262 DANGEROUS MADMEN. [1697. 



ill-built.^ The whole Family lies, if I may so speak, in one 

 Chamber. These People are extreamly sober, and have no 

 Appetite to eat much. They oftentimes content themselves 

 with a little Eice, Fruit, and dry'd Fish. Being Mahometans 

 they use no inebriating Liquors. Tea, or pure water, is 

 their Ordinary Drink : They liave the Eeputation of having 

 a great deal of Wit, and being quick of Apprehension. 'Tis 

 said they are exceeding faithful to one another, but Strangers 

 sometimes find they are not the same to them, being possess'd 

 with that wicked and pernicious Maxim, not to keep Faith 

 with such as they think Hereticks, neither in Eeligious 

 Matters, nor anything else. They are Laborious,, and above 

 all, good Fishermen. 



They all wear by their Sides, and in Scabbards Daggers 

 poyson'd half-way with a most subtil sort of Poyson,^ which 

 some of them know how to temper so, that it shall never 

 operate but when, and as often as they please. The most 

 dangerous of these Poysons is the sap of a Tree which grows 

 in the Island of Borneo. The Inhabitants of that Island 

 make use of it to poyson their little Darts, which they shoot 

 out of Trunks.^ The Javans sometimes use a certain Drink 

 to make them furious, and when they are so, they cry 

 incessantly, Amcrci, Amerci, which in their Language 

 signifies, Kill, kill. They then run about like Mad-Men,"^ and 



1 Both Malays and Javanese dwell in bamboo huts, divided into 

 different apartments, sometimes plaistered with mud, and usually raised 

 two or three feet from the ground. All the villages are surrounded by 

 topes of cocoa-nut and other favourite fruit trees, encircled round with 

 a thick bamboo hedge. (Thorn, p. 238.) 



2 " A sap extracted from the juicy leaves of the Magas or Kiati tree, 

 is held in high estimation, as an effectual cure of wounds made by 

 crisses and spears that have been dipped in a poison conqwsed of the 

 blood of the Gekko and other ingredients." (Thorn, /. c, p. 213.) 



3 In orig. : " Sarbacanes," z.c, blow-tubes. 



* In orig. : " d'une violence effroyable," omitted by translator. 

 This peculiar frenzy, now commonly known as " running nmuk^\ is 

 not unusual thi^oughout the East Indian Archipelago, and indeed is a 



