(*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 foot-stalks, 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 house-building, 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 gold-cleaners 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 saga-puhn 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 forty-three 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 buffalo-milk, 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.