Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/466

408 a rotten tooth: much may be attributed to what they chew so continually, which they themselves, and indeed every one else, agree is very beneficial to the teeth. The blackness, however, caused by this, of which they are so proud, is not a fixed stain, but may be rubbed off at pleasure, and then their teeth are as white as ivory, but very soon regain their original blackness.

No one who has ever been in these countries can be ignorant of the practice here called amoc, which means that an Indian intoxicated with opium rushes into the street with a drawn dagger in his hand, and kills everybody he meets, especially Europeans, till he is himself either killed or taken. This happened at Batavia three times while we were there to my knowledge, and much oftener I believe; for the marineu, or constable, whose business it is to apprehend such people, himself told me there was scarcely a week when either he himself or some of his brethren was not called upon to seize or kill them. So far, however, from being an accidental madness which drove them to kill whomsoever they met without distinction of persons, the three people that I knew of, and I have been told all others, had been severely injured, chiefly in love affairs, and first revenged themselves on the party who had injured them. It is true that they had made themselves drunk with opium before they committed this action; and when it was done rushed out into the streets, foaming at the mouth like mad dogs, with their drawn criss or dagger in their hands: but they never attempted to hurt any one except those who tried or appeared to them to try to stop or seize them. Whoever ran away or went on the other side of the street was safe. To prove that these people distinguish persons, mad as they are with opium, there is a famous story in Batavia of one who ran amoc on account of stripes and ill-usage which he had received from his mistress and her elder daughter, but who on the contrary had always been well used by the younger. He stabbed first the eldest daughter; the youngest hearing the bustle, ran to the assistance of her mother, and placed herself between him and her, attempting to persuade