a receipt, signed by the master of the ship, for the goods to his employer, who receives the money, and having deducted his profit, pays the Chinese his demand. With goods that are imported, however, the merchant has a little more trouble, for these he must examine, receive, and lay up in his warehouse, according to the practice of other countries.

The Portuguese are called by the natives Oranserrne, or Nazareen men (Oran, being Man in the language of the country,) to distinguish them from other Europeans; yet they are included in the general appellation of Caper, or Cafir, an opprobrious term, applied by Mahometans to all who do not profess their faith. These people, however, are Portuguese only in name; they have renounced the religion of Rome, and become Lutherans: Neither have they the least communication with the country of their forefathers, or even knowledge of it: They speak indeed a corrupt dialect of the Portuguese language, but much more frequently use the Malay: They are never suffered to employ themselves in any but mean occupations: Many of them live by hunting, many by washing linen, and some are handicraftsmen and artificers. They have adopted all the customs of the Indians, from whom they are distinguished chiefly by their features and complexion, their skin being considerably darker, and their noses more sharp; their dress is exactly the same, except in the manner of wearing their hair.

The Indians, who are mixed with the Dutch and Portuguese in the town of Batavia, and the country adjacent, are not, as might be supposed, Javanese, the original natives of the island, but natives of the various islands from which the Dutch import slaves, and are either such as have themselves been manumized, or the descendants of those who formerly received manumission; and they are all comprehended under the general name of Oranslam, or Isalam, signifying be lievers of the true faith. The natives of every country, however, in other respects, keep themselves distinct from the rest, and are not less strongly marked than the slaves by the vices or virtues of their respective nations. Many of these employ themselves in the cultivation of gardens, and in selling fruit and flowers. The betel and areca, which are here called siri and pinang, and chewed by both sexes

and

and every rank in amazing quantities, are all grown by these Indians: Lime is also mixed with these roots here as it is in Savu, but it is less pernicious to the teeth, because it is first slaked, and, besides the lime, a substance called gambir, which is brought from the continent of India; the better sort of women also add cardamum, and many other aromatics, to give the breath an agreeable smell. Some of the Indians, however, are employed in fishing, and as lightermen, to carry goods from place to place by water; and some are rich, and live with much of the splendour of their country, which chiefly consists in the number of their slaves.

In the article of food, these Isalams are remarkably temperate: It consists chiefly of boiled rice, with a small portion of buffalo, fish, or fowl, and sometimes of dried fish, and dried shrimps, which are brought hither from China; every dish, however, is highly seasoned with Cayan pepper, and they have many kinds of pastry made of rice-flour, and other things to which I am a stranger; they eat also a great deal of fruit, particularly plantains.

But notwithstanding their general temperance their feasts are plentiful, and, according to their manner, magnificent. As they are Mahometans, wine and strong liquors professedly make no part of their entertainment, neither do they often indulge with them privately, contenting themselves with their betel and opium.

The principal solemnity among them is a wedding, upon which occasion both the families borrow as many ornaments of gold and silver as they can, to adorn the bride and bridegroom, so that their dresses are very showy and magnificent. The feasts that are given upon these occasions among the rich, last sometimes a fortnight, and sometimes longer; and during this time the man, although married on the first day, is, by the women, kept from his wife.

The language that is spoken among all these people, from what place soever they originally came, is the Malay; at least, it is a language so called, and probably it is a very corrupt dialect of that spoken at Malacca. Every little island, indeed, has a language of its own, and Java has two or three, but this lingua franca is the only language that is now spoken here, and, as I am told, it prevails over a great part of the East Indies. A dictionary of Malay and Eng

lish was published in London by Thomas Bowrey, in the year 1701.

Their women wear as much hair as can grow upon the head, and to increase the quantity, they use oils, and other preparations of various kinds. Of this ornament Nature has been very liberal; it is universally black, and is formed into a kind of circular wreath upon the top of the head, where it is fastened with a bodkin, in a taste which we thought inexpressibly elegant: The wreath of hair is surrounded by another of flowers, in which the Arabian jessamine is beautifully intermixed with the golden stars of the bonger tanjong.

Both sexes constantly bathe themselves in the river at least once a-day, a practice which, in this hot country, is equally necessary both to personal delicacy and health. The teeth of these people also, whatever they may suffer in their colour by chewing betel, are an object of great attention: The ends of them, both in the upper and under jaw, are rubbed with a kind of whetstone, by a very troublesome and painful operation, till they are perfectly even and flat, so that they cannot lose less than half a line in their length. A deep groove is then made across the teeth of the upper jaw, parallel with the gums, and in the middle between them and the extremity of the teeth; the depth of this groove is at least equal to one-fourth of the thickness of the teeth, so that it penetrates far beyond what is called the enamel, the least injury to which, according to the dentists of Europe, is fatal; yet among these people, where the practice of thus wounding the enamel is universal, we never saw a rotten tooth; nor is the blackness a stain, but a covering, which may be washed off at pleasure, and the teeth then appear as white as ivory, which, however, is not an excellence in the estimation of the belles and beaux of these nations.

These are the people among whom the practice that is called a mock, or running a muck, has prevailed for time immemorial. It is well known, that to run a muck, in the original

2 What is here said of the Malay language cannot be implicitly relied on, information on the subject being exceedingly scanty at the time of the publication. Mr Marsden has lately favoured the world with both dictionary and grammar of the Malay, of which a very important account will be found in the Edinburgh Review for April 1814—Ë.

original sense of the word, is to get intoxicated with opium, and then rush into the street with a drawn weapon, and kill whoever comes in the way, till the party is himself either killed or taken prisoner; of this several instances happened while we were at Batavia, and one of the officers, whose business it is, among other things, to apprehend such people, told us, that there was scarcely a week in which he, or some of his brethren, were not called upon to take one of them into custody. In one of the instances that came to our knowledge, the party had been severely injured by the perfidy of women, and was mad with jealousy before he made himself drunk with opium; and we were told, that the Indian who runs a muck is always first driven to desperation by some outrage, and always first revenges himself upon those who have done him wrong: We were also told, that though these unhappy wretches afterwards run into the' street with a weapon in their hand, frantic and foaming at the mouth, yet they never kill any but those who attempt to apprehend them, or those whom they suspect of such an intention, and that whoever gives them way is safe. They are generally slaves, who indeed are most subject to insults, and least able to obtain legal redress: Freemen, however, are sometimes provoked into this extravagance, and one of the persons who ran a muck while we were at Batavia, was free, and in easy circumstances. He was jealous of his own brother, whom he first killed, and afterwards two others, who attempted to oppose him: He did not, however, come out of his house, but endeavoured to defend himself in it, though the opium had so far deprived him of his senses, that of three muskets, which he attempted to use against the officers of justice, not one was either loaded or primed. If the officer takes one of these amocks, or mohawks, as they have been called by an easy corruption, alive, his reward is very considerable, but if he kills them, nothing is added to his usual pay; yet such is the fury of their desperation, that three out of four are of necessity destroyed in the attempt to secure them, though the officers are provided with instruments like large tongs, or pincers, to lay hold of them without coming within the reach of their weapon. Those who happen to be taken alive are generally wounded, but they are always broken alive upon the wheel, and if the physician who is appointed to examiné their wounds thinks them likely to be mortal, the punish

ment

ment is inflicted immediately, and the place of execution is generally the spot where the first murder was committed.3

Among these people there are many absurd practices and opinions which they derive from their pagan ancestors : They believe that the devil, whom they call Satan, is the cause of all sickness and adversity, and for this reason, when they are sick, or in distress, they consecrate meat, money, and other things to him as a propitiation. If any one among them is restless, and dreams for two or three nights successively, he concludes that Satan has taken that method of laying his commands upon him, which if he neglects to fulfil, he will certainly suffer sickness or death, though they are not revealed with sufficient perspicuity to ascertain their meaning: To interpret his dream, therefore, he taxes his wits to the uttermost, and if, by taking it lite rally or figuratively, directly or by contraries, he can put no explanation upon it that perfectly satisfies him, he has recourse to the cawin, or priest, who assists him with a comment and illustrations, and perfectly reveals the mysterious suggestions of the night. It generally appears that the devil wants victuals or money, which are always allotted him, and being placed on a little plate of cocoa-nut leaves, are hung upon the branch of a tree near the river, so that it seems not to be the opinion of these people, that in prowling the earth" the devil walketh through dry places." Mr Banks once asked, whether they thought Satan spent the money, or eat the victuals? he was answered, that as to the money, it was considered rather as a mulct upon an offender, than a gift to him who had enjoined it, and that therefore, if it was devoted by the dreamer, it mattered not into whose hands it came, and they supposed that it was generally

3 The word amock, which is vulgarly applied to this most extraordinary exhibition of ferocious despair, signifies, in the native language, kill, and is often vociferated by the unhappy madmen as they prowl the streets, intent on vengeance. There is reason to believe that opium is no otherwise concerned in producing such frenzy than as it contributes to keep up the passions which had been previously raised, and to render the persons under their influence insensible to the dangers that beset them :-In the same manner as in other countries, the intemperate use of spirits produces a sort of temporary, but often fatal, and always hazardous derangement. The Malays are remarkable for ferocity of temper, and are, at the same time, exceedingly liable to jealousy, and to take offence. It is usually after such occurrences as excite their bad passions, that they take to opium, and are at last wrought up to the madness of the "amock," which ends their days and griefs together.-E.