INSANITY.

When a man is by sickness or otherwise deprived of his reason, or when subject to convulsion fits, they imagine him possessed by an evil spirit, and their ceremony of exorcism is performed by putting the unfortunate wretch into a hut, which they set fire to about his ears, suffering him to make his escape through the flames in the best manner he can.  The fright, which would go nigh to destroy the intellects of a reasonable man, may perhaps have under contrary circumstances an opposite effect.

SCIENCES.

The skill of the Sumatrans in any of the sciences, is, as may be presumed, very limited.

ARITHMETIC.

Some however I have met with who, in arithmetic, could multiply and divide, by a single multiplier or divisor, several places of figures.  Tens of thousands (laksa) are the highest class of numbers the Malay language has a name for.  In counting over a quantity of small articles each tenth, and afterwards each hundredth piece is put aside; which method is consonant with the progress of scientific numeration, and probably gave it origin.  When they may have occasion to recollect at a distance of time the tale of any commodities they are carrying to market, or the like, the country people often assist their memory by tying knots on a string, which is produced when they want to specify the number.  The Peruvian quipos were I suppose an improvement upon this simple invention.

MEASURES.

They estimate the quantity of most species of merchandise by what we call dry measure, the use of weights, as applied to bulky articles, being apparently introduced among them by foreigners; for the pikul and catti are used only on the sea-coast and places which the Malays frequent.  The kulah or bamboo, containing very nearly a gallon, is the general standard of measure among the Rejangs:  of these eight hundred make a koyan:  the chupah is one quarter of a bamboo.  By this measure almost all articles, even elephants’ teeth, are bought and sold; but by a bamboo of ivory they mean so much as is equal in weight to a bamboo of rice.  This still includes the idea of weight, but is not attended with their principal objection to that mode of ascertaining quantity which arises, as they say, from the impossibility of judging by the eye of the justness of artificial weights, owing to the various materials of which they may be composed, and to which measurement is not liable.  The measures of length here, as perhaps originally among every people upon earth, are taken from the dimensions of the human body.  The deppa, or fathom, is the extent of the arms from each extremity of the fingers:  the etta, asta, or cubit, is the forearm and hand; kaki is the foot; jungka is the span; and jarri, which signifies a finger, is the inch.  These are estimated from the general proportions of middle-sized men, others making an allowance in measuring, and not regulated by an exact standard.

GEOGRAPHY.