THK INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 
15 
fork along the shores, of the Archipelago, despoiling the seafaring 
trader of the fruits of his industry and his personal liberty, and car¬ 
rying off, from their very homes, the wives and children of the villa¬ 
gers. From the creeks and rivers of Borneo and Johore, from the 
numerous islands between Singapore and Banka, and from other parts 
of the Archipelago, piratical expeditions less formidable than those 
of the Lanuns of Sulu are year after year fitted out. No coast is so 
thickly peopled, and no harbour so well protected, as to be secure 
from all molestation, for, where open force would be useless, re¬ 
course is had to stealth and stratagem. Men have been kidnapped 
in broad day in the harbours of Pinang and Singapore. Several 
inhabitants of Province Wellesley who had been carried away from 
their houses through the harbour of Pinang ind down the Straits of 
Malacca to the southward were recently discovered by the Dutch 
authorities living in a state of slavery and restored to their homes* 
But the ordinary abodes of the pirates themselves are not always at 
a distance from the European settlements. As the thug of Ben¬ 
gal is only kno wn in his own village as a peaceful peasant, so the 
pirate, when not absent on an expedition, appears in the river, and 
along the shores and islands, of Singapore, as an honest boatman 
or fisherman. 
When we turn from this brief review of the industry of she Ar- 
chipelago, and its great internal enemy, to the personal and social 
condition of the inhabitants, we are struck by the mixture of simpli¬ 
city and art, of rudeness and refinement, which characterises all the 
principal nations. No European has ever entered into free and 
kindly intercourse with them, without being much more impressed 
by their virtues than their faults. They contrast most favourably 
with the Chinese and the Klings in their moral characters; and al¬ 
though they do not, like those pliant races, readily adapt themselves 
to the requirements of foreigners, in their proper sphere they are 
intelligent, shrewd, active, and, when need is, laborius. Compar¬ 
ing them even with general condition of many civilized nations of far 
higher pretensions, our estimate must be favourable. Their man¬ 
ners are distinguished by a mixture of courtesy and freedom which 
is very attractive. Even the poorest while frank are well bred, 
and, excluding the communities that are corrupted by piracy or a 
mixture with European seamen and low Chinese and Klings, we 
