nese romances,—historical accounts of their transactions
since the introduction of Mahomedanism,
, and works on law and religion from the Arabic.
All of them, from the most authentic accounts
which I have been able to collect, are characterized
by the same feebleness, childishness, and extreme
credulity, which I have ascribed to Javanese literature,
and probably they are still more tame and
infantine. When the reasoning faculties are less
concerned than the passions, the poetry of the nations
of Celebes, who possess more individual energy
of character than any other people of the Archipelago,
and among whom women, in particular,
enjoy privileges seldom yielded to them among
barbarians, may be expected to assume a more respectable
character. The following love song from
the Macassar, though under the disadvantage of a
translation through the Malay, may still be adduced
as evidence in favour of this supposition.
“ Let the world disapprove of thee, I love thee
still. When two suns appear at once in the sky,
my love for thee may be altered. Sink into the
earth, or pass through the fire, and I will follow
thee. I love thee, and our love is reciprocal, but
fate keeps us asunder. May the gods bring us together,
or to me this love will be fatal. I should
count the moment of meeting more precious than
that of entering the fields of bliss. Be angry with.
me, or cast me aside, still my love shall not change.
Nothing but your image meets the eye of my fancy,
whether I sleep or wake. Visions alone are
propitious to my passion ; in these only 1 see thee
and converse with thee. When I expire, let it
not be said that I died by the ordinary decrees of
fate, but say that I died through love of thee.
What are comparable to the delightful visions
which paint my love so fresh to my fancy ? Let
me be separated from my native country, and at a
distance from thee, still my heart is not far from
thee. In my sleep, how often am I found wandering
about and going in search of thee, hoping,
perchance, I may find thee ?”
The Bugis, as the most copious and ancient
tongue, and that of the most numerous and powerful
people, may be looked upon, reasonably, as that
which has exerted upon the cognate languages of
the eastern portion of the Archipelago the local
influence to which I have alluded.
These tongues, as, for example, the languages of
Sambawa, Flores, Timur, Butung, Salayer, &c. may
be said to be composed of the following materials:
—the original meagre dialect of each savage tribe
—the Bugis—the great Polynesian language—
the Sanskrit—the Arabic, witn trifling admixtures
of the same ingredients ‘ mentioned in speaking of
the composition of the Javanese. The Macassar