them, and therefore hesitate to own circumstantially that they remain still unenlightened.  Ceremonies are fascinating to mankind, and without comprehending with what views they were instituted the profanum vulgus naturally give them credit for something mysterious and above their capacities, and accordingly pay them a tribute of respect.  With Mahometanism a more extensive field of knowledge (I speak in comparison) is open to its converts, and some additional notions of science are conveyed.  These help to give it importance, though it must be confessed they are not the most pure tenets of that religion which have found their way to Sumatra; nor are even the ceremonial parts very scrupulously adhered to.  Many who profess to follow it give themselves not the least concern about its injunctions, or even know what they require.  A Malay at Manna upbraided a countryman with the total ignorance of religion his nation laboured under.  “You pay a veneration to the tombs of your ancestors:  what foundation have you for supposing that your dead ancestors can lend you assistance?” “It may be true,” answered the other, “but what foundation have you for expecting assistance from Allah and Mahomet?” “Are you not aware, replied the Malay, that it is written in a Book?  Have you not heard of the Koran?” The native of Passummah, with conscious inferiority, submitted to the force of this argument.

If by religion is meant a public or private form of worship of any kind, and if prayers, processions, meetings, offerings, images, or priests are any of them necessary to constitute it, I can pronounce that the Rejangs are totally without religion and cannot with propriety be even termed pagans, if that, as I apprehend, conveys the idea of mistaken worship.  They neither worship God, devil, nor idols.  They are not however without superstitious beliefs of many kinds, and have certainly a confused notion, though perhaps derived from their intercourse with other people, of some species of superior beings who have the power of rendering themselves visible or invisible at pleasure.  These they call orang alus, fine, or impalpable beings, and regard them as possessing the faculty of doing them good or evil, deprecating their wrath as the sense of present misfortunes or apprehension of future prevails in their minds.  But when they speak particularly of them they call them by the appellations of maleikat and jin, which are the angels and evil spirits of the Arabians, and the idea may probably have been borrowed at the same time with the names.  These are the powers they also refer to in an oath.  I have heard a dupati say, “My grandfather took an oath that he would not demand the jujur of that woman, and imprecated a curse on any of his descendants that should do it:  I never have, nor could I without salah kapada maleikat—­an offence against the angels.”  Thus they say also, de talong nabi, maleikat, the prophet and angels assisting.  This is pure Mahometanism.