and authority of the head of the church. The
Indian islanders have, indeed, an ample stock of
credulity and superstition, but the temper of the
people is not of that gloomy and enthusiastic cast
which affords the materials that would kindle into
a flame of fanaticism or intolerance, and however
abject their political servitude, they are not subject
to the still more pernicious slavery of the priesthood.
The Mahomedan religion authorizes no
regular priesthood, yet among the Indian islanders
it has become a distinct profession, and in
Java we see them the virtual successors of their
Braminical predecessors, a peaceful unaspiring race
of men, whose influence is kept under through
control by the all-limiting supremacy of despotic
power.
Although, in considering the class of nobles, I
have stated that an official rather than a hereditary
nobility exists, yet, from the nature of things, it
must necessarily happen that such nobility is in
some measure hereditary in families. The possessor
of office acquires, in that situation, a portion
of power, wealth, intelligence, and experience,
which is naturally more or less inherited by his family
; and, from habit, convenience, and necessity,
the nobility are often chosen from the same
stock. In such a state of society, there can be no
middle class; and, accordingly, as mentioned in
another place, the mercantile order had in Java,
DISTRIBUTION OF THE PEOPLE. S7
when the people were Hindus, no existence. The
community is divided, in fact, into two great
and distinct classes, and the influence of this
division is discoverable in all their languages.
In those of the Malays and Javanese, the distinction
is drawn in a most humiliating and mortifying
manner. A great man, in both, means
a person of rank; and a little one is the usual expression
for a peasant. In the Javanese, the chiefs
are designated the head, and the mob the feet.' In
the same language, the two classes are frequently
designated from a comparison taken from the familiar
appearance of the rice grain j the lower orders
being called by the same word which is applied
to the motes and broken fragments of the grain,
and the privileged order by that which expresses
the perfect ones; or, as the idiom of our language
would make it, “ the chaff and the com.’* The
Malay language, in one example, draws a still
more degrading distinction for a rich man * and a
man of rank, are one and the same thing, which,
in such a state of society, implies pretty plainly
that none but the great can be the possessors of
wealth. Such a disregard ta the rights of the
people is what we must expect in such a state of society.
Not trusting altogether to the evidence of
* Orang-kaia.