Page:The Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia (IA journalindianar00loga).pdf/41

 lurk along the shores, of the Archipelago, despoiling the seafaring trader of the fruits of his industry and his personal liberty, and carrying off, from their very homes, the wives and children of the villagers. From the creeks and rivers of Borneo and Johore, from the numerous islands between Singapore and Banka, and from other parts of the Archipelago, piratical expeditions less formidable than those of the Lanuns of Sulu are year after year fitted out. No coast is so thickly peopled, and no harbour so well protected, as to be secure from all molestation, for, where open force would be useless, recourse is had to stealth and stratagem. Men have been kidnapped in broad day in the harbours of Pinang and Singapore. Several inhabitants of Province Wellesley who had been carried away from their houses through the harbour of Pinang and down the Straits of Malacca to the southward were recently discovered by the Dutch authorities living in a state of slavery and restored to their homes. But the ordinary abodes of the pirates themselves are not always at a distance from the European settlements. As the thug of Bengal is only known in his own village as a peaceful peasant, so the pirate, when not absent on an expedition, appears in the river, and along the shores and islands, of Singapore, as an honest boatman or fisherman.

When we turn from this brief review of the industry of she [sic] Archipelago, and its great internal enemy, to the personal and social condition of the inhabitants, we are struck by the mixture of simplicity and art, of rudeness and refinement, which characterises all the principal nations. No European has ever entered into free and kindly intercourse with them, without being much more impressed by their virtues than their faults. They contrast most favourably with the Chinese and the Klings tn their moral characters; and although they do not, like those pliant races, readily adapt themselves to the requirements of foreigners, in their proper sphere they are intelligent, shrewd, active, and, when need is, laborius [sic]. Comparing them even with general condition of many civilized nations of far higher pretensions, our estimate must be favourable. Their manners are distinguished by a mixture of caurtesy and freedom which is very attractive. Even the poorest while frank are well bred, and, excluding the communities that are corrupted by piracy or a mixture with European seamen and low Chinese and Klings, we