chap, xt.] " RUNNING A MUCK." 273 



selves. Among the ancients these would have been looked 

 upon as heroes or demigods who sacrificed themselves for 

 their country. Here it is simply said, — they made " amok." 

 Macassar is the most celebrated place in the East for 

 " running a muck." There are said to be one or two a 

 month on the average, and five, ten, or twenty persons are 

 sometimes killed or wounded at one of them. It is the 

 national and therefore the honourable mode of committing 

 suicide among the natives of Celebes, and is the fashion- 

 able way of escaping from their difficulties. A Roman 

 fell upon his sword, a Japanese rips up his stomach, and 

 an Englishman blows out his brains with a pistol. The 

 Bugis mode has many advantages to one suicidically 

 inclined. A man thinks himself wronged by society — -he 

 is in debt and cannot pay — he is taken for a slave or has 

 gambled away his wife or child into slavery — he sees no 

 way of recovering what he has lost, and becomes desperate. 

 He will not put up with such cruel wrongs, but will be 

 revenged on mankind and die like a hero. He grasps his 

 kris-handle, and the next moment draws out the weapon 

 and stabs a man to the heart. He runs on, with bloody 

 kris in his hand, stabbing at every one he meets. "Amok ! 

 Amok ! " then resounds through the streets. Spears, 

 krisses, knives and guns are brought out against him. He 

 rushes madly forward, kills all he can — men, women, and 

 children — and dies overwhelmed by numbers amid all the 



VOL. T. T 



