wi*° “ worsted in this contest shall be deemed the guilty one, and be punishable
witii death or otherwise, according to the custom of the country.”
ORPIMENT, or sulphuret of arsenio, is not a native produot of any part of the
Malay or Philippine Archipelagos, but it is, notwithstanding, well known to the inhabitants,
and immemorially imported, being the produce of Lao, and coming direct from
Siam and Pegu. The name by which it is known is wàrangan, from the Javanese
•vvarang, a collyrium, of which it was, most probably, an ingredient.
OX (BOS). Exclusive of the buffalo, which is doubtful, two species of the ox
are found in the wild state.| One of these, called by the Malays, sàladang, is sufficiently
well ascertained to exist in the forests of the Malay Peninsula, although not
as yet described by naturalists. The other is the Bos Sondaicus, or Sunda ox, which
exists in Java, the Peninsula, and Borneo, but, singularly enough, not in Sumatra, or
m Celebes, or any island of the Philippine Archipelago. It is a large, massive, and
powerful animal, of a light brown colour, with the hips and legs of the male of a
clear white. It is the same species which is found in the forests of Pegu, up at least
as far as Martaban.
The common ox, varying in race in the different countries, is found in the domestic
state m the Peninsula, and in all the considerable islands of the Malay Archipelago,
up to Timur; but although now existing in great herds in all the larger islands of the
Philippine group, it did not, like the buffalo, exist on the arrival of the Spaniards. The
source of the domesticated ox of the Malayan Islands is as obscure as its origin everywhere
else. The Sunda ox cannot be the source from which it has sprung, as, according
to the statements of recent Butch naturalists, it has been ascertained, after many trials,
to be as incapable of domestication as the American bison. I t is, notwithstanding,
certain, that a fertile cross between it and the domestic cattle has been long propagated,
and forms a distinct breed, known by the same name as the wild cattle. This
is also the breed which is found in Bali and Lomboc. In Malay and Javanese, there
are two names for the domestic cattle, sapi and Ifimbu, and wherever the ox is
domesticated, it goes under one or other of these, but most frequently under that of
sapi, which is peculiarly Javanese. Beyond the Malayan Islands, however, neither
name extends. Thus, in the language of Madagascar, which has many Malayan words,
the ox is called ombai. In the Javanese, the wild bull is called banteng, and the
cow jawi. The Malay has no specific name for the wild cattle to which they give the
same as to the domestic, adding the epithet utan, or wild. The Javanese name for the
wild cow, jawi, the Malays use for neat cattle, generally. All these words are native,
and afford no clue to the origin of the domesticated cattle. Some have fancied them
to have been originally imported from the country of the Hindus, but this is mere
conjecture, without evidence. The Javanese, have, indeed, a Sanscrit name for the
ox, andaka, signifying “ the blind;” but it is only an obsolete synonym of their
recondite language. Images of the ox, in stone and brass, and representations of it
m bas-relief, on temples, are frequent in Java, but in all these cases the animal is the
zebu, or humped ox of the Hindus, and not the native ox, so that from this fact,
nothing as to the origin of the domestic cattle can be inferred.
The oxen of the Indian Islands are of considerable size, generally in good condition
and multiply rapidly, showing that the pastures are congenial to them. Their chief
use is in husbandry, being, on account of their greater activity, preferred on light,
dry uplands, to the more powerful buffalo, better suited to the low irrigated
lands. Like cattle everywhere near the equator, they give very little milk, which
forms no part of the food of the inhabitants. According to the statistics of the Dutch
government, the number of oxen in Java in 1842 was 431,357 head; and as they are
greatly on the increase, it is probable that they now exceed half a million, which,
however, is but one-third of the number of buffaloes in the same island. In thè
Philippines, also, and especially in the great island of Luzon, they are very numerous,
although only introduced by the Spaniards in the 16th century. So suitable are thè
pastures of Luzon to them that they have run wild, and, as in America, multiplied
greatly in this state.
P.
PACIFIC OCEAN. This is the Laut-kidul of the Javanese, literally, the “ South
Sea, but of which they know no more than the little portion of it that is visible from
the shore of their own island. Europeans knew even less about this part of the Pacific
down to the middle of the 16th century. De Barros, in 1553, thus refers to it when
treating of Java : “ The length of the island of Java is 190 leagues, but respecting its
breadth, we have no certain knowledge, for our people have not yet navigated its
southern side. According to the information of the natives, the whole of the south side,
on account of the great gulf of the ocean, has few harbours, and those who inhabit the
northern portion of the island hold no intercourse with the gentiles who dwell on the
southern coast.”—Decade 2, Book 9, Chap. 3. This was written four and-thirty
years after the discovery and conquest of Mexico, and it is curious to mark the ignorance
of Europeans respecting an island which probably at the time contained a larger
population than Mexico and Peru put together, and, beyond all question, a more
civilised one.
PACHITAN, probably from the Sanscrit cbipta, corrupted chita by the Malays
and Javanese, desire, wish, and signifying “ place of desire.” This is the name of a
small district or province of Java, part of the Dutch possessions lying on the southern
side of the island, bounded to the east by Kadiri, to the south by Madiyun, and to
the west by Pajang. Its chief town, situated, at the head of a small bay, open to
the south, and affording little shelter to shipping, is in south latitude 8° 15', and east
longitude 113° 18. The area of Pachitan is 773 square miles, and its population, in
1850, was 83,278, all of the Javanese nation, with the exception of 30 Europeans,
and about 100 Chinese. This gives about 114 inhabitants to the square mile, making
this district, therefore, one of the least populous of the proper county of the Javanese
nation, easily accounted for, by its remote position. Its chief product is rice, and to
this the Dutch government has added the forced culture of coffee, black pepper, and
cinnamon. Its horned cattle, in 1845, amounted to 58,000, and its horses to 9,300.
I t was ceded to the European power during the temporary occupation of Java by the
British; and when I visited it, in 1812, was but a poor place.
PADANG, in Malay, signifies a plain or open field, and is the name also of the
chief settlement of the Netherland government on the western side of Sumatra. The
town lies 1° south of the equator, and in east longitude 100°, and is the seat of the
Governor, or, correctly, Lieut.-Govemor of the whole western coast of the island. It
has a population of 10,000 inhabitants, consisting of Malays, Achinese, Bataks, and
Chinese, with some European merchants, and is a place of considerable trade.
The total area of all the Netherland possessions in Sumatra has been estimated at
104,000 square geographical miles. The population has been called 4,000,000, which
would give 38'4 to the square mile. But it is far more likely to be one-fourth of
this amount, which would give only 9‘6, a sufficient proportion for a country the
greater part of which is known to be a primeval forest, with a people notoriously
deficient in industry. In 1845, the gross revenue of this vast territory was only
200,0001., and the expenditure only 122,0001., leaving an apparent balance of 78,0001.
This statement, however, will not bear examination. The income, for example,
includes as revenue the value of the provisions and supplies received from Java,
amounting to no less than 48,0001., while Sumatra is not debited with its share of
the metropolitan charges. A few facts in illustration will demonstrate the slender
value of the European possessions in Sumatra, obtained at a great expenditure of
life and treasure, while they will put the paucity and poverty of the inhabitants
beyond all question. These possessions are about two and a-half times the extent
of Java. The single item of the impost on opium of Java is about four-fold as
much as all the Sumatran revenue put together, although in Sumatra, equally as in
Java, opium is a subject of taxation, and the inhabitants equally addicted to its use.
The land revenue of Sumatra is no more than one forty-fifth part of that of Java. In
Java this tax consists of an impost on rent, because in that populous country a real
rent exists. In thinly-peopled Sumatra, it cannot do so any more than in the wilds of
America or Australia. I t must inevitably, therefore, be a tax on the capital invested
in clearing and cultivating the land, and hence a very impolitic and injurious one.
The paltry amount of it for so vast a territory was, in 1845, no more tlianl8,7007
Under the English administration, the Sumatran settlements were even still more
profitless than under the Dutch, for at all times, they were a heavy drain on the
Indian treasury, without any corresponding advantage. The original object of them
was the collection of pepper, an article of importance only in the early and rude
periods of the Indian trade, and which had ceased to be so long before the pursuit
was abandoned.
The total value of the exports of Padang and the other ports of the western coast
of Sumatra, in 1854, was about 175,0007, treasure included, and that of the imports
157,0007, a large portion of the first consisting of coffee, the produce of forced
culture, and of the last, of government provisions and stores.