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Malays of Ceylon. 
before he is aware. These daggers, the instruments of their 
ferocious cruelty, are looked upon by them with a degree of 
veneration. They descend, as a most sacred relic, from father 
to son, and from generation to generation: no money is accounted 
sufficient to purchase them; and no violence can compel their 
owners to give them up. When a Malay is pressed in battle, 
he will sooner be slain, or kill himself, than surrender his 
kreese to the enemy. 
Before entering upon any desperate enterprise, it is customary 
with the Malays to take opium, or, as they term it, to hang 
themselves. This plant, the bang, which is used among the na- 
tives of India as an instrument of intoxication, is found over 
all that continent as well as in Ceylon. It is a small shrub, 
with a leaf in shape and texture resembling that of the tobacco, 
but not larger than the leaf of the sage. From this plant a 
species of opium is extracted, and being made into balls, is 
taken internally, and operates in the same manner as a dram of 
spirits among the Emopeaii nations. The leaf of the bang is 
also dried and smoked like tobacco, with a still stronger in- 
toxicating effect than the opium. After employing this method 
of rendering themselves insensible to danger, they are prepared 
for the most sanguinary achievements, and rush blindfold into 
every atrocity. The horrid barbarities, however, which they 
commit on such occasions are not so much to be attributed 
to their intoxication as to the natural savage cruelty of their 
dispositions. It is true, indeed, that before any bloody enter- 
prise is undertaken, they first throw themselves into a state of 
temporary madness by means of bang; but the resolution to 
commit the crime preceded this state; they first in cold blood 
resolve to perpetrate their atrocities, and then use means to 
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