
Iron.

Missionaries:
no attempt of, to convert the Sumatrans to Christianity, upon record.

Moco-moco:
in Anac-sungei, account of.

Monkeys:
various species of.

Monsoons:
causes of their change.

Morinda:
wood of, used for dyeing.

Mountains:
chain of, running along the island.
Height of Mount Ophir or Gunong Passamman.
High mountain called Bukit Pandang.

Mucks:
practice, nature, and causes of.

Muhammed shah (Ala-eddin or Ula-eddin):
succeeds Juhan shah as king of Achin.
His turbulent reign, and death.

Mukim:
divisional district of the country of Achin.

Mulberry.

Murder:
compensation for.

Musi:
district of.

Music:
Minor key preferred.

Mythology:
of the Battas.

Nako-nako:
islands of.

Nalabu:
port of.

Name:
of Sumatra, unknown to the Arabian geographers, and to Marco Polo.
Various orthography of.
Probably of Hindu origin.

Names:
when given to children.
Distinctions of.
Father often named from his child.
Hesitate to pronounce their own.

Natal:
settlement of.
Gold of fine quality procured in the country of.
Governed by datus.

Navigation.

Nias:
island of.

Nibong:
species of palm, description and uses of.

Nicolo di Conti:
his visit to Sumatra.

Nutmegs:
and cloves, first introduction of, by Mr. Robert Broff.
Second importation.
Success of the culture.


Oaths:
nature of, in legal proceedings.
Collateral.
Mode of administering.
Amongst the Battas.

Odoricus:
his visit to the island of Sumoltra.

Officers:
of state, in Malayan governments.
At Achin.

Oil:
earth-.
Camphor-.
Coconut-.

Ophir:
name of, not known to the natives.
Height of Mount Ophir or Gunong Passamman.

Opium:
considerable importation of, from Bengal.
Law respecting.
Practice of smoking.
Preparation of.
Effects of.

Oranges:
various species of.

Oratory:
gift of, natural to the Sumatrans.

Ornaments:
worn.

Padang:
the principal Dutch settlement.

Padang-guchi:
river of.

Padi:
or rice, cultivation of upland.
Of lowland.
Transplantation of.
Rate of produce.
Threshing.
Beating out.

Paduka Sri:
king of Achin, see Iskander Muda.

Pagi (or Nassaus):
islands of.

Palembang:
river of.
Rises in the district of Musi, near Bencoolen river.
Dutch factory on it.
Description of country on its banks.
Government.
City of.
Many foreign settlers.
Language.
Interior country visited by the English.

Palma-christi.

Pandan:
shrub, its fragrant blossom.

Pangeran:
nature of title.
Authority much limited.

Pantun:
or proverbial song.

Papaw:
fruit.

Pase:
kingdom of.

Passamman:
province of.

Passummah:
Legal customs of.

Pawns:
or pledges, law respecting.

Pepper:
principal object of the Company's trade.
Cultivation of.
Description of the plant.
Progress of bearing.
Time of gathering.
Mode of drying.
White pepper.
Surveys of plantations.
Transportation of.

Percha (Pulo):
one of the Malayan names of Sumatra.

Perfume.

Pergularia odoratissima:
cultivated in England by Sir Joseph Banks.

Persons:
of the natives, description of.

Pheasant:
argus or Sumatran.

Philippine:
islands, customs and superstitions of, resembling those of Sumatra.

Pidir:
kingdom of.

Pigafetta (Antonio):
in his voyage appears the earliest specimen of a Malayan vocabulary.

Pikul:
weight.

Pinang:
areca, or, vulgarly, the betel-nut-tree, and fruit.

Pinang (Pulo):
island of.

Pineapple.

Piratical habits:
of Malays.

Plantain:
or pisang.
Varieties of the fruit.

Pleading:
mode of.

Poetry:
fondness of the natives for.

Polishing:
leaf.

Polygamy:
question of.
Connexion between it and the practice of purchasing wives.

Population.

Porah:
island of.

Portuguese:
expeditions of, rendered the island of Sumatra well known to Europeans.
Their first visit to it, under Diogo Lopez de Sequeira.
Transactions at Pidir, and Pase.
Conquer Malacca.
Sustain many attacks and sieges from kings of Achin.

Potatoes:
cultivated in the Korinchi country.

Priaman:
river and district of.
Invitation to the English to form a settlement there.

Puhn:
or Poon, signifying tree in general, applied by Europeans to a particular
species.

Puhn-upas:
or poison-tree, account of.

Pulas:
species of twine from the kaluwi nettle.

Pulse:
variety of.

Pulo:
or island.

Pulo:
point and bay.

Punei-jambu:
a beautiful species of dove.

Punishments:
corporal.
Amongst the Battas.
Amongst the Achinese.

Quail-fighting.

Queen:
government of Achin devolves to a.
Account of embassy from Madras to the.

Radin:
prince of Madura.

Raffles (Mr. Thomas).

Rakan:
river or estuary.

Rambutan:
fruit.

Ramni:
name given to Sumatra by the Arabian geographers.

Ranjaus:
description of.

Rapes:
laws respecting.

Rattan-cane:
fruit of.
Considerable export trade in.

Rau:
or Rawa country.

Rayet shah (Ala-eddin):
said to have been originally a fisherman, ascends the throne of Achin,
having murdered the heir.
During his reign the Hollanders first visited Achin.
And also the English, under Captain (Sir James) Lancaster, who carried
letters from Queen Elizabeth.
At the age of ninety-five, confined by his son.

Reaping:
mode of.

Rejang:
people of, chosen as a standard for description of manners.
Situation of the country.
Divided into tribes.
Their government.

Religion:
state of, amongst the Rejang.
No ostensible worship.
The word dewa applied to a class of invisible beings.
Veneration for the tombs of their ancestors.
Ancient religion of Malays.
Motives for conversion to Mahometanism.
Of the Battas.

Reptiles.

Rhinoceros.

Rice:
culture of.
Distinctions of ladang or upland, and sawah or lowland.
Sowing, mode of.
Reaping, mode of.
An article of trade.

Rivers.

Rock:
species of soft.
Coral.

Rum:
or Rome, for Constantinople.

Sago-tree:
or rambiya (confounded with the Cycas circinalis, a different tree),
described.

Salt:
manufacture of.

Saltpetre:
Procured from certain caves.

Sanding:
islands or Pulo Sandiang.

Sappan:
wood.

Scorpion:
flower or anggrek kasturi.

Sculpture:
ancient.

Sea:
encroachments of.

Sequeira (Diogo Lopez de):
first Portuguese who visited Sumatra.

Serampei:
country.
Villages, government, features of the women.
Peculiar regulation.
Further account of.

Sesamum:
or bijin, oil produced from.

Sexes:
mistaken ideas of a considerable inequality in the numbers of the two.

Shellfish.

Siak:
river of.
Survey of.
Country on both sides flat and alluvial.
Abundance of ship-timber.
Government.
Trade.
Subdued by the king of Achin.

Si Biru:
island of.

Silebar:
river, and district of.

Sileda:
attempt to work a gold mine at.

Silk-cotton (bombax).

Singapura:
city of, when founded.

Singkel:
river.

Si Porah:
or Good Fortune, island of.

Situation:
of the island, general account of.

Slavery:
state of, not common among the Rejangs.
Condition of negro slaves at Fort Marlborough.

Smallpox:
its ravages.

Snakes.

Soil:
described.
Unevenness of surface.
Fertility of.

Songs:
Singing.
amusement of.

Spices:
see Nutmegs.

Sugar:
manufacture of.
Imperfect sort, called jaggri.

Sugar-cane, cultivation of.

Suits:
see Causes.

Sulphur:
Where procured.

Sumatra:
name probably of Hindu origin.

Sungei-lamo and Sungei-itam:
rivers.

Sungei-tenang:
country, account of.

Superstitious opinions.

Surf:
Considerations respecting.
Probable cause of.

Surveys:
of pepper plantations.

Swala:
or sea-slug, an article of trade.

Swasa:
a mixture of gold and copper so called.

Tamarind:
tree.

Tanjong:
flower.

Tappanuli:
celebrated bay of.
Settlement on the island of Punchong kechil.
Taken in 1760 by the French, and again in 1809.

Taprobane:
name of, applied to Sumatra in the middle ages.

Teak:
timber, its valuable qualities.
Attempts to cultivate the tree.

Teeth:
mode of filing them.
Sometimes plated with gold.

Theft:
laws respecting.
Proof of, required.

Thermometer:
height of, at Fort Marlborough, and at Natal.
So low as 45 degrees on a hill in the Ipu country.

Threshing:
mode of.

Thunder:
and lightning, very frequent.
Effect of.

Tides:
At Siak.
Flow to a great distance in rivers on eastern side of the island.

Tiger:
Ravages by this animal.
Traps.

Tiku:
river and islands of.

Timber:
great variety of.
Species enumerated.

Time:
manner of dividing.

Tin:
A considerable export of it to China.

Titles.

Tobacco:
cultivation of.

Toddy:
or nira, how procured.

Tools:
for mining.
Carpenters'.

Torches:
or links.

Trade.

Triste:
island of, see Mega.

Tulang-bawang:
river.

Turmeric.

Upas:
vegetable poison, account of.

Urei:
river of.

Utensils:
account of.

Vegetable productions.

Venereal disease.

Villages:
description of.

Virgins:
their distinguishing ornaments.

Volcanoes:
called gunong api, account of.

Warfare:
mode of.

Waterfalls.

Waterspout:
account of.

Wax:
a considerable article of trade.

Weapons.

Weaving.

Weights.

Wens.

White-ants.

White pepper.

Widows:
laws respecting.

Wilkins (Mr. Charles).

Winds.

Wives:
number of. See Marriage.

Worm-shell:
or Teredo navalis.

Wood:
various species of.

Woods:
Mode of clearing.

Wounds:
laws respecting.

Writing:
On bark of tree, and on slips of bamboo.
Specimens of.

Yams:
various roots under that denomination.

Year:
mode of estimating its length.





End of Project Gutenberg's The History of Sumatra, by William Marsden