ll as the Arabs and other Mahometan nations fix the
length of the year at three hundred and fifty-four days, or twelve lunar
months of twenty-nine days and a half; by which mode of reckoning each
year is thrown back about eleven days. The original Sumatrans rudely
estimate their annual periods from the revolution of the seasons, and
count their years from the number of their crops of grain (taun padi); a
practice which, though not pretending to accuracy, is much more useful
for the general purposes of life than the lunar period, which is merely
adapted to religious observances. They as well as the Malays compute time
by lunations, but do not attempt to trace any relation or correspondence
between these smaller measures and the solar revolution. Whilst more
polished nations were multiplying mistakes and difficulties in their
endeavours to ascertain the completion of the sun's course through the
ecliptic, and in the meanwhile suffering their nominal seasons to become
almost the reverse of nature, these people, without an idea of
intercalation, preserved in a rude way the account of their years free
from essential, or at least progressive, error and the confusion which
attends it. The division of the month into weeks I believe to be unknown
except where it has been taught with Mahometanism; the day of the moon's
age being used instead of it where accuracy is required; nor do they
subdivide the day into hours. To denote the time of day at which any
circumstance they find it necessary to speak of happened, they point with
their finger to the height in the sky at which the sun then stood. And
this mode is the more general and precise as the sun, so near the
equator, ascends and descends almost perpendicularly, and rises and sets
at all seasons of the year within a few minutes of six o'clock. Scarcely
any of the stars or constellations are distinguished by them. They notice
however the planet Venus, but do not imagine her to be the same at the
different periods of her revolution when she precedes the rising, and
follows the setting sun. They are aware of the night on which the new
moon should make its appearance, and the Malays salute it with the
discharge of guns. They also know when to expect the returns of the
tides, which are at their height, on the south-western coast of the
island, when that luminary is in the horizon, and ebb as it rises. When
they observe a bright star near the moon (or rubbing against her, as they
expre