resentment, they will make no fcruple of facrificing life. The best flaves, and confequently the deareft, are procured from the island of Bali: the most beautiful women from Nias, a small island on the coaft of Sumatra; but they are of a tender and delicate conftitution, and foon fall a facrifice to the unwholefome air of Batavia. Befides thefe, there are Malays, and flaves of feveral other denominations, whose particular characteristics I do not remember.. These flaves are wholly in the power of their masters with respect to any punishment that does not take away life; but if a flave dies in confequence of punishment, though his death should not appear to have been intended, the mafter is called to a fevere account, and he is generally condemned to fuffer capitally. For this reafon the master seldom inflicts punishment upon the slave himself, but applies to an officer called a Marineu, one of whom is ftationed in every district. The duty of the Marineu is to quell riots, and take offenders into cuftody; but more particularly to apprehend runaway flaves, and punish them for fuch crimes as the master, fupported by proper evidence, lays to their charge: the punishment however is not inflicted by the Marineu in person, but by flaves who are bred up to the bufinefs. Men are punished publicly, before the door of their master's house; but women within it. The punishment is by stripes, the number being proportioned to the offence; and they are given with rods made of rattans, which are split into flender twigs for the purpose, and fetch blood at every ftroke. A common punifhment costs the mafter a rixdollar, and a fevere one a ducatoon, about fix fhillings and eight pence. The mafter is alfo obliged to allow the flave three dubbelcheys, equal to: about feven pence half-penny a week, as an encouragement, and to prevent his being under temptations to teal too ftrong to be refifted. 1770: December. Concerning the government of this place I can say but little. We obferved however a remarkable fubordination among the people. Every man who is able to keep house has a certain specific rank acquired by the length of his fervices to the company; the different ranks which are thus acquired are diftinguished by the ornaments of the coaches and the dreffes of the coachmen: fome are obliged to ride in plain coaches, fome are allowed to paint them in different manners and degrees, and fome to gild them. The coachman also appears in clothes that are quite plain, or more or lefs adorned with lace. The officer who prefides here has the title of Governor General of the Indies, and the Dutch Governors of all the other fettlements are fubordinate to him, and obliged to repair to Batavia that he may pass their accounts. If they appear to have been criminal, or even negligent, he punishes them by delay, and detains them during pleasure, fometimes one year, fometimes two years, and fometimes three; for they cannot quit the place till he gives them a dismission. Next to the Governor are the members of the council, called here Edele Heeren, and by the corruption of the English, IdoLeers. These Idoleers take upon them fo much state that whoever meets them in a carriage, is expected to rise up and bow, then to drive on one fide of the road, and there ftop till they are past the fame homage is required also to their wives and even their children; and it is commonly paid them. by the inhabitants. But fome of our Captains have thought fo flavish a mark of refpect beneath the dignity which they derived from the fervice of his Britannic Majefty, and have refused to pay it; yet, if they were in a hired carriage, nothing could deter the coachman from honouring the Dutch Grandee at their expence, but the most peremptory menace of immediate death. Juftice Juftice is administered here by a body of lawyers, who have ranks of diftinction among themselves. Concerning their proceedings in queftions of property, I know nothing; but their decifions in criminal cases seem to be fevere with respect to the natives, and lenient with respect to their own people, in a criminal degree. A Chriftian always is indulged with an opportunity of escaping before he is brought to a trial, whatever may have been his offence; and if he is brought to a trial and convicted, he is feldom punished with death: while the poor Indians on the contrary are hanged, and broken upon the wheel, and even impaled alive without mercy. The Malays and Chinese have judicial officers of their own, under the denominations of Captains and Lieutenants; who determine in civil cafes, fubject to an appeal to the Dutch court. The taxes paid by these people to the Company are very confiderable; and that which is exacted of them for liberty to wear their hair, is by no means the least. They are paid monthly, and to fave the trouble and charge of collecting them, a flag is hoisted upon the top of a house in the middle of the town when a payment is due, and the Chinese have experienced that it is their intereft to repair thither with their money without delay. The money current here confifts of ducats, worth a hundred and thirty-two ftivers; ducatoons, eighty ftivers; imperial rixdollars, fixty; rupees of Batavia, thirty; schellings, fix; double cheys, two ftivers and a half; and doits, one fourth of a stiver. Spanish dollars, when we were here, were at five fhillings and five pence; and we were told, that they were never lower than five fhillings and four pence, even at 1770. December. 1770. December. the Company's warehoufe. For English guineas we could never get more than nineteen fhillings upon an average; for though the Chinese would give twenty fhillings for fome of the brighteft, they would give no more than seventeen fhillings for those that were much worn. It may perhaps be of fome advantage to ftrangers to be told that there are two kinds of coin here, of the fame denomination, milled and unmilled, and that the milled is of most value. A milled ducatoon is worth eighty stivers; but an unmilled ducatoon is worth no more than feventy-two. All accounts are kept in rixdollars and ftivers, which, here at least, are mere nominal coins, like our pound fterling. The rixdollar is equal to forty-eight ftivers, about four fhillings and fix pence English currency. CHAP. CHAP. XV. The Paffage from Batavia to the Cape of Good Hope : Some Account of Prince's Island and its Inhabitants, and a comparative View of their Language with the Malay and Javanese. 1770. December. Thursday 27 N Thursday the 27th of December, at fix o'clock in the morning, we weighed again and flood out to fea. After much delay by contrary winds, we weathered Pulo Pare on the 29th, and ftood in for the main; foon after we fetched Saturday 29. a small island under the main, in the midway between Batavia and Bantam, called Maneater's Ifland. The next day, Sunday 30. we weathered first Wapping Island, and then Pulo Babi. On the 31ft, we flood over to the Sumatra fhore; and on the Monday 313 morning of New Year's day, 1771, we flood over for the Java fhore. 1771. January. Tuesday 1. We continued our courfe as the wind permitted us till three o'clock in the afternoon of the 5th, when we anchored Saturday 5. under the fouth eaft fide of Prince's Island in eighteen fathom, in order to recruit our wood and water, and procure refreshments for the fick, many of whom were now become much worse than they were when we left Batavia. As foon as the fhip was fecured, I went afhore, accompanied by Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander, and we were met upon the beach by some Indians who carried us immediately to a man, who, they said, was their King. After we had exchanged a few compliments with his Majefty, we proceeded to business; but in |