would have afforded abundant means of gratifying
it. They manufacture a sort of beer from rice, by
a cheap and expeditious process, and their many
palms afford a cheap and abundant supply of wine
of an agreeable taste, and, when in a state of fermentation,
highly intoxicating. Of these resources
they cannot be said to take an undue advantage.
Some of the tribes are restrained, indeed, by re-
ligious motives, but others, who have no scruples
of this description, are sober, and although an
occasional debauch may be committed, habitual
drunkenness is so rare, that in my extensive intercourse,
I cannot remember a single example of it.
CHAPTER IV.
GAMES AND AMUSEMENTS OF TH E IN D IA N
ISLA ND ER S .
Universal passion o f the Indian i s l a n d e r s f o r p la y.-‘Examples
quoted Games o f hazard— Chess.— Combat o f animals.
—Cock-fighting.—Quail-fighting.— Combat o f warlike crickets,
Sfc.— Combat o f the tiger and buffalo— Combat o f the
wild boar with rams and goats.— Games o f exercise. Tournaments
The chace.— Manner in which it is followed in
Celebes.— In Java.— Love o f dancing.— Character o f the
dances o f the Indian islanders.— Different descriptions o f
it.—Intellectual amusements.<— The drama.— The Javanese
the inventors o f the Polynesian drama.— Different descriptions
o f dramatic exhibitions— Subjects o f the Javanese
drama Indian islanders passionately fo n d o f dramatic
exhibitions.— An improved drama might be successful- .
ly introduced among them, as an instrument o f civilization.
T he Indian islanders, like all people unaccustomed
to regular and systematic occupation and industry,
are passionately fond of play, and those tribes
naturally carry it to the greatest degree of extravagance
whose habits and lives are most irregular
and unsettled. The Malays and inhabitants of
Celebes are, by their extravagant attachment to
gaming, distinguished beyond all the rest. Even
among the Javanese, though they lead lives of