358 The Present Condition of the Indian Archipelago. 



their unassisted industry, or such as demand the skill and capital of 

 the European or Chinese for their cultivation or manufacture ; and, 

 amongst the latter, nutmegs, cloves, sugar, indigo, sago, gambier, 

 tea, and the partially cultivated cinnamon and cotton. To these busy 

 marts, the vessels of the first maritime people of the Archipelago, 

 the Bugis, and those of many Malayan communities, bring the pro- 

 duce of their own countries, and that which they have collected from 

 neighbouring lands, or from the wild tribes, to furnish cargoes for 

 the ships of Europe, America, Arabia, India, Siam, China, and 

 Australia. To the bazar of the Eastern seas, commerce brings re- 

 presentatives of every industrious nation of the Archipelago, and of 

 every maritime people in the civilised world. 



Although, therefore, cultivation has made comparatively little im- 

 pression on the vast natural vegetation, and the inhabitants are de- 

 void of that unremitting laboriousness which distinguish the Chinese 

 and European, the Archipelago, in its industrial aspect, presents an 

 animated and varied scene. The industry of man, when civilisation 

 or over-population has not destroyed the natural balance of life, must 

 ever be the complement of the bounty of nature. The inhabitant of 

 the Archipelago is as energetic and laborious as nature requires him 

 to be ; and he does not convert the world into a workshop, as the 

 Chinese and the Kling immigrants do, because his world is not, like 

 theirs, darkened with the pressure of crowded population and over- 

 competition, nor is his desire to accumulate wealth excited and goaded 

 by the contrast of splendour and luxury on the one hand, and penury 

 on the other, — by the pride and assumptions of wealth and station, 

 and the humiliations of poverty and dependence. 



While in the volcanic soils of Java, Menangkabau and Celebes, 

 and many other parts of the Archipelago, population has increased, 

 an industry suited to the locality and habits of each people prevails, 

 and distinct civilisations, on the peculiar features of which we can- 

 not touch, have been nurtured and developed ; other islands, less fa- 

 voured by nature, or under the influence of particular historical cir- 

 cumstances, have become the seats of great piratical communities, 

 which periodically send forth large fleets to sweep the seas, and 

 lurk along the shores, of the Archipelago, despoiling the seafaring 

 trader of the fruits of his industry and his personal liberty, and car- 

 rying oflf, from their very homes, the wives and children of the vil- 

 lagers. From the creeks and rivers of Borneo and Johore, from the 

 numerous islands between Singapore and Banka, and from other parts 

 of the Archipelago, piratical expeditions less formidable than those 

 of the Lanuns of Sulu are year after year fitted out. No coast is 

 so thickly peopled, and no harbour so well protected, as to be secure 

 from all molestation, for, where open force would be useless, re- 

 coui'se is had to stealth and stratagem. Men have been kidnapped 

 in broad day in the harbours of Pinang and Singapore. Several 

 inhabitants of Province Wellesley, who had been carried away from 



