at 250,000, which gives about 15 inhabitants to the square mile. This is about
one-seventeenth part of the rate of population of Java, a simple fact conclusive of the
real condition of Palembang, and ¿lowing that it is in reality a forest, with a few
scattered inhabitants on its river banks.
The town of Palembang which it is, as usually happens in such cases, that gives
name to the whole kingdom, is situated on the river Musi or Sungsang, about fifty
miles above its mouth, and in south latitude 2° 58', and east longitude 105°. It lies
on both banks of the river, which is here 400 yards broad, with a depth of from eight
to nine fathoms, and a rise and fall of tide varying from 10 to 16 feet. All the way
from the sea, and even for a mile or two above it, and until two affiuents fall into it,
the Musi is navigable for ships of burthen, and deserves therefore to be considered
the most valuable of all the rivers of Sumatra. The town, in 1822, according to the
account given of it by a judicious writer in the ninth volume of the Transactions of
the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, contained a population of from 20,000 to
25,000, including, besides Javanese and Malays, 500 Arabs and 1500 Chinese, the most
valuable parts of it. These strangers are the chief merchants and traders, but the
native inhabitants are represented as skilful artificers in wood, iron, gold, and silver.
Many of the houses of the town are built on moveable rafts moored to the shore, as
in the Siamese capital: nearly all are of the perishable materials of wood, ratan, and
bamboo. The only buildings of stone are the mosque and the tombs of the kings.
The mosque is in the form of a parallelogram with a dome, is ornamented with
pilasters, has casemated glazed windows, a marble floor and a stone pulpit. Near it is a
minaret 50 feet high with a spiral stair. It deserves, therefore, to be considered the
most considerable edifice ever erected in the Archipelago, not being European, since
the conversion to Mahommedanism. Nothing is known about the time or manner
in which it was built, but the architects, it may be presumed, were not natives, but
most probably Arabs, in the same manner as were those of the ancient temples of
Java, Hindus. The tombs of the kings about three miles below the town, are all of
solid masonry, of a square form, with arched roofs, two of the sides of each tomb
being of hewn stone. No ancient Hindu remains of buildings are known to exist.
That they must have once done so is certain, but the probability is that they were
destroyed by the Mahommedans, and that their materials now form part of the
mosque and royal tombs in a country where stone is rare and must be brought
from a great distance.
Palembang, notwithstanding its extensive alluvial land and its scanty population, does
not produce even sufficient corn for its own consumption and receives a supply from
Java. Some other necessaries of life and native luxuries, it yields, however, in great
cheapness and abundance. In 1822, a moderately sized buffalo cost only 22 florins of
20d. to the florin, a large hog 44 florins, a sheep 17, a goat 11, a pullet 1-|, and a pound
of venison three doits. For a single florin might be had 6 pine-apples, or 16 durians,
or 50 shaddocks, or 55 mangos, or 150 mangostins, or 400 oranges. The comparative
cost of theBe different productions indicates the amount of labour necessary to produce
them. A buffalo that lives in the marshes, feeds on their spontaneous produce
and weighs probably 800 pounds, costs only one half the price of a stall-fed hog, of
probably not one-eighth part of its weight. The sheep is within five florins of the
cost of the buffalo, that will probably weigh 16 times as much. As to the five fruits
above named, the soil and climate are represented as peculiarly suited to them and
in no part of the Archipelago are they produced in such cheapness and perfection.
The trade of the country is with Java, Banca, Siam, China and the European
settlements in the Straits of Malacca, and when Banca with its tin formed a part of
the territory it was very considerable.
The name of Palembang, or more correctly Palimbang, seems to be a verbal noun
derived from the Javanese verb “ limbang ” to drain off or decant a fluid, as is done in
the process of washing gold, which is performed in wicker baskets. The word at full
length, namely Palimbangan, would signify, “ the place or the implement in which or
with which the operation of decanting or drawing off is performed.” We have many
examples of such a mode of formation in the Javanese, as, for example, pasarean, a
sleeping-place or bed, from sare, to sleep, and pakapuran, a place where lime is made,
or a lime-kiln, from kapur, lime; nor does it always happen that the affix “ an ” is
included. I t is, probably, that the name may have been given from the drawing off
or subsidence of the periodical flood, which is one of the most striking characteristics
of the country.
That Palembang was a settlement formed from Java, and by the proper Javanese,
and not the Sundas who are nearer to it, is placed beyond all doubt by the Javanese
being still the spoken and also, in its own proper character, the written language
of the Court, and by the titles of nobility of office, and often of names of places
being in that language. Thus, we find the word ratu for king, priyayi and raden
as the titles of classes of nobles, and banu for a river, all of which are purely
Javanese. But of the manner in which the immigration took place or the time in
which it happened nothing worthy of credit is known. As Java is not likely, at
any period of its history, to have been so overpeopled as to have encouraged
emigration, the settlement is most likely to have been formed by fugitives fleeing for
their lives after defeat in a civil contest. That an intercourse should afterwards
have been maintained between the mother country and its colony is almost certain.
It is very probable too, that the emigrants would look up with respect to the principal
state in Java, compared to themselves, wealthy and powerful. According
to Javanese tradition, therefore, it is asserted that Palembang was a settlement
founded by the state of Majapait towards the last years of its existence, which, as
that place was overthrown in the year 1478, would make its foundation about the
middle of the 15th century. There is, assuredly, no ground for making its origin
so recent an event, and, on the contrary, it can be shown to have been much earlier
than even that of Majapait itself to which the Javanese ascribe the date of 1221 of
Salivana or Saka, corresponding to 1299 of our time, making the whole duration of
that kingdom, so famed in the history of the Archipelago, only 179 years. According
to the accounts given by the natives to the Portuguese at the time of the conquest
of Malacca, fresher by three centuries and a half than any thing we can now get from
their descendants, Malacca had been founded little more than two hundred and fifty
years before the arrival of the Portuguese. This would carry us back about a
hundred years before the era of the foundation of Majapait, which is alleged to have
given birth to Palembang the country from which, Singapore first, and then Malacca
were colonised. According to the apocryphal Javanese chronicle, Palembang must have
been founded from Java only 60 years before the arrival of the Portuguese. De
Barros, however, enumerates it in a very correct Portuguese orthography, Palimbam,
as one of the twenty-nine established kingdoms of the sea-board of Sumatra at the
epoch in question, without any reference to its being a new establishment.
From the first appearance of the Portuguese to a very recent time, Palembang
continued to be a virtually independent kingdom, ruled by a prince, who, like many
others, assumed the Arabian title of Sultan, being, however, under treaty with the
Dutch to deliver to them, at a low price, the tin of Banca, the staple produce of his
dominions. In 1821, the kingdom of Palembang was subdued by the Netherland
government, and now forms part of the sub-government of Sumatra. What led to
this was an act of atrocity on the part of the reigning prince. When in 1811, Java
and its dependencies were occupied by the British, the Dutch officials of Banca fell
into the hands of this chieftain, and fancying, like a true barbarian, that he would do
an acceptable service to the new rulers, he put the whole of them to death. He was
undeceived by the British government sending an expedition against him, dethroning
him and wresting Banca from him. At the restoration of Java, he resumed his
authority and kept the Netherland government at bay for five years, having defeated
one expedition, and a second of greater strength being necessary for his subjugation.
PALMA-CHRISTI, the castor-oil plant ; the Ricinus communis of botanists. This
is cultivated from Java and Sumatra to the Philippines inclusive; and Mr. Marsden
says it is found growing wild on the sea coast of the western side of Sumatra.
The name by which it is known in Malay and Javanese is jarak, and this is a very
general one in the Malayan languages ; but it is not the only, for in the Sunda and
Madurese it is called kaliki. Both words are native and not traceable to any foreign
source ; so that, as far as this kind of evidence is good, the plant must be considered
as indigenous. In the languages of the Philippines the name is tangan-tangan, a
word which, not reduplicated, signifies in Malay “ the hand,” no doubt given
to it from the palmate form of the leaves. This may lead to the suspicion that the
plant was introduced by the Malays, at least as an object of culture, for the name
is Malay, but not that for the hand in the native languages of the Philippines. For
the lamp, the oil of the palma-christi is less esteemed, or probably less easily produced,
than that of the sesame or of ground pea, and hence its culture is not
extensive. I t is a coarse hardy plant, and easily reared in very indifferent soils.
Its medicinal use is unknown to the natives.
PALMS. The palms cultivated, in the Indian islands, and which form so considerable
a branch of their husbandry, are :—the coco, (Cocos nucifera) ; the sago,