ACCOUNT OF SULU. 
549 
They are sometimes visited by Serifs , who are decended from 
Mahomet, and one of these, they boast, was their first Sultan, 
The respect which these itinerant priests meet with, in the Mahome¬ 
tan Countries in the East Indies, frequently induce impostors to 
pretend a descent from Mahomet, which is not easily refuted, as 
they have no auricular distinction, like the j Peruvian Incas, and 
rather pretend to an infallibility in point of faith, than a miraculous 
power to evince their mission. 
The clergy here, as in all countries, have considerable influence 
in government and private life : they are here also the repositories 
of the public records,* and law cases adjudged between individuals. 
The law, as in other countries, has swelled to many volumes, which 
are in great measure unmolested lumber, since there are no profest 
lawyers, who might benefit by Briefs as long as the annals of a 
century: these records would undoubtedly be worth examination, 
as the best, perhaps the only, means of attaining a perfect idea 
of their constitution. 
The Sulus are inveterate to the Spaniards, and their faith; 
perhaps as much from the imprudent behaviour of the missionary 
priests, as from the abhorrence in which they hold some of the 
Roman Catholic tenets. Their antipathy to tbe Spaniards may 
be naturally referred to that animosity and mutual spirit of reproach, 
always found between neighbouring states: and that to the Roman 
Catholic religion, is in great measure, an extension of their hatred 
to the priests, who when permitted to have a mission here, presumed 
to make themselves umpires, and call in question the master's 
right to the slave, whom they converted. 
Although the religion of Sulu be Mahometan, the most numerous 
portion of the inhabitants of this state are gentiles, and go under 
the general denomination of I dan : these Idan, whose ideas of a 
Divinity, seem as confined as the brutes of the field, claim the 
strongest attention of a humane mind, as this blindness makes 
them equally the objects of compassion in every view: the pecu¬ 
liarities of their customs and opinions will claim a place in another 
chapter. 
chap. in. 
Language and Literature. 
It would be going too far, to condemn, or approve, a language 
which is not understood; but I must own, the sound of the Sulu 
language, is not agreeable to my ear; it is said to have as great 
affinity to the Bissaya, as Spanish to Portuguese, and appears 
to be copious from the different appellations of quantity &c. 
* I was at some time pains to obtain a copy; the person who promised this 
procrastinated till the moment of my departure, so that’,I had no opportunity 
to show it to any of my learned friends ; who on being shewn it on my return to 
Sulu, laughingly told me the person had imposed the copy of an Arabian fable 
as the history of Sulu. 
