eneral, especially of the excellent Van der Capellen, to
civilise and improve the Javans, little progress has as yet been made
towards that desirable end. In the interior of the island, where
Europeans are scarce, the character of the natives is far better than on
the coast, where they have contracted all the vices of which the example
is so plentifully afforded them by their conquerors. Dwelling in
wretched huts, the cost of whose materials and erection varied, in the
time of Raffles, from five to ten shillings, they till, for a wretched
pittance, the soil that their forefathers possessed. Brutalised,
however, as they are, living from hand to mouth, and suffering from the
diseases incident to poverty and the climate, and from others introduced
from Europe, they appear tolerably contented. In the midst of their
misfortunes, they have one great solace, one consoling and engrossing
vice; they live to gamble. For a game of chance, they abandon every
thing, forget their duties and families, spend their own money and that
of other people, and even set their liberty on a cast of the die. It is
a national malady, extending from the prince to the boor, and including
the Liplaps or half-breeds, who generally unite the vices of their
European fathers and Indian mothers. The beast-fights are popular,
chiefly because they afford such glorious opportunity for betting.
Besides cocks and quails, tigers and buffaloes, other animals, the least
pugnacious possible, are stimulated to a contest. Locusts are made to
enter the lists, and are tickled on the head with a straw until they
reach the fighting pitch. Wild pigs are caught in snares and opposed to
goats, who generally punish them severely, the Javan pigs being small,
and possessing little strength and courage. Then there are races between
paper kites, whose strings are coated with lime and pounded glass, so
that, on coming in contact, they cut each other, and the falling kite
proclaims its owner's bet lost. And by day and night, Dr. Selberg,
informs us, on the high roads, and near the villages, groups are to be
seen stretched upon the earth, playing games of chance. Nor are these by
any means the lowest of the people. The doctor cites several instances
of the extraordinary addiction both of men and women to this vice. He
had ordered a quantity of cigars of a Javan, who undertook to make and
deliver a hundred daily, for which he was to be paid a florin. For two
days the man kept to his