MALAY 1D£AS OF MAERLLGE. 



270 



perliaps as large, if not larger, than elsewhere, is esti- 

 mated at only four or four and a lialf. Tbe fact tliat 

 cliildreii lielp support their parents secures for them 

 such attention that they are never entirely neglected. 

 Polygamy is allowed here as in other Mohammedan 

 lands, but only the wealthier natives and the princes 

 are guilty of it. The facility ^vith which mamages 

 are made, and divorces obtained, is one cause why it 

 is not more general. In regard to the evil effects of 

 polygamy, and the ideas of this people in respect to 

 the yacred rite of marriage, Sii' Stamford Raffles, who 

 was Governor-Greneral of Java, most truthfully re- 

 marks : Of the causes which have tended to lower 

 the character of the Asiatics in comparison with 

 Europeans, none has had a more decided influence 

 than polygamy. To all those noble and generous 

 feelings, all that delicacy of sentiment, that romantic 

 and poetical spii'it, which viiinous love inspires in 

 the breast of a Eui'opean, the Jaran is a stranger ; 

 and in the communication between the sexes he seeks 

 only a^nvenience and little more than a gratification 

 of an appetite. But the evil does not stop here; 

 education is neglected, and family attachments are 

 weakened, A Javan chief has been known to have 

 sixty acknowdedged children, and it too often happens 

 that in such cases sons having been neglected in their 

 infancy become dissipated, idle, and worthless, and 

 spring up like rank grass and overrun the country." 



In the little village of Kayeli there were only 

 three Chinamen, but one of them was an opium-sell- 

 er. He was agent for another Chinaman at Araboi- 

 na, who had bought the privilege of selling it from 



