ery good
quality and imbued with every bad one; whilst those of the interior are
spoken of as a dull, simple people who show much forbearance under
oppression*; but it is acknowledged that of these last they have little
knowledge, owing to the extreme suspicion and jealousy of the government,
which takes alarm at any attempt to penetrate into the country.

(*Footnote. A ridiculous story is told of a custom amongst the
inhabitants of a province named Blida, which I should not repeat but for
its whimsical coincidence with a jeu d'esprit of our celebrated Swift.
When a child is born there (say the Palembangers), and the father has any
doubts about the honesty of his wife, he puts it to the proof by tossing
the infant into the air and catching it on the point of a spear. If no
wound is thereby inflicted he is satisfied of its legitimacy, but if
otherwise he considers it as spurious.)

INTERIOR VISITED BY ENGLISH.

This inland district having been visited only by two servants of the
English East India Company who have left any record of their journeys, I
shall extract from their narratives such parts as serve to throw a light
upon its geography. The first of these was Mr. Charles Miller, who, on
the 19th of September 1770, proceeded from Fort Marlborough to Bentiring
on the Bencoolen river, thence to Pagar-raddin, Kadras, Gunong Raja,
Gunong Ayu, Kalindang, and Jambu, where he ascended the hills forming the
boundary of the Company's district, which he found covered with lofty
trees. The first dusun on the other side is named Kalubar, and situated
on the banks of the river Musi. From thence his route lay to places
called Kapiyong and Parahmu, from all of which the natives carry the
produce of their country to Palembang by water. The setting in of the
rains and difficulties raised by the guides prevented him from proceeding
to the country where the cassia is cut, and occasioned his return towards
the hills on the 10th of October, stopping at Tabat Bubut. The land in
the neighbourhood of the Musi he describes as being level, the soil black
and good, and the air temperate. It was his intention to have crossed the
hills to Ranne-lebar, on the 11th, but missing the road in the woods
reached next day Beyol Bagus, a dusun in the Company's district, and
thence proceeded to Gunong Raja, his way lying partly down a branch of
the Bencoolen river, called Ayer Bagus, whose bed is formed of large
pebble-stones, and partly through a level