344 S O O L O O. 



to a great extent. After sunset, when the air has become somewhat 

 cooled by the refreshing breezes, they sally forth attended by their 

 retainers to take a walk, or proceed to the bazaars to purchase goods, 

 or to sell or to barter away their articles of produce. They then pay 

 visits to their friends, when they are in the habit of having frequent 

 convivial parties, talking over their bargains, smoking cigars, drinking 

 wine and liqueurs, tea, coffee, and chocolate, and indulging in their 

 favourite pipe of opium. At times they are entertained with music, 

 both vocal and instrumental, by their dependants. Of this art they 

 appear to be very fond, and there are many musical instruments 

 among them. A datu, indeed, would be looked upon as uneducated if 

 he could not play on some instrument. 



It is considered polite that when refreshments are handed they 

 should be partaken of. Those offered us by the Datu were such as 

 are usual, but every thing was stale. Of fruit they are said to be 

 very fond, and can afford to indulge themselves in any kinds. With 

 all these articles to cloy the appetite, only one set meal a day is taken; 

 though the poorer classes, fishermen and labourers, partake of two. 



The government of the Sooloo Archipelago is a kind of oligarchy, 

 and the supreme authority is vested in the Sultan and the Ruma 

 Bechara or trading council. This consists of about twenty chiefs, 

 either datus, or their next in rank, called orangs, who are governors 

 of towns or detached provinces. The influence of the individual 

 chiefs depends chiefly upon the number of their retainers or slaves, 

 and the force they can bring into their service when they require it. 

 These are purchased from the pirates, who bring them to Sooloo and 

 its dependencies for sale. The slaves are employed in a variety of 

 ways, as in trading prahus, in the pearl and biche de mar fisheries, 

 and in the search after the edible birds'-nests. 



A few are engaged in agriculture, and those who are at all educated 

 are employed as clerks. These slaves are not denied the right of 

 holding property, which they enjoy during their lives, but at their 

 death it reverts to the master. Some of them are quite rich, and what 

 may appear strange, the slaves of Sooloo are invariably better off than 

 the untitled freemen, who are at all times the prey of the hereditary 

 datus, even of those who hold no official stations. By all accounts 

 these constitute a large proportion of the population, and it being 

 treason for any low-born freeman to injure or maltreat a datu, the 

 latter, who are of a haughty, overbearing, and tyrannical disposition, 

 seldom keep themselves within bounds in their treatment of their in- 

 feriors. The consequence is, the lower class of freemen are obliged 

 to put themselves under the protection of some particular datu, which 



