WARS.

The Javanese banditti, as has been observed, often advance into the country, and commit depredations on the inhabitants, who are not, in general, a match for them.  They do not make use of firearms.  Beside the common weapons of the island they fight with a long lance which is carried by three men, the foremost guiding the point and covering himself and his companions with a large shield.  A compact body thus armed would have been a counterpart of the Macedonian phalanx, but can prove, I should apprehend, of but little use among a people with whom war is carried on in a desultory manner, and more in the way of ambuscade than of general engagement, in which alone troops so armed could act with effect.

Inland of Samangka, in the Straits of Sunda, there is a district, say the Lampongs, inhabited by a ferocious people called orang Abung, who were a terror to the neighbouring country until their villages were destroyed some years ago by an expedition from the former place.  Their mode of atoning for offences against their own community, or, according to a Malayan narrative in my possession, of entitling themselves to wives, was by bringing to their dusuns the heads of strangers.  The account may be true, but without further authentication such stories are not to be too implicitly credited on the faith of a people who are fond of the marvellous and addicted to exaggeration.  Thus they believed the inhabitants of the island Engano to be all females, who were impregnated by the wind, like the mares in Virgil’s Georgics.

MANNERS.

The manners of the Lampongs are more free, or rather licentious, than those of any other native Sumatrans.  An extraordinary liberty of intercourse is allowed between the young people of different sexes, and the loss of female chastity is not a very uncommon consequence.  The offence is there however thought more lightly of, and instead of punishing the parties, as in Passummah and elsewhere, they prudently endeavour to conclude a legal match between them.  But if this is not effected the lady still continues to wear the insignia of virginity, the fillet and arm-rings, and takes her place as such at festivals.  It is not only on these public occasions that the young men and women have opportunities of forming arrangements, as in most other parts of the island.  They frequently associate together at other times; and the former are seen gallantly reclining in the maiden’s lap, whispering soft nonsense, whilst she adjusts and perfumes his hair, or does a friendly office of less delicacy to a European apprehension.  At bimbangs the women often put on their dancing dress in the public hall, letting that garment which they mean to lay aside dexterously drop from under, as the other passes over the head, but sometimes, with an air of coquetry, displaying as if by chance enough to warm youthful imaginations.  Both men and women anoint themselves before company when they prepare to dance;