Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/148

134 of royalty will tolerate no encroachment. Wearing forbidden arms or garments, or using, or causing to be used, the language of adulation appropriated to the sovereign, are always crimes of the greatest magnitude, and often capital ones. "The Raja's court," says the Suryo Alăm, "is like the sun, whose refulgent rays spread in all directions, and penetrate through every thing,—the displeasure of the Raja, in his court, is like the heat of the sun, which causes those who are exposed to it to faint away." Exercise of undue authority is punished rather as a disrespect to the king's person than as an offence offered to the regular administration of justice. We have this exemplified in the following law of the Malays: "If a person put a malefactor to death without the knowledge of the king it shall be deemed contumacy, for he has not the fear of the king before his eyes, and his punishment shall be a fine of ten tahils and one paha."

The offence of giving false intelligence, according to the acceptation of the Indian islanders, is not a great political offence, as we might imagine, but a sort of personal indignity offered to the prince himself directly, or indirectly to him in the person of one of his officers. "If a man," say the laws of Bali, "shall say to a person of rank, there is in