tunity presented itself in 1780, when great numbers of
people (estimated at a third of the population) were swept away in the
course of that and the two following years; whilst upon those under the
immediate influence of the English and Dutch settlements inoculation was
practised with great success. I trust that the preventive blessing of
vaccination has or will be extended to a country so liable to be
afflicted with this dreadful scourge. A distemper called chachar, much
resembling the smallpox, and in its first stages mistaken for it, is not
uncommon. It causes an alarm but does not prove mortal, and is probably
what we term the chickenpox.

VENEREAL DISEASE.

The venereal disease, though common in the Malay bazaars, is in the
inland country almost unknown. A man returning to his village with the
infection is shunned by the inhabitants as an unclean and interdicted
person. The Malays are supposed to cure it with the decoction of a
china-root, called by them gadong, which causes a salivation.

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 quantit