Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/462

404 longer any pretensions to more than the name; they have all changed their religion and become Lutherans, and have no communication with or even knowledge of the country of their forefathers. They speak, indeed, a corrupt dialect of the Portuguese language, but much oftener Malay: none of them are suffered to employ themselves in any but mean occupations; many make their livelihood by hunting, taking in washing, and some by handicraft trades. Their customs are precisely the same as those of the Indians, like them they chew betel, and are only to be distinguished from them by their noses being sharper, their skins considerably blacker, and their hair dressed in a manner different from that of Indians.

The Dutch, Portuguese, and Indians here are entirely waited upon by slaves, whom they purchase from Sumatra, Malacca, and almost all their eastern islands. The natives of Java only have an exemption from slavery, enforced by strong penal laws, which, I believe, are very seldom broken. The price of these slaves is from ten to twenty pounds sterling apiece; excepting young girls, who are sold on account of their beauty; these sometimes go as high as a hundred, but I believe never higher. They are a most lazy set of people, but contented with a little; boiled rice, with a little of the cheapest fish, is the food which they prefer to all others. They differ immensely in form of body, disposition, and consequently in value, according to the countries they come from. African negroes, called here Papua, are the cheapest and worst disposed of any, being given to stealing and almost incorrigible by stripes. Next to them are the Bougis and the Macassars, both inhabitants of the island of Celebes. They are lazy and revengeful in the highest degree, easily giving up their lives to satisfy their revenge. The island of Bali sends the most honest and faithful, consequently the dearest slaves, and Nias, a small island on the coast of Sumatra, the handsomest women, but of tender, delicate constitutions, ill able to bear the umwholesome climate of Batavia. Besides these are many more sorts, whose names and qualifications I have entirely forgotten.