Tllfi PRESENT CONDITION Of* 
.gap ore, Batavia, Samar an g, Manila, and Macassar. In these are 
gathered all the products of the Archipelago, whether such as the 
native inhabitants procure by their unassisted industry, or such as 
demand the skill and capital of the European or Chinese for their 
cultivation or manufacture; and amongst the latter, nutmegs, cloves, 
sugar, indigo, sago, gambier, tea, and the partly cultivated cinna¬ 
mon and cotton. To these busy marts, the vessels of the first maritime 
people of the Archipelago, the Bugis, and those of many Malayan 
communities, bring the produce of their own countries, and that 
which they have collected from neighbouring lands, or from the wild 
tribes, to furnish cargoes for the ships of Europe, America, Arabia, 
India, Siam, China, and Australia. To the bazar of the Eastern 
Seas, commerce brings representatives of every industrious nation of 
the Archipelago, and of every maritime people in the civilized’world. 
Although, therefore, cultivation has made comparatively little im¬ 
pression on the vast natural vegetation, and the inhabitants arc devoid 
of that unremitting laboriousness which distinguishes the Chinese 
and European, the Archipelago, in its industrial aspect, presents an 
animated and varied scene. The industry of man, when civilization 
or over population has not destroyed the natural balance of life, 
must ever be the complement of the bounty of nature. The inhabi- 
c 
tant of the Archipelago is as energetic and laborious as nature re¬ 
quires him to be; and be does not convert the world into a work¬ 
shop, as the Chinese, and the Kling immigrants do, because 
bis world is not, like theirs, darkened with the pressure of crowd¬ 
ed population and over competition, nor is his desire to accumu¬ 
late wealth excited and goaded by the contrast of splendour and 
luxury on the one hand, and penury on the other, by the pride and 
assumptions of wealth and station, and the humiliations of poverty 
and dependence. 
While in the vjolcanic soils of Java, Menangkabau and Celebes, 
and many other parts of the Archipelago, population has increased, 
an industry suited to the locality and habits of each people prevails, 
and distinct civilizations, on the peculiar features of which we can¬ 
not touch, have been nurtured and developed; other islands, less fa¬ 
voured by nature, or under the influence of particular historical cir¬ 
cumstances, have become the seats of great piratical communities, 
which periodically send forth large fleets to sweep the seas, and 
