an ample return* A few, however, who have par- 

 tially overcome their timidity, and occasionally 

 ventured to approach the Malayan villages, have 

 speedily learned to profit by the superstitious fears 

 of rheir new acquaintance, and parted wirh medici- 

 nal vegetable preparations at a high and e xorbitant 

 rate. That a people living entirely in the woods 

 should become possessed ofageneralknowledg^of 

 the sanatory virtues of the different trees and 

 shrubs by which they are surrounded from their 

 efficacy in healing their own simple diseases, and 

 that they should regard them as charms is to be 

 expected J and that their remedies should prove 

 inefficient to remove those inveterate disorders 

 produced by the more artificial mode of eivihzed 

 life is no argument against the probability of this 

 untutored race yet revealing to us many medi- 

 cinal shrubs which will prove highly valuable in 

 compounds. 



The Orang Laut are another tribe residing, as 

 their name implies, (Orang Laut, men of the sea) 

 entirely on the sea shore and subsisting upon the 

 ifish which they strike with the spear : like all 

 people whose diet is composed wholly of fish, 

 thty have a squalid and wretched appearance, 

 being covered with scorbutic eruptions. They 

 live principally in canoes, and are supposed by 

 Mr. Anderson to be the icthyophagi of the 

 East of Herodotus, and he appears Ui thinlerthat 

 Br, Leyden has given that title to the Battas 

 of Sumatra and thus states his argument. 

 ** They are certainly the icthyophagi of the 

 'i East as they subsist wholly upon fish. Dr. 

 " Leyden supposes the Battas of Sumatra to 



B 



