GOVERNMENT.

The monarchy is hereditary, and is more or less absolute in proportion to the talents of the reigning prince; no other bounds being set to his authority than the counterbalance or check it meets with from the power of the great vassals, and disaffection of the commonalty.  But this resistance is exerted in so irregular a manner, and with so little view to the public good, that nothing like liberty results from it.  They experience only an alternative of tyranny and anarchy, or the former under different shapes.  Many of the other Sumatran people are in the possession of a very high degree of freedom, founded upon a rigid attachment to their old established customs and laws.  The king usually maintains a guard of a hundred sepoys (from the Coromandel coast) about his palace, but pays them indifferently.

The grand council of the nation consists of the king or Sultan, the maharaja, laksamana, paduka tuan, and bandhara.  Inferior in rank to these are the ulubalangs or military champions, among whom are several gradations of rank, who sit on the king’s right hand, and other officers named kajuran, who sit on his left.  At his feet sits a woman, to whom he makes known his pleasure:  by her it is communicated to a eunuch, who sits next to her, and by him to an officer, named Kajuran Gondang, who then proclaims it aloud to the assembly.  There are also present two other officers, one of whom has the government of the Bazaar or market, and the other the superintending and carrying into execution the punishment of criminals.  All matters relative to commerce and the customs of the port come under the jurisdiction of the Shabandar, who performs the ceremony of giving the chap or licence for trade; which is done by lifting a golden-hafted kris over the head of the merchant who arrives, and without which he dares not to land his goods.  Presents, the value of which are become pretty regularly ascertained, are then sent to the king and his officers.  If the stranger be in the style of an ambassador the royal elephants are sent down to carry him and his letters to the monarch’s presence; these being first delivered into the hands of a eunuch, who places them in a silver dish, covered with rich silk, on the back of the largest elephant, which is provided with a machine (houdar) for that purpose.  Within about a hundred yards of an open hall where the king sits the cavalcade stops, and the ambassador dismounts and makes his obeisance by bending his body and lifting his joined hands to his head.  When he enters the palace, if a European, he is obliged to take off his shoes, and having made a second obeisance is seated upon a carpet on the floor, where betel is brought to him.  The throne was some years ago of ivory and tortoiseshell; and when the place was governed by queens a curtain of gauze was hung before it, which did not obstruct the audience, but prevented any perfect view.  The stranger, after some general discourse, is then conducted to a separate building, where he is entertained with the delicacies of the country by the officers of state, and in the evening returns in the manner he came, surrounded by a prodigious number of lights.  On high days (ari raya) the king goes in great state, mounted on an elephant richly caparisoned, to the great mosque, preceded by his ulubalangs, who are armed nearly in the European manner.