ever takes place but among poor people, where there is
no property on either side, or in the case of a slip in the conduct of
the female, when the friends are glad to make up a match in this way
instead of demanding a price for her. Instances have occurred however of
countrymen of rank affecting a semando marriage in order to imitate the
Malayan manners; but it has been looked upon as improper and liable to
create confusion.

The fines and compensation for murder are in every respect the same as in
the countries already described.

RELIGION.

The Mahometan religion has made considerable progress amongst the
Lampongs, and most of their villages have mosques in them: yet an
attachment to the original superstitions of the country induces them to
regard with particular veneration the ancient burying-places of their
fathers, which they piously adorn and cover in from the weather.

SUPERSTITIOUS OPINIONS.

In some parts, likewise, they superstitiously believe that certain trees,
particularly those of a venerable appearance (as an old jawi-jawi or
banyan tree) are the residence, or rather the material frame of spirits
of the woods; an opinion which exactly answers to the idea entertained by
the ancients of the dryads and hamadryads. At Benkunat in the Lampong
country there is a long stone, standing on a flat one, supposed by the
people to possess extraordinary power or virtue. It is reported to have
been once thrown down into the water and to have raised itself again to
its original position, agitating the elements at the same time with a
prodigious storm. To approach it without respect they believe to be the
source of misfortune to the offender.

The inland people of that country are said to pay a kind of adoration to
the sea, and to make to it an offering of cakes and sweetmeats on their
beholding it for the first time, deprecating its power of doing them
mischief. This is by no means surprising when we consider the natural
proneness of unenlightened mankind to regard with superstitious awe
whatever has the power of injuring them without control, and particularly
when it is attended with any circumstances mysterious and inexplicable to
their understandings. The sea possesses all these qualities. Its
destructive and irresistible power is often felt, and especially on the
coasts of India where tremendous surfs are constantly breaking on the
shore, rising often to their greatest degree of violence without any
apparent ex