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performer. A Biola, or one-stringed violin, loads the 

 band, which is in constant requisition at all festivals. 

 Some of the musical pieces performed are long and 

 elaborate, but all are played by ear, the perfornu'rs 

 generally practising from childhood. On grand occasions, 

 as at the wedding of a raja's daughter, the gamelang 

 will keep on playing at short intervals day and night for 

 several days in succession. 



Besides these three peoples — the Sundanese, Javanese, 

 and ]\Iadurese — there are probably at least a million 

 and a half, if not more, of other nationalities. Not the 

 least numerous are the true Malays, the immigrants, that 

 is to say, from the Peninsula and elsewhere. They are 

 chiefly to be found in the great towns, whither trade and 

 commerce attract them. So, too, with the Chinese, who 

 act as opium merchants, compradores, money-lenders, and 

 middlemen generally, and, as elsewhere in the archi- 

 pelago, become men of property. According to a recent 

 writer their possessions in the island are valued at over 

 £11,000,000 sterling. Susioicious of their prosperity, 

 the Dutch Government, in the early part of the century, 

 forbade absolutely all immigration of Chinese, but this 

 decree was rescinded in 1837. Even now some difficul- 

 ties are made to their settling, and capitation fees, pass- 

 ports, and lil)eral taxation place some check upon their 

 increase. They number at the present time about 

 250,000 individuals, but a large proportion of these are 

 Pcnalmi, or half-breeds, the children of Chinese fathers 

 by native women. Of much the same trades and employ- 

 ments as the Chinese are the Arabs. In part new arrivals, 

 in part the descendants of the " Moros," whom the Portu- 

 guese on their advent found established at all the ports 

 of the East, they act as merchants of European goods, as 

 pedlars, and so forth, while others, as talehs or scribes, 



