or infamous rather, in history, are more justly to be attributed to the natural ferocity of their disposition, or to the influence upon their manners of a particular state of society, than to the qualities of any drug whatever.  The pretext of the soldiers of the country-guard for using opium is that it may render them watchful on their nightly posts:  we on the contrary administer it to procure sleep, and according to the quantity it has either effect.  The delirium it produces is known to be so very pleasing that Pope has supposed this to have been designed by Homer when he describes the delicious draught prepared by Helen, called nepenthe, which exhilarated the spirits and banished from the mind the recollection of woe.

It is remarkable that at Batavia, where the assassins just now described, when taken alive, are broken on the wheel, with every aggravation of punishment that the most rigorous justice can inflict, the mucks yet happen in great frequency, whilst at Bencoolen, where they are executed in the most simple and expeditious manner, the offence is extremely rare.  Excesses of severity in punishment may deter men from deliberate and interested acts of villainy, but they add fuel to the atrocious enthusiasm of desperadoes.

PIRATICAL ADVENTURES.

A further proof of the influence that mild government has upon the manners of people is that the piratical adventures so common on the eastern coast of the island are unknown on the western.  Far from our having apprehensions of the Malays, the guards at the smaller English settlements are almost entirely composed of them, with a mixture of Bugis or Makasar people.  Europeans, attended by Malays only, are continually travelling through the country.  They are the only persons employed in carrying treasure to distant places; in the capacity of secretaries for the country correspondence; as civil officers in seizing delinquents among the planters and elsewhere; and as masters and supercargoes of the tambangans, praws, and other small coasting vessels.  So great is the effect of moral causes and habit upon a physical character esteemed the most treacherous and sanguinary.

CHAPTER 15.

CUSTOM OF CHEWING BETEL.  EMBLEMATIC PRESENTS.  ORATORY.  CHILDREN.  NAMES.  CIRCUMCISION.  FUNERALS.  RELIGION.

CUSTOM OF CHEWING BETEL.

Whether to blunt the edge of painful reflection, or owing to an aversion our natures have to total inaction, most nations have been addicted to the practice of enjoying by mastication or otherwise the flavour of substances possessing an inebriating quality.  The South Americans chew the cocoa and mambee, and the eastern people the betel and areca, or, as they are called in the Malay language, sirih and pinang.  This custom has been accurately described by various writers, and therefore it is almost superfluous to say more on the subject than that the Sumatrans universally