88 SPIRITUAL STATE OF THE PEOPLE. 



them. A young shrub of Jatropha curcas, 

 planted within the precincts of the royal-lodge, 

 marks the spot where the rajah had buried the 

 head of a rival chief, who, while invading Sou- 

 tranha with his tribe, had been defeated and 

 slain. A second hostile rajah, subdued by Don 

 Domingos, was for some time kept as a state- 

 prisoner on Batta rock, in humble imitation 

 of a similar line of policy adopted by the po- 

 tentates of Europe. A low stone wall, pierced 

 for cannon, protects the rear of the village, but 

 its guns were now removed to the sea-side, as 

 a precaution against some threatened piratical 

 descents by the natives of the islands Pantar 

 and Ombay, who had already plundered much 

 of the adjacent coast, and even carried away a 

 proa from Soutranha Bay. 



The professed religion of this people is the 

 Roman Catholic, which they have received 

 from Portuguese missionaries, formerly resident 

 amongst them. A large hut, at the north ex- 

 tremity of the settlement, was originally in- 

 tended for a chapel ; but the people at large 

 are without education, have no priest, pre- 

 serve neither the Sabbath nor any of the sacra- 

 ments of the church, and, with the exception of 

 the cross that usually decorates their person, 

 have nothing to indicate their religion. They 



