274 COMPARISON BETWEEN JAKUNS AND MALAYS, 
clever physician, which explains the impatience of Malays when sick, 
to obtain their assistance, or at least get some medicinal plants from 
them *, and these they must obtain, on any terms, because it is neces¬ 
sary for them, and must preserve their life. It is not necessary that 
such a physician should go to the house of the sick man % as he knows 
everything, he will give in his own house the proper remedies to 
cure the sickness. He is gifted with the power of charming the wild 
beasts, even the most ferocious. Such are the effects of Malay sil¬ 
liness and stupidity, joined with the most absurd superstition ; and 
the reason why, though they despise the Jakuns, they fear them, 
and refrain from ill treating them in many circumstances. 5 *' 
COMPARISON BETWEEN JAKUNS AND MALAYS. 
When we compare those two people in whom many points seem to 
assign a common extraction, we cannot prevent ourselves from hav¬ 
ing a feeling of astonishment on perceiving so remarkable a difference. 
I have already said what is the dissimilitude, if considered in their 
physical appearence; but 1 can say that it is very little when com¬ 
pared with that which exists in their manners, customs, and with the 
r 
moral qualities of these two races. 
The Malays are much inclined to robbery and cheating, and they 
generally follow this inclination.f No man can entrust them with 
anything. Though I paid the most particular attention to my trif¬ 
ling and simple baggage, every time that I have travelled in the in¬ 
terior, and had always a servant watching, several things were stolen, 
and some times I caught the rogue in the fact: and what moreover 
shows a people accustomed to such a vice, is that after having been 
caught in the fact, they are not at all disconcerted, and witli an im- 
perturable sang froid deny the circumstances. To lie for a Malay 
is nothing, injustice and perjury are but small peccadilloes, which will 
be forgiven by God as soon as forgotten from their memory, which 
* 1 must remark, that I do not here mean to speak or many of the Malays 
who live within the limits of the English settlement; many of these, on ac¬ 
count of their more frequent communications with Europeans, are more 
civilized, and consequently less superstitious. 
t I speak more particularly of the Malays living In the interior, there is a 
great difference between them and those who are in contact with Europeans* 
