wards, may, of course, be performed at every season. In fair weather, one of them will sail between the Island of Linga and Singapore in two days; and in the least favourable weather, in six; performing the voyage, therefore, on an average, in four days. The distance is about one hundred and eighty miles ; so that these' boats go, under the most favourable circumstances, at the rate of ninety miles a-day, or close upon four knots an hour, and, at an average, forty-five miles a-day. Three voyages may be performed in a month, if the state of the markets do not occasion extraordinary delays. When pepper is the cargo, as very frequently happens, the adventurers are contented, I am told, with a profit of three-fourths of a dollar per picul, when the selling price of this commodity is ten dollars. This supposes a profit of 8 per cent. on each adventure.

During the last month I had many personal and favourable opportunities of inquiring into the manners and habits of the Orăng-laut. The term is used to characterize the race of Malays who have their habitations exclusively on the sea, in opposition to those who have fixed abodes on shore, the Orăng-darat, or "men of dry land." They are sometimes called Orăng-sălat, or "men of the straits," under which appellation they have been stigmatized for their piracy as long ago as the time of John De Barros, whose

work was composed in the sixteenth century. At other times we hear them called Ryots, or "Subjects;"-that is to say, subjects of the king of Jehor; but under this name, too, their reputation is no better, for the Western Malays use the term Jehor as synonymous with that of pirate or robber. I had no conception that any of the tribes bearing the Malay name were in so low a state of civilization as these people are. By far the greater number of them are born, live, and die in their miserable canoes, and the few who live occasionally on shore are scarcely more comfortably situated. These are ignorant of the culture of rice, and plant very few roots, neither do they cultivate the cocoa nut, a plant which conduces so much to the comfort of the other tribes of the eastern islands. The plantain, or banana, from the rapidity of its growth, and the volume of food which it supplies, is the great object of their attention in an agricultural view. Whether their habitation be on land or water, fishing is the great employment of the Orăng-laut; and what they do not consume themselves, forms the only fund from which they are supplied with the other common necessaries of life. In their general character, they are indolent, improvident, and defective in personal cleanliness. Like the other islanders, however, they are neither selfish, cunning, nor mendacious. In their external demeanour they are clownish, their

manners unceremonious, and their dialect uncouth; but, withal, their behaviour is neither rude nor disrespectful. Of the character they exhibit in their predatory excursions, I am not competent to judge, but it is sufficiently bad.

A more accurate test, however, of this people's state in society than can be conveyed by a general description, is afforded by a short sketch of the actual expense of their mode of life. A house costs about five dollars, and the best seldom above twenty. A dwelling boat costs no more than six dollars, and a fishing canoe about four. The only furniture, if there is any at all, is a bedstead and pillows, worth four dollars, and a cast-iron cooking-pot, of Chinese or Siamese manufacture, worth about half a dollar. With the art of weaving these people are utterly unacquainted, and, as far as they are clothed at all, they are clothed in foreign manufactures. The sarong, or lower garment, of both sexes, is the manufacture of Celebes; it costs four dollars, and lasts four years. The turban, or rather handkerchief, which binds the head of the men, is the manufacture of the same country; it costs half a dollar, and lasts at least as long as the sarong. The vest of both sexes is white cloth of Coromandel, or at least what has once been white. The principal vegetable food of the Orang-laut is crude sago, which is not the produce of their own country, but received