' ' Running A -Muck. ' ' — Na tive Charac ter. 1 9 1 



order to announce the hours of the night, or to give notice of the 

 outbreak of a fire, or in case of any one running a-muck. This 

 singular phenomenon, in which a Malay with open knife or 

 drawn dagger rushes madly through the streets, and seeks 

 to kill every one he encounters, occurs perhaps a dozen times 

 a year. The first murder is very probably intentional, the 

 offspring of hate or revenge, but that once accomplished, 

 the murderer, usually under the influence of opium, runs 

 recklessly forward through the streets, with the wild cry 

 of " Amok " — '■'■ Amok " (Kill ! — Kill !), knocking down and 

 stabbing whoever he encounters. As one can only approach 

 the miscreant at the peril of one's life, there is kept in these 

 watch-houses a peculiarly constructed weapon of long wooden 

 staves, and shaped at the upper end not unlike a hay-fork, 

 with which the desperate wretch can be seized. The various 

 methods in which the Tong-tong is struck at once conveys 

 notice as to which one of the three announcements conveyed 

 by the instrument it is the watchman's object to make. 



The natives, although they divide themselves into the Java 

 and Sunda nations, belong nevertheless to the same race, viz. 

 the Malay, and are readily recognizable by their short 

 thickset form, round face, wide mouth, short narrow nose, 

 small black eyes, by their brown complexion, verging on 

 yellow, and their luxuriant but always rough and coarse hair. 

 As to their tnoral characteristics, the Javanese are a mild, 

 easily contented, temperate, simple, industrious people. 

 The principal occupation of the 10,000,000 inhabitants of 



