LANGUAGE.

The language of the king and his court is the high dialect of the Javan, mixed with some foreign idioms.  In the general intercourse with strangers the conversation is always in Malayan, with the pronunciation (already noticed) of the final o for a.

CHARACTER OF INHABITANTS.

Amongst the people of Palembang themselves this language (the character of which they employ) is mixed with the common Javan.  The Dutch, on whom we must rely for an account of the manners and disposition of these people, and which will be found in Volume 3 page 122 of the Batavian Transactions, describe those of the low country as devoid of every 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