Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/412

354 heat should beget ill-blood, but refer it immediately to this court.

After the Radja we could hear of no ranks of people but landowners, respectable according to the quantity of their land; and slaves, the property of the former, over whom, however, they have no other power than that of selling them for what they will fetch, when convenient; no man being able to punish his slave without the concurrence and approbation of the Radja. Of these slaves some men have 500, others only two or three; what was their price in general we did not learn, only heard by accident that a very fat hog was of the value of a slave, and often bought and sold at that price. When any great man stirs out he is constantly attended by two or more of these slaves, one of whom carries a sword or hanger, commonly with a silver hilt, and ornamented with large tassels of horse hair; the other carries a bag containing betel, areca, lime, tobacco, etc. In these attendants all their idea of show and grandeur seems to be centred, for we never saw the Radja himself with any more.

The pride of descent, particularly of being sprung from a family which has for many generations been respected, is by no means unknown here; even living in a house which has been for generations well attended is no small honour. It is a consequence of this that few articles, either of use or luxury, bear so high a price as those stones which by having been very much sat upon by men have contracted a bright polish on their uneven surfaces; those who can purchase such stones, or who have them by inheritance from their ancestors, place them round their houses, where they serve as benches for their dependents, I suppose to be still more and more polished.

Every Radja during his lifetime sets up in his capital town, or nigrie, a large stone, which serves futurity as a testimony of his reign. In the nigrie Seba, where we lay, were thirteen such stones, besides many fragments, the seeming remains of those which had been devoured by time. Many of these were very large, so much so that it would be