CHARACTER OF BUGIS. 201 



and said he was lately from Sourabaya, and asked 

 where the schooner was, meaning the Bramble. 

 About a hundred yards farther on, we saw several 

 men digging, and on going up to them found they 

 were filling up a grave. They did not seem at all 

 serious about it, laughing and chatting among 

 themselves, and cheerfully informed us a man was 

 dead. They were a bold and sturdy-looking race 

 of men, like most of the Bugis 1 have seen, with 

 frank and independent manners. These people are 

 now the most enterprising race of the Archipelago, 

 the best and most extensive navigators, traversing 

 in their prahus all the seas from Sumatra to New 

 Guinea, and even to the gulf of Carpentaria. 

 Although in some cases addicted to piracy, they 

 are, from all I have heard of them, the best race 

 for Europeans to engage as sailors, or as settlers in 

 any new colony, or for similar services. Courage 

 and hardihood are the qualities most wanted by 

 the Malay races in general, and wherever they 

 exist, however irregularly they may have been 

 exercised, the people will be found to be ultimately 

 the most valuable, whether as subjects, as servants, 

 or companions. 



Crawfurd, in his account of the Eastern Archi- 

 pelago, makes the Strait of Alass the boundary of 

 the principal of those races, into which he sub- 

 divides the Malay nations, that, namely, which 

 inhabits Sumatra, Java, Bali, and Lombock. We 

 were now aware that it is also the boundary of a 



