ur, he had no business there, and he was obliged to reembark without
effecting anything. The aggressor followed him the same night and made
his escape. It does not appear likely, from the manners and dispositions
of the people, that the whole of the country was ever united under one
supreme head.

AUTHORITY OF RAJAS.

The more powerful rajas assume authority over the lives of their
subjects. The dependants are bound to attend their chief in his journeys
and in his wars, and when an individual refuses he is expelled from the
society without permission to take his property along with him. They are
supplied with food for their expeditions, and allowed a reward for each
person they kill. The revenues of the chief arise principally from fines
of cattle adjudged in criminal proceedings, which he always appropriates
to himself; and from the produce of the camphor and benzoin trees
throughout his district; but this is not rigorously insisted upon. When
he pays his gaming debts he imposes what arbitrary value he thinks proper
on the horses and buffaloes (no coin being used
in the country), which he delivers, and his subjects are obliged to
accept them at that rate. They are forced to work in their turns, for a
certain number of days, in his rice plantations. There is, in like
manner, a lesser kind of service for land held of any other person, the
tenant being bound to pay his landlord respect wherever he meets him, and
to provide him with entertainment whenever he comes to his house. The
people seem to have a permanent property in their possessions, selling
them to each other as they think fit. If a man plants trees and leaves
them, no future occupier can sell them, though he may eat the fruit.
Disputes and litigations of any kind that happen between people belonging
to the same kampong are settled by a magistrate appointed for that
purpose, and from him it is said there is no appeal to the raja: when
they arise between persons of different kampongs they are adjusted at a
meeting of the respective rajas. When a party is sent down to the Bay to
purchase salt or on other business it is accompanied by an officer who
takes cognizance of their behaviour, and sometimes punishes on the spot
such as are criminal or refractory. This is productive of much order and
decency.

SUCCESSION.

It is asserted that the succession to the chiefships does not go in the
first instance to the son of the deceased, but to the nephew by a sister;
an