1838.] 



of the Malay^hi Peninsula. 



77 



nish themselves at home, and ought to have a surpUis for the Malacca 

 market. All are lazy, but the women do more work than the men. 

 They have plentyof buflfaloes, animals which in such a country require 

 no care, except to pen them at nights — and yet I could not get a drop of 

 milk — I believe they never milk them, I brought away specimens of 

 different forest woods ; as the cassia, the lemon, the mangusteen, the 

 nutmeg, of which last the nut is larger, but less aromatic, than that of the 

 cultivated tree. A forest road for five or six miles brought me to Reihra, 

 where is a stockade with a few sepoys. Here, after much difficulty, I 

 succeeded in having five of the Jacoons (supposed aborigines) brought 

 in from the jungle. These poor creatures have no houses — neitlier 

 plant nor sow — nor, I believe, make use of fire for any purpose — but 

 lodge at night in trees ; and in the day eat wild plaintains or any other 

 fruit they meet with. If, in intercourse wdth the Malays, they obtain a 

 little rice, they devour it raw, unless given to them boiled. They are 

 generally quite naked, but sometimes the women wear the reddish bark 

 of a tree, beaten into something of a pliable texture. I brought one of 

 these away. Of their language, or rather chatter, I had not time to get 

 any vocabulary. Dr. Bennet and others assert, that these Jacoons 

 cannot be derived from the same origin with the rest of mankind, 

 but are an inferior species— no grounds whatever for such 

 an assumption. Of those I saw, the tv.'o elderly people were certainly 

 frightful specimens of humanity — the woman particularly— but wliy ? 

 because of their wretched manner of life, starvation, and exposure. 

 The tw^o infants w^ere fine little things as need be, and the other, a lad 

 of perhaps thirteen, was comely enough— but I can well conceive that, 

 soon after that age, they begin to wither for lack of nourishment and 

 needful care. I gave them two dollars, and when the Malays made 

 them understand the value of the coin, the man asked in simplicity 

 whether I designed the sum to be shared amongst the sepoys and all 

 others present, or if it was exclusively for themselves. 



I asked the Jacoons some questions to find out what their idea of 

 God was; as soon as they understood the tendenc}^ of my questions, 

 the old man, vvlio spoke Malay, exclaimed Oh that is IslamJ^ (Ma- 

 hommedan being the only religion they could have any conception of). 

 " We are forest people {Oura?ig Outan) we know nothing of that." 



F. J. D. 



