MALAY IDEAS OF MARRIAGE. 279 



perhaps as large, if not larger, than elsewhere, is esti- 

 mated at only four or four and a half The fact that 

 children help support their parents secures for them 

 such attention that they are never entirely neglected. 

 Polygamy is allowed here as in other Mohammedan 

 lands, but only the wealthier natives and the princes 

 .are guilty of it. The facility with which marriages 

 are made, and divorces obtained, is one cause why it 

 is not more general. In regard to the evil effects of 

 polygamy, and the ideas of this people in respect to 

 the sacred rite of marriage. Sir Stamford Raffles, who 

 was Governor-General of Java, most truthfully re- 

 marks : " Of the causes which have tended to lower 

 the character of the Asiatics in comparison mth 

 Eui'opeaus, none has had a more decided influence 

 than polygamy. To all those noble and generous 

 feelings, all that delicacy of sentiment, that romantic 

 and poetical spirit, which virtuous love inspii-es in 

 the breast of a European, the Javan is a stranger ; 

 and in the communication between the sexes he seeks 

 only convenience and little more than a gi*atification 

 of an appetite. But the evil does not stop here: 

 education is neglected, and family attachments are 

 weakened. A Javan chief has been known to have 

 sixty acknowledged children, and it too often happens 

 that in such cases sons having been neglected in their 

 infancy become dissipated, idle, and worthless, and 

 spring up like rank grass and overrun the country." 

 In the little village of Kayuli there were only 

 three Chinamen, but one of them was an opium-sell- 

 er. He was agent for another Chinaman at Amboi- 

 ua, who had bought the privilege of selling it from 



