JAWI PAKANS. — PaOVINCE WELLE3LEY POLICE. 251 



informations. It is Hot here intended to include a 

 whole class in the above description ; jet it is to he 

 feared that exceptions to the picture are fewer than 

 could he wished- 



When under strict management, the Jawi Pakans 

 are undoubtedly a very useful < lass in the Straits ; 

 aud might not conveniently he dispensed with. They 

 are acute accountants ; expert, but not very liberal 

 merchants; good assistants in public offices, and the 

 only natives here who are acquainted wiih land-mea- 

 suring. They are often smart interpreters of two or 

 more languages, wily diplomatic agents, and general- 

 ly respectable in the outward man. 



Province Wellesley, owing to the peculiar localities 

 just described, has its police somewhat differently se- 

 lected than that of the Island. It is composed, in a 

 great measure, from men of disbanded sepoy regiments, 

 who are well armed with muskets and swords. The 

 present strength is about seventy men only of all 

 ranks, About one-third of this body is almost ex- 

 clusively employed in guarding the several lines of 

 frontier, beyond which, as might he supposed, are 

 congregated all the offenders who have escaped from 

 public justice ; and over whom, owing to the distance 

 from KedrJah, the Siamese exert but an inefficient 

 controul. The remaining two-thirds are detached in 

 smalt parties along the principal roads and rivers; 

 and from the nature of their duties, which often lead 

 them against armed bauds and through places hiktiU 

 ed by tigers, and over swampy and jungly tracks 

 near the buuudary, where there are no roads, their 

 situation is not envied by their brethren on Penang, 

 who perform their duties under the shelter of the 

 garrison ; and have little occasion for fighting in 

 earnest. The executive is also assisted in the Pro- 

 vince by a body of elders or yeomen, who with vo- 



