ce of
the Malays and the Arabians.

In Java, Siam, and other parts of the East, beside the common language of
the country, there is established a court language spoken by persons of
rank only; a distinction invented for the purpose of keeping the vulgar
at a distance, and inspiring them with respect for what they do not
understand. The Malays also have their bhasa dalam, or courtly style,
which contains a number of expressions not familiarly used in common
conversation or writing, but yet by no means constituting a separate
language, any more than, in English, the elevated style of our poets and
historians. Amongst the inhabitants of Sumatra in general disparity of
condition is not attended with much ceremonious distance of behaviour
between the persons.

(TABLE OF SUMATRAN ALPHABETS.)

(TABLE OF SPECIMENS OF LANGUAGES SPOKEN IN SUMATRA.)

CHAPTER 11.

COMPARATIVE STATE OF THE SUMATRANS IN CIVIL SOCIETY.
DIFFERENCE OF CHARACTER BETWEEN THE MALAYS AND OTHER INHABITANTS.
GOVERNMENT.
TITLES AND POWER OF THE CHIEFS AMONG THE REJANGS.
INFLUENCE OF THE EUROPEANS.
GOVERNMENT IN PASSUMMAH.

COMPARATIVE STATE OF SUMATRANS IN SOCIETY.

Considered as a people occupying a certain rank in the scale or civil
society, it is not easy to determine the proper situation of the
inhabitants of this island. Though far distant from that point to which
the polished states of Europe have aspired, they yet look down, with an
interval almost as great, on the savage tribes of Africa and America.
Perhaps if we distinguish mankind summarily into five classes; but of
which each would admit of numberless subdivisions; we might assign a
third place to the more civilized Sumatrans, and a fourth to the
remainder. In the first class I should of course include some of the
republics of ancient Greece, in the days of their splendour; the Romans,
for some time before and after the Augustan age; France, England, and
other refined nations of Europe, in the latter centuries; and perhaps
China. The second might comprehend the great Asiatic empires at the
period of their prosperity; Persia, the Mogul, the Turkish, with some
European kingdoms. In the third class, along with the Sumatrans and a few
other states of the eastern archipelago, I should rank the nations on the
northern coast of Africa, and the more polished Arabs. The fourth class,
with the less civilized Sumatrans, will take in the people of the new
discovered islands in the South Sea; perha