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Storms, and led Columbus, though in an opposite direction, to the still more eventful and magnificent discovery of another world, Its actual effects, too, were long commensurate with the efforts and expectations to which it gave rise. It created Alexandria-it revived Italy-it gave wealth, power, talent and virtue to Portugal and Spain-and spread through all Europe that taste for elegance and splendour which is akin to still higher refinements-and is, at any rate, the great spring of mental activity and omnipotent industry.

It would be curious to inquire from what causes it has lost its efficacy in these later times; and why Portugal, Holland, and England, when in full and peaceful possession of those very fountains of wealth, from the precarious access to which they once derived so many benefits, seem now to find them a part rather of their weakness than their strength, and a burden rather than a support to their finances. The problem is full of instruction-and full, too, of humiliation. We do not say that its solution is perfectly easy, or that it is to be determined by dogmatic asseverations: One thing, however, may be safely assumed; and that is, that nature is still the same, and that the change has not arisen from any revolution in the condition of the countries in question, or the physical wants and appetites of men. The teeming islands of the East have not been blasted with sterility; nor have men lost their relish for their spicy drugs' and infinitely various productions. But our resort to them has been artificially regulated and restrained; and the freedom of trade has been fettered by monopolies, and its object narrowed, from that of enriching the world, to the support of provincial power and official importance. We have no wish, however, to enter at present into these thorny discussions; and shall proceed therefore, without further preface, to give our readers such information as we happen to possess as to the nature and actual extent of the trade now carried on, from the countries of which we have been speaking, to the other parts of the world.

Without pretending to a very complete or minute enumera❤ tion, we may observe, in the way of general description, that the Indian islands trade with each other, with China and Japan-with what Dr Leyden terms the Hindu-Chinese nations of the Continent-with Hindustan-with Persia and Arabia-and with Europe and America. Each of these branches of trade will demand a few observations.

To a careless observer, there will probably appear little difference in the state of society among the numerous nations or tribes which inhabit this vast Archipelago; and he may not,

perhaps think of looking for any extraordinary varieties of climate and production in countries all situated within about eight degrees of the equator. A very little attention, however, will soon discover, even in this comparatively narrow range, many degrees of social existence, and a curious diversity of climate and production.

- The population of these islands may, in a commercial view, be enumerated as follow; viz. the Agricultural tribes, who provide all the commodities not furnished by the spontaneous bounty of Nature, and who, as there are scarcely any manufactures, may be reckoned the most civilized of the natives; the Maritime tribes, the most turbulent and enterprising; the Savages, who, till they can be tamed, are oftener destructive than serviceable to commerce; and the Foreign Settlers, who may be looked on as the brokers and wholesale merchants in the great traffic which is driven from one end of the Archipelago to the other.

Among the agricultural nations may be reckoned some of the greater tribes in the interior of Sumatra; the people of Bali and Lomboc; and, above all, the bulk of the population in the fertile island of Java. The navigators, or maritime tribes, comprehend all the nations which speak the Malay language, and the greater portion of the spirited and enterprising population of Celebes. The foreign settlers are a few Europeans, emigrants from the maritime ports of continental India-some adventurous Arabs; but, above all, the Chinese-the industrious and indefatigable Chinese-in a tropical climate at least, the most productive class of subjects which any state can possess. The intelligence, industry, and foresight of all these foreigners, readily distinguish them from the natives of the country; and, to the most common observation, determine their superior claims to civilization and im provement.

The more improved tribes, or those fixed to the soil, supply the maritime, or less improved tribes, with such productions. as imply a superiority of skill and industry-such as corn, cotton-wool, cotton-cloths, salt and tobacco. All these articles, when exported, for example, from Java to Sumatra, Borneo, the Peninsula and the Moluccas, bring an advance, according to circumstances, of from one to three hundred per cent.

The productions which the less improved tribes supply in exchange, are either in their rude state, or little altered by labour; such as gold dust, rough diamonds, cloves and nutmegs; benjamin and gambir or catechu, the inspissated juice of a plant which is eaten with the betel-nut, and constitutes, indeed, from its universal use, one of the most considerable articles of native

commerce.

The carrying trade, in all these commodities, is principally conducted by the enterprising navigators of Celebes, and especially by the Bugis of Wajo, who, by their skill and activity, may be said to form the very life of the native commerce of the Archipelago. A slight sketch of their regular dealings will afford the most interesting picture of the native trade of those countries. The Wajo Bugis are a turbulent aristocracy of six confederated states, who inhabit the northern part of the south-western limb of that whimsically shaped island. They dwell on the borders of a great lake, from which there flow into the sea several navigable rivers. This peculiarity of situation has perhaps given rise to that character for enterprise and industry which distinguishes them from all the other indigenous tribes of the Indian Islands. There is no country, from New Guinea to Mergui, to which their enterprise does not extend. Setting out on their voyages at the beginning of the favourable season, they quit the borders of their native lake, in vessels of from 20 to 70 tons burthen, and sail in various courses, as directed by interest, habit, and previous connexion. Their original outward cargoes are chicfly composed of the excellent durable cloths of their native country, manufactured from the cotton of Bali and Lomboc. The greater number of the traders direct their course towards the fertile and extensive countries to the westward. One body takes the direction of Java, where they exchange their cloths, and gold and silver specie, for the highly prized tobacco of that island, which supplies the extensive consumption of the Indian islanders throughout with that drug,-for the opium of Bengal-the cotton fabrics of Europe and India and the iron, broad-cloth, and steel of Europe.

The most considerable body, however, performs a trading voyage along the coasts of Celebes, Borneo, Sumatra, the eastern shores of the Gulf of Siam, the islands in the mouth of the Straits of Malacca, and the western shores of the Peninsula, until it terminates in Malacca or Penang, where they give the gold and bullion, collected in the voyage, for the same commodities obtained by their brother traders in Java. At Penang alone, to give some notion of the extent of this branch of trade, we have reason to believe that not less than half a million of dollars in bullion is annually left by those people in exchange for the single article of opium.

The Wajo and other merchants of Celebes, who take an easterly direction, generally engage in the fishery of tripang or seaslug, a singular article of Chinese luxury, and from its amount, and the demand for it, a most important ingredient in the commerce of the Indian islands; tortoise shell, which abounds in the.

same parts of the country; and birds' nests which are found in almost all of them. These same merchants, before they were disturbed by the injustice of Europe, were also the carriers and dealers in the great spice trade, and transported their spices to the emporia in the western parts of the Archipelago. A few smuggled cloves and nutmegs, and a larger portion of these spices in their wild state, are all that now remain to them of this branch of commerce.

Of the adventurous character of the commercial enterprises of these semibarbarous traders, the highest opinion may be formed, from their voyages to the coast of New Holland in quest of tripang,-in the fishery of which, it is probable that not less than 40 vessels of from 20 to 70 tons, are annually engaged from the port of Macassar alone, from which 400 tons of the commodity are exported to China, the sole market of this singular luxury, where the curious discrimination of the epicures of that nation divides the fish into no less than thirty varieties at as many different prices, one hardly distinguishable from the other but by a practised dealer.

These spirited adventures of the Bugis merchants are, however, it must not be overlooked, wonderfully facilitated by the ease, the safety, and security with which the seas of the Indian Archipelago may generally be navigated. The great number of the islands, the proximity of their shores, the smoothness of their waters, the total absence of hurricanes and typhoons, the indisputable advantages of the steadfast monsoons, and of the land and sea breezes, make it, in short, a matter of ease to perform in their crazy barks such long voyages, as it would be madness to undertake in any other climate. In a word, from all the advantages now enumerated, we may rather compare the Malayan seas to canals formed by the hand of Nature, facilitating the intercourse between the different provinces of the same country, than to the rude and inconstant seas of other latitudes.

The trade between the Indian islands and China, is certainly the most important of the foreign commercial relations of both countries, for its extent and utility. This indeed is the only foreign commerce which is admitted to be necessary to the proud empire of China, which pretends in other cases to despise it. The peculiar productions of the Indian Archipelago have become, by the habit of ages, scarcely less indispensable to its great population, than the teas of China are to the modern inhabitants of Europe. At least twenty thousand tons of Chinese shipping conduct this trade annually. These vessels, which, from a corruption of the Malayan word jung (a ship), we call junks, are, according to the depth of the ports they enter, from the incon

siderable size of 100 tons burthen, to the enormous and unwieldy one of 1500. These vessels perform no more than one voyage yearly, though the time, from port to port, seldom exceeds twenty days. They come and go with a flowing sheet, under the benignant influence of the monsoons, without which, it may be said of this, as well as every other proper Asiatic trade, that it could have had no existence.

The intercourse between China and the Indian islands is prodigiously extended by the crowds of emigrants from the former to the latter. There is not, for example, one of the seven great junks which annually visit the ports of Java, which does not bring from four to five hundred passengers, as permanent settlers. The overflowing population of China is, in fact, poured out in this way on the almost unoccupied Indian Archipelago, as its most natural receptacle. An easy intercourse is kept up by a short voyage between these countries; and, did not the laws of China, without the possibility of evasion, prohibit the emigration of women, we should, beyond doubt, see in a few years a Chinese empire established in the Indian islands. As it is, they intermarry with the natives of the country,-continuing, however, with their descendants, a distinct race, and retaining the religion and manners of their native country. In this manner they are established in every country of the Archipelago; but the singular condition in which they exist on the west coast of Borneo, is most deserving of notice. There they are found, it is alleged, to the number of two hundred thousand, nearly in a state of independence, acknowledging but a nominal subjection to the native Princes.

The cargoes of the junks consist of teas, porcelain, raw silk, wrought silks, cotton cloths, wearing apparel, toys, books and stationary, with brass and iron utensils of various descriptions. We have room for little more than a bare enumeration of the various articles which form the return cargoes of these vessels. The most prominent are, edible birds' nests, of which Java alone supplies, annually, not much less than half a million of Spanish dollars worth; gold, tin, tripang, pepper, spices, animal sinews dried in the sun-what in the commercial language of our SouthAmerican traders, is called, we believe, jug-beef; betel-nut, chiefly used as a masticatory; rattans, applied in China, as in the Indian islands, to every purpose of cordage; tortoise-shell, which chiefly abounds on the coasts of Celebes, Amboyna, and the more eastern islands; buffalo and ox-hides, from Java, Bali and Lomboc, in which a large and handsome breed of both descriptions of cattle is found; cotton from Lomboc, Bali and Java; cloves, mace and nutmegs; bees-wax, fish maws, and sharks fins, fresh additions to the singular luxuries of the Chinese table;

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