male is armed to protect himself, his family, and
dwelling, and such is the inadequacy even of this
precaution, that the inhabitants are compelled, for
mutual protection, always to associate in villages.
The inhabitants of the Indian islands are strictly,
then, an armed population.
Among the savages of all nations, we find the use
of the club, the sling, and the bow and arrow, the
first and universal weapons of all mankind. To these
the Indian islanders add the tube for discharging
arrows, which are sometimes poisoned with a prepared
vegetable juice. The Balinese are the only
tribe, in any degree civilized, which retains the general
use of this practice. The more powerful nations
have long given it up, we may presume, rather
from an experience of its inefficacy, than from any
conviction of the immorality or baseness of the
practice. The Javanese historians, in rendering an
account of a war conducted by the sultan of Mata-
ram against the people of Bali and Blambangan, as
' long ago as the year 1639, mention the use of poisoned
arrows on the part of the former, as an extraordinary
circumstance new to their countrymen, and
which excited at first some alarm. The poison
made use of on such occasions it is known, by experiment,
must be applied in considerable quantity,
and for a length of time, even to the smaller
animals, to destroy life, and this even where it is
most skilfully prepared and most recently used.
\tfhen applied after a short exposure to the air,
through the wound of an arrow immediately withdrawn,
the probability is, that it would not prove fatal
to the human frame once out ol ten thousand
times. In the use of the bow and arrow, and the
sling, I do not discover that the Indian islanders
have acquired any extraordinary dexterity. The
Javanese are extremely fond of the exercise of the
bow and arrow as an amusement, but are an}
thing but skilful in the use of it, and seldom
succeed in throwing the arrow above a dozen
of yards. In the attack upon the palace of the
sultan of Java in 1812, the Javanese threw stones
from slings in great numbers, but without inflicting
a serious wound, or even dangerous contusion,
in the period of two days.
The knowledge of iron must soon have, in a
great measure, superseded the use of these less perfect
weapons, and given rise to that of the spear
andkris. These may be justly styled the favourite
weapons of the Indian islanders. They adorn
them in a thousand fanciful ways, and take a pride
in wearing and displaying them. A short spear is
in use among the Malays, and nations of Celebes,
and, occasionally, by the latter, a kind of javelin,
for using as a missile weapon. The Javanese wield
a more formidable weapon, often twelve, or even
fourteen feet long, in the use of which they possess,
individually, a great dexterity. I have seen a Java