20 MARITIME CODE. 



taban differ from the ,* both which people appear, in like man- 



ner with the Malays, to have been gradually formed as nations, ant 

 separated from their original stoc k by the admixture of Arabian blood, 

 and the introduction of the Arabic language and Moslem religion. 



The word Jatvi, so much insisted on, is the Malay for anything 

 mixed or crossed, as when the language of one country is written in 

 the character of another, it is termed Bliam Jaiul, or mixed lan- 

 guage, or when a child is born of a Kling father and Malay mother, 

 it is called AnaJc Jawi, a child of a mixed race : thus the Malay 

 language being written in the Arabic character is termed Bhasa Jawi, 

 the Malays, as a nation distinct from the fixed populations of the 

 Eastern Islands, not possessing any written character whatever but 

 what they borrow from the Arabs. 



"With respect to the Maritime Code, which I have now the ho- 

 nour to lay before the Society, it has been selected on account of its 

 singularity. The power of life and death vested in the JSfacodaJi 

 may be considered as purely Malayan, or at any rate to have had its 

 origin in the Eastern Islands, the Arabs, from whom alonej they 

 could have borrowed a foreign Sea Code not possessing, as far as I 

 have been able to ascertain, any treatise whatever on Maritime Law 

 or in any instance admitting the authority of the Nacodah, or Cap- 

 tain, of a vessel to inflict capital punishment. In this point of view, 

 the paper, even in its present state, may not be uninteresting, while 

 it may tend in a slight degree to account for, if not reconcile, some 

 of the pecliarities of a nation generally believed to be guided solely 

 by individual will and passion. 



' i ointeUigible, 



