Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/54

 42 CLASSIFICATION AND hardly existence any where. The condition of so- ciety scarce admits of it, for freemen, as occupants, till the soil, and afford the master a higher profit than his own ignorance and supineness could give him, hy his superintendence of the labour of more nominal slaves. Slaves among the Indian islanders, then, may be looked upon as a kind of personal luxury, contributing, even according to their own estimation, rather to pomp and display than profit. It gratifies the vanity of a master to be the uncon- trolled and unresponsible lord of the life and for- tune of his servant, and the supple and flexible manners of the slave afford his pride a gratifica- tion which could not be so well satisfied by the less servile and uncertain attentions of a freeman. The slave among the Indian islanders is treated with kindness and tenderness, and considered rather in the light of a child, or favoured do- mestic, than even a dependant. Whenever the services of freemen may be obtain- ed on nearly the same terms, the obvious inutility, or rather striking disadvantages, of slavery become evident, and this is the true cause why slavery is unknown to the present race of Javanese, among whom, from the internal evidence of language, and from their writings, it is proved, in earlier times, to have existed as among the other tribes. The numbers and docility of his countrymen will now furnish a Javanese chief with attentions