(Footnote.  Owing to this uniformity it becomes an easy matter for the natives to ascertain the height of the tide at any hour that the moon is visible.  Whilst she appears to ascend the water falls and vice versa; the lowest of the ebb happening when she is in her meridian.  The vulgar rule for calculating the tides is rendered also to Europeans more simple and practical from the same cause.  There only needs to add together the epact, number of the month, and day of the month; the sum of which, if under thirty, gives the moon’s age—­the excess, if over.  Allow forty-eight minutes for each day or, which is the same, take four-fifths of the age, and it will give you the number of hours after six o’clock at which high-water happens.  A readiness at this calculation is particularly useful in a country where the sea-beach is the general road for travelling.)

CHAPTER 2.

DISTINCTION OF INHABITANTS.  REJANGS CHOSEN FOR GENERAL DESCRIPTION.  PERSONS AND COMPLEXION.  CLOTHING AND ORNAMENTS.

GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE INHABITANTS.

Having exhibited a general view of the island as it is in the hands of nature, I shall now proceed to a description of the people who inhabit and cultivate it, and shall endeavour to distinguish the several species or classes of them in such a manner as may best tend to perspicuity, and to furnish clear ideas of the matter.

VARIOUS MODES OF DIVISION.

The most obvious division, and which has been usually made by the writers of voyages, is that of Mahometan inhabitants of the sea-coast, and Pagans of the inland country.  This division, though not without its degree of propriety, is vague and imperfect; not only because each description of people differ considerably among themselves, but that the inland inhabitants are, in some places, Mahometans, and those of the coast, in others, what they term Pagans.  It is not unusual with persons who have not resided in this part of the East to call the inhabitants of the islands indiscriminately by the name of Malays.  This is a more considerable error, and productive of greater confusion than the former.  By attempting to reduce things to heads too general we defeat the very end we propose to ourselves in defining them at all:  we create obscurity where we wish to throw light.  On the other hand, to attempt enumerating and distinguishing the variety, almost endless, of petty sovereignties and nations into which this island is divided, many of which differ nothing in person or manners from their neighbours, would be a task both insurmountable and useless.  I shall aim at steering a middle course, and accordingly shall treat of the inhabitants of Sumatra under the following summary distinctions, taking occasion as it may offer to mention the principal subdivisions.  And first it is proper to distinguish the empire of Menangkabau and the Malays; in the next place the Achinese; then the Battas; the Rejangs; and next to them the people of Lampong.*