me, who appeared, from the
circumstances under which they were found, to have been consenting to the
desperate act. They were both dressed in their best apparel (the
remainder being previously destroyed), and the female, in more than one
instance that came under notice, had struggled so little as not to
discompose her hair or remove her head from the pillow. It is said that
in their own country they expose their children by suspending them in a
bag from a tree, when they despair of being able to bring them up. The
mode seems to be adopted with the view of preserving them from animals of
prey, and giving them a chance of being saved by persons in more easy
circumstances.

The island is divided into about fifty small districts, under chiefs or
rajas who are independent of, and at perpetual variance with, each other;
the ultimate object of their wars being to make prisoners, whom they sell
for slaves, as well as all others not immediately connected with them,
whom they can seize by stratagem. These violences are doubtless
encouraged by the resort of native traders from Padang, Natal, and Achin
to purchase cargoes of slaves, who are also accused of augmenting the
profits of their voyage by occasionally surprising and carrying off whole
families. The number annually exported is reckoned at four hundred and
fifty to Natal, and one hundred and fifty to the northern ports (where
they are said to be employed by the Achinese in the gold-mines),
exclusive of those which go to Padang for the supply of Batavia, where
the females are highly valued and taught music and various
accomplishments. In catching these unfortunate victims of avarice it is
supposed that not fewer than two hundred are killed; and if the aggregate
be computed at one thousand it is a prodigious number to be supplied from
the population of so small an island.

Beside the article of slaves there is a considerable export of padi and
rice, the cultivation of which is chiefly carried on at a distance from
the sea-coasts, whither the natives retire to be secure from piratical
depredations, bringing down the produce to the harbours (of which there
are several good ones), to barter with the traders for iron, steel,
beads, tobacco, and the coarser kinds of Madras and Surat piece-goods.
Numbers of hogs are reared, and some parts of the main, especially Barus,
are supplied from hence with yams, beans, and poultry. Some of the rajas
are supposed to have amassed a sum equal