184 LOMBOCK. 



ed at a gaming-table because, having lost half a dollar more 

 than he possessed, he was going to " amok." Another had 

 killed or wounded seventeen people before he could be destroy- 

 ed. In their wars a whole regiment of these people will some- 

 times agree to " amok," and then rush on with such energetic 

 desperation as to be very formidable to men not so excited as 

 themselves. Among the ancients these would have been look- 

 ed upon as heroes or demi-gods who sacrified themselves for 

 their country. Here it is simply said, they made " amok." 



Macassar is the most celebrated place in the East for " run- 

 ning a muck." There are said to be one or two a month on 

 the average, and five, ten, or twenty persons are sometimes 

 killed or wounded at one of them. It is the national, and 

 therefore the honorable mode of committing suicide among 

 the natives of Celebes, and is the fashionable way of escaping 

 from their difficulties. A Roman fell upon his sword, a Jap- 

 anese rips up his stomach, and an Englishman blows out his 

 brains with a pistol. The Bugis mode has many advantages 

 to one suicidically inclined. A man thinks himself wronged 

 by society — he is in debt, and can not pay — he is taken for a 

 slave, or has gambled away his wife or child into slavery — 

 he sees no way of recovering what he has lost, and becomes 

 desperate. He will not put up with such cruel wrongs, but 

 will be revenged on mankind and die like a hero. He grasps 

 his kris-handle, and the next moment di*aws out the weapon 

 and stabs a man to the heart. He runs on, with bloody kris 

 in his hand, stabbing at every one he meets. "Amok ! amok !" 

 then resounds through the streets. Spears, krisses, knives, 

 and guns are brought out against him. He rushes madly for- 

 ward, kills all he can — men, women, and children — and dies, 

 overwhelmed by numbers, amid all the excitement of a battle. 

 And what that excitement is those who have been in one best 

 know, but all who have ever given way to violent passions, or 

 even indulged in violent and exciting exercises, may form a 

 very good idea. It is a delirious intoxication, a temporary 

 madness that absorbs every thought and every energy. And 

 can we wonder at the kns-bearing, untaught, brooding Malay 

 preferring such a death, looked upon as almost honorable, to 

 the cold-blooded details of suicide, if he wishes to escape from 

 overwhelming troubles, or the merciless clutches of the hang- 



