is better than that of pure
slavery in this, that the creditor cannot strike them, and they can
change their masters by prevailing on another person to pay their debt
and accept of their labour on the same terms. Of course they may obtain
their liberty if they can by any means procure a sum equal to their debt;
whereas a slave, though possessing ever so large property, has not the
right of purchasing his liberty. If however the creditor shall demand
formally the amount of his debt from a person mengiring, at three several
times, allowing a certain number of days between each demand, and the
latter is not able to persuade anyone to redeem him, he becomes, by the
custom of the country, a pure slave, upon the creditor's giving notice to
the chief of the transaction. This is the resource he has against the
laziness or untoward behaviour of his debtor, who might otherwise, in the
state of mengiring, be only a burden to him. If the children of a
deceased debtor are too young to be of service the charge of their
maintenance is added to the debt. This opens a door for many iniquitous
practices, and it is in the rigorous and frequently perverted exertion of
these rights which a creditor has over his debtor that the chiefs are
enabled to oppress the lower class of people, and from which abuses the
English Residents find it necessary to be the most watchful to restrain
them. In some cases one half of the produce of the labour is applied to
the reduction of the debt, and this situation of the insolvent debtor is
termed be-blah. Meranggau is the condition of a married woman who remains
as a pledge for a debt in the house of the creditor of her husband. If
any attempt should be made upon her person the proof of it annuls the
debt; but should she bring an accusation of that nature, and be unable to
prove it to the satisfaction of the court, and the man takes an oath in
support of his innocence, the debt must be immediately paid by the
family, or the woman be disposed of as a slave.

When a man of one district or country has a debt owing to him from the
inhabitant of a neighbouring country, of which he cannot recover payment,
an usual resource is to seize on one or more of his children and carry
them off; which they call andak. The daughter of a Rejang dupati was
carried off in this manner by the Labun people. Not hearing for some time
from her father, she sent him cuttings of her hair and nails, by which
she intimated a resolution of d