into a well-behaved community. All are traders, and all
know that peace and order are essential to successful trade,
and thus a public opinion is created which puts down all
lawlessness. Often in former years, when strolling along
the Campong Glam in Singapore, I have thought how wild
and ferocious the Bugis sailors looked, and how little I
should like to trust myself among them. But now I find
them to be very decent, well-behaved fellows; I walk
daily unarmed in the jungle, where I meet them continually
; I sleep in a palm-leaf hut, which any one may
.enter, with as little fear and as little danger of thieves or ^
murder as if I were under the protection of the Metropolitan
police. ■ It is true the Dutch influence is felt here.
The islands are nominally under the government of the
Moluccas, which the native chiefs acknowledge; and in
most years a commissioner arrives from Amboyna, who
makes the tour of the islands, hears complaints, settles
disputes, and carries away prisoner any heinous offender.
This year he is not expected to come, as no orders have yet
been received to prepare for him; so the people of Dobbo
will probably be left to their own devices. One day a
man was caught in the act of stealing a piece of iron from
Herr Warzbergen’s house, which he had entered by making
a hole through the thatch wall. In the evening the chief
traders of the place, Bugis and Chinese, assembled, the
offender was tried and found guilty, and sentenced to
receive twenty lashes on the spot. They were given with
a small rattan in the middle of the street, not very severely,
as the executioner appeared to sympathise a little with the
culprit. The disgrace seemed to be thought as much of as
the pain; for though any amount of clever cheating is
thought rather meritorious than otherwise, open robbery
and housebreaking meet with universal reprobation.