t 
588 PIRACY AND SLAVE TRADE OF THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 
who preferred this sad alternative to the combined miseries which 
famine, pirates and disease indicted on them. Having completely 
exhausted the island, the Lanuns gradually withdrew themselves 
from it after the year 1804, and retired to their own quarter of the 
Archipelago. They have continued however to visit it in their 
lengthened cruizes, and even within the last few years they have 
ravaged its coasts as will be seen hereafter. The pirates belonging 
to the Johore Archipelago still continued to plague Banka and in 
1820 they had rendered themselves masters of some of the tin districts 
on the south-east part of the island where they raised bentings 
or small earthen forts at various points. The Dutch Government 
sent an expedition against them under the command of Lieutenant- 
Colonel Keer. 
(To be Continued.) 
