253 
POPULATION AND TLACES OF HABITATION. 
All those persons who have spoken to me of the population of the Ja- 
kuns were much mistaken. The desire of finding extraordinary things, 
and the natural propensity to fancy the marvellous, which are found 
in every nation, and chiefly amongst the ignorant, are in their apogee 
in the imagination of Indian nations, who, generally speaking, are very 
uninformed, and this was probably the first cause which gave rise to 
the many hyperbolical stories whicli have been spread abroad about the 
number of the Jakuns; as well as about their manners and customs. 
In fact it is Very difficult to ascertain the true number of the Jakuns, 
because part of them are a nomade people, so that the same family, 
the same individuals appear today in one place, and next week, two 
or three miles farther; next month, they will remove again, to roam the 
forest or to come to their first habitation ; so that those who perceive 
them here and there imagine that these are fresh persons, and in 
their calculation they count two or three times the same. The num¬ 
ber of Jakuns reported to me was always much more considerable 
than the number I found upon visiting the places themselves. As 
I have not visited the entire Peninsula it is yet difficult for me to 
ascertain the amount of these inhabitants of the Jungle. I will how¬ 
ever here state what appears to me to he an approximation to the 
truth. 
The number of the Jakuns whose existence is known to me with 
certainty, that is, those I rayself visited, and who fell under my im¬ 
mediate inspection, amount to no more than one thousand. Those I 
know only by information would amount, I suppose, to about three or 
four thousand ; the whole to five thousand at the most. They are dis¬ 
tributed in the following way. Those I termed Jakuns of Malacca, 
are the least in number, and cannot be more than three hundred, a- 
bout one half of whom I have seen in the following places; viz. near 
Reim and Ayer Panas, at Ayer Bara, Gassim, Kommender, Bukifc 
Singlu; in the river of Muar near Pankalang Kota, at Poghalay, Sagil, 
Segamon, Lemon, Jawee; in the small river of Pago, and in that of 
Ring. The remainder are to bo found, at Bukit More, Ayer Truss, 
M 
Q 
