liberty again, and prosecuting their kidnappers have recovered large
damages. In the district of Allas a custom prevails by which, if a man
has been sold to the hill people, however unfairly, he is restricted on
his return from associating with his countrymen as their equal unless he
brings with him a sum of money and pays a fine for his re-enfranchisement
to his kalippah or chief. This regulation has taken its rise from an idea
of contamination among the people, and from art and avarice among the
chiefs.

CHAPTER 14.

MODES OF MARRIAGE, AND CUSTOMS RELATIVE THERETO.
POLYGAMY.
FESTIVALS.
GAMES.
COCK-FIGHTING.
USE AND EFFECTS OF OPIUM.

MOTIVES FOR ALTERING SOME OF THEIR MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.

By much the greater number of the legal disputes among these people have
their source in the intricacy attending their marriage contracts. In most
uncivilized countries these matters are very simple, the dictates of
nature being obeyed, or the calls of appetite satisfied, with little
ceremony or form of convention; but with the Sumatrans the difficulties,
both precedent and subsequent, are increased to a degree unknown even in
the most refined states. To remedy these inconveniences, which might be
supposed to deter men from engaging in marriage, was the view of the
Resident of Laye, before mentioned, who prevailed upon them to simplify
their engagements, as the means of preventing litigation between
families, and of increasing the population of the country. How far his
liberal views will be answered by having thus influenced the people to
change their customs, whether they will not soon relapse into the ancient
track; and whether in fact the cause that he supposed did actually
contribute to retard population, I shall not pretend to determine; but as
the last is a point on which a difference of opinion prevails I shall
take the liberty of quoting here the sentiments of another servant of the
Company (the late Mr. John Crisp) who possessed an understanding highly
enlightened.

REASONS AGAINST THIS ALTERATION.

This part of the island is in a low state of population, but it is an
error to ascribe this to the mode of obtaining wives by purchase. The
circumstance of children constituting part of the property of the parents
proves a most powerful incentive to matrimony, and there is not perhaps
any country on the face of the earth where marriage is more general than
here, instances of persons of either sex passing their lives i