philological argument, I shall quote, on this subject,
the words of a Javanese historian, when he is describing
the hostilities conducted against the European
power by the combined Chinese and Javanese,
and when a mock action is thought necessary
to deceive the common enemy, the Dutch.
“ Singseh and Sapanjang (the Chinese leaders)
observed to the Javanese chiefs, the Adipati (the
first minister) has now arrived with a countless
host, and we are unacquainted with the practice of
the Javanese, and how they conduct a mock fight.”
“ Fathers, said the Javanese chiefs, such a battle
is conducted by us in perfect earnest, with mutual
slaughter, for not the smallest compassion is shewn
to the people; keeping your secret and saving
the life of the Adipati, you may exterminate the
rest.”
The condition of the peasantry or occupiers of
the soil will afterwards be described in a separate
chapter; and, in the meantime, it may be sufficient
to observe, that their tenure depends upon
the will of their masters, and that the only security
for their possession is the utility and necessity
of their labour to their superiors. Among
themselves, the peasantry live in their villages
on terms of much equality. In many parts of
Java, the village is a kind of corporation, in
which the chief and officers, including the priest,
are elected by the cultivators, privileges which they
exercise because they are not worth interfering
with, and which never fail to be usurped when caprice
or interest suggest it to the government or its
officers.
A fourth, but a small class, existing in every
country of the Archipelago, but most where anarchy
and disorder most prevail, are called debtors in
the native languages. These are people who either
voluntarily, or by the laws of the country, mortgage
their services for a certain period, or during life, to
discharge some obligation which they have no other
means of liquidating. Their condition is, in fact, a
mitigated kind of slavery. These debtors, with freemen
and slaves, constitute the three orders into which
the laws of the Malays, and other tribes, divide the
people, for the higher orders are literally above the
law, and not noticed except as administering it.
When any country is distressed by war, famine, or
intestine commotion, hundreds of the lower orders
mortgage their services to persons of wealth or influence,
who can afford them subsistence and protection,
just as the peasantry of the middle ages of
Europe were wont to make a sacrifice of their personal
liberty to obtain the countenance of religious
institutions, and of the nobility. This is the origin
of a class very numerous among some of the
states.
Slavery exists in every country of the Indian
Archipelago except Java. The anomaly of its ab*