168 On the Indian Archipelago. 
ical expeditions, less formidable than those of the Lanuns of Su- 
lu, are year after year fitted out. No coast is so thickly peopled, 
and no harbor+so well protected, as to be secure from all moles- 
tation, for where open force would be useless, recourse is had to 
stealth and stratagem. Men have been kidnapped in broad day 
in the harbors of Pinang and Singapore. Several inhabitants of 
Province Wellesley, who had been carried away from their hou- 
ses through the harbor of Pinang and down the Straits of Ma- 
lacca to the southward, were recently discovered by the Dutch 
authorities living in a state of slavery, and restored to their homes. 
But the ordinary abodes of the pirates themselves are not always 
at a distance from the European settlements. As the thug of 
Bengal: is only known in hisown village as a peaceful peasant, 
so the pirate, when not absent on an expedition, appears in the 
river, and along the shores and islands of Singapore, as an hon- 
est boatman or fisherman. bot 
When we turn from this brief review of the industry of the 
Archipelago, and its great internal enemy, to the personal and so- 
cial condition of the inhabitants, we are struck by the mixture of 
simplicity and art, of rudeness and refinement, which character- 
izes all the principal nations. No European has ever entered in- 
to free and kindly intercourse with them, without being much 
more impressed by their virtues than their faults. They contrast 
most favorably with the Chinese and the Klings in their moral 
characters ; and although they do not, like those pliant races, 
readily adapt themselves to the requirements of foreigners, in 
their proper sphere they are intelligent, shrewd, active, and, when 
need is, laborious. Comparing them even with the general con- 
dition of many civilized nations of far higher ‘pretensions, our 
estimate must be favorable. eir manners are distinguished 
by a mixture of courtesy and freedom which is very attractive. 
Even the poorest while frank are well-bred, and, exeluding the 
communities that are corrupted by piracy or a mixture with Eu- 
ropean seamen and low Chinese and Klings, we never see an im- 
pudent air, an insolent look, or any exhibition of immodesty, or 
hear coarse, abusive or indecent language. In their mutual in- 
tercourse they are respectful, and while good-humored and open, 
habitually reflective and considerate. ‘They are much given to 
amusements of various kinds, fond of music, poetry and roman- 
ces, and in their common conversation addicted to sententious re- 
marks, proverbs, and metrical sentiments or allusions. To the 
first impression of the European, the inhabitants, like the vege- 
tation and animals of the Archipelago, are altogether strange, be- 
cause the characteristics in which they differ from those to which 
we are habituated, affect the senses more vividly than those im 
which they agree. For atime the color, features, dress, manners 
and habits which we see and the languages which we hear are those 
