122 SLAVE DEBTORS. 



fications, from thirty to 100 dollars, but at Sarawak 

 they are even more difficult than men to be obtained. 

 Slave debtors differ but little in the estimation jn 

 which they are held, and in their duties, from slaves, 

 but they have the privilege of freeing themselves if 

 they can raise the money to pay the debt with its 

 enormous accumulation of interest. Another privilege 

 is, that they cannot be sold or transferred but with 

 their own consent. No institution of the Malays has 

 been more abused than this system of taking the per- 

 sons for slaves of such as have become indebted to 

 them. I have seen instances where, for the trifling 

 amount of a very few dollars, borrowed from the pan- 

 geran to pay perhaps an exaction of his own, which by 

 the accumulation of interest, perhaps fifty per cent, 

 monthly, had increased to so large an amount that 

 whole families were obliged to submit themselves 

 as slave debtors to their creditor. As it is impossible 

 for them ever to raise the constantly increasing amount, 

 this state of slavery is hopeless. I need scarcely add 

 that this abuse of the practice of usury, as also the 

 state of the slaves in general, received the prompt 

 attention of the Rajah of Sarawak, and many are 

 the slaves in the settlement whom he has freed by 

 the sacrifice of his money. 



