(as I may call it) on the fifteenth of the month, used to consist of a duck. This snake was given, in 1815, to Lord Amherst, on his return from China, and reached the Cape in safety: there it was over-fed to gratify the curious visitors, and died in consequence before the ship reached St. Helena.

While on the subject of wild animals, I may mention a leopard that was kept by an English officer in Samarang, during our occupation of the Dutch colonies. This animal had its liberty, and used to run all over the house after its master. One morning, after breakfast, the officer was sitting smoking his hookah, with a book in his right-hand, and the hookah-snake in his left, when he felt a slight pain in the left hand, and, on attempting to raise it, was checked by a low angry growl from his pet leopard: on looking down, he saw the animal had been licking the back of his hand, and had by degrees drawn a little blood. The leopard would not suffer the removal of the hand, but continued licking it with great apparent relish, which did not much please his master; who, with great presence of mind, without attempting again to disturb the pet in his proceeding, called to his servant to bring him a pistol, with which he shot the animal dead on the spot. Such pets as snakes nineteen feet long and full-grown leopards are not to be trifled with. The largest snake I ever saw was twenty-five feet long, and eight inches in diameter. I have heard of sixty-feet snakes, but cannot vouch for the truth of the tale.

In my enumeration of animals dangerous to man, I omitted the alligator, which infests every river and muddy creek in Java, and grows to a very large size. At the mouth of the Batavia river, they are very numerous and dangerous, particularly to Europeans. It strikes one as extraordinary, to see the copper-coloured natives bathing in the river within view of a large alligator: they never seem to give the animal a thought, or to anticipate injury from his proximity. Yet, were a European to enter the water by the side of the natives, his minutes in this world would be few. I recollect an instance that occurred on the occasion of a party of troops embarking at Batavia for the eastward, during the Java war. The men had all gone off, with the exception of three sergeants, who were to follow in the ship's jolly-boat, which was waiting for them at the wharf: two of them stepped into the boat; but the third, in following, missed his footing, and fell with his leg in the water, and his body over the gunwale of the boat. In less than an instant, an alligator darted from under the wharf, and seized the unfortunate man by the leg, while his companions in the boat laid hold of his shoulders. The poor fellow called out to his friends, "Pull; hold on; don't let go"; but their utmost exertions were unavailing. The alligator proved the strongest, and carried off his prize. The scene was described to me by a bystander, who said, he could trace the monster's course all the way down the river with his victim in his immense mouth.

The inhabitants of Java are, generally speaking, a quiet, tractable race, but rather lazy withal. The Dutch Government could never have made the Island produce half the quantity it now yields of either sugar, coffee, or rice, without a little wholesome coercion;—coercion that seemed somewhat tyrannical at first, but which has ultimately pleased all parties concerned, and done wonders for Java. If my memory serves me, it was in the time of Governor Vandenborch that this system of coercion commenced. The inhabitants of the villages, in various parts of the Island, were compelled by an armed force, when milder means had failed, to turn out at day-light, and labour in the fields planted either by Government itself or by Government contractors, which naturally caused a great deal of discontent; but, as the labourers were regularly paid in cash for their day's work every evening, they very soon became reconciled to a system that not only provided amply for their families, but gave them the means of indulging in their favourite pastime, gambling. To this vice, all classes are passionately addicted; and nothing is more common than to see a gang of coolies sit down in the middle of the road, and gamble for hours on the few pieces they may have just earned for having carried a heavy burthen a couple of miles. The inhabitants of the districts in which the coercion I speak of has been put in force, are now better satisfied with their rulers than ever they were before.

The extent to which the growth of coffee and sugar has been carried, has rather checked that of rice, which has been twenty-five per cent. dearer the last fifteen years, than during the preceding twenty: it is, however, still cheap enough as an article of food, though the price is too high to compete, in the China or Singapore markets, with the produce of Lombok, Bally, Siam, or Cochin China.[5]

Slavery still exists in Java, and every Dutch family has its domestic slaves. The law forbids the importation of fresh ones, and provides for the good treatment of those now in bondage. It also prohibits the slave-owner from separating a family; so that the wife and husband cannot be parted from each other, or from their children, except in the case of a crime having been committed by a member of the family. In that case, the guilty party is, on application to the chief magistrate, put up to auction, and sold to the highest bidder. This, however, is a rare occurrence, though I have witnessed such sales. The slaves, knowing well the consequence of an act of dishonesty, are cautious how they venture to trespass on the rights of meum and tuum. I may safely say, I have never, in all my wanderings, seen a race of people better treated than the slaves of Java: they are well fed and well clothed; and adults of both sexes receive a monthly allowance of two guilders (3s. 4d.) under the name of pocket-money. This sum may seem small; but, when we take into consideration, that a free man can be hired for eight guilders per month in Batavia, and for six in the country, on which sum he has to feed and clothe himself and his wife and children, it will be sufficiently evident that the slave's allowance is ample, his master feeding and clothing him and his family. I object in toto to slavery in any form; but I confess I do not think the slaves of Java would be benefitted, were their liberty given them to-morrow.

The natives of Java are by no means free from that prevalent Eastern vice, or luxury, opium-smoking; and the Dutch Government derives an immense revenue from the article. I have, in various parts of the Eastern world, seen the evil effects of opium-smoking; but am decidedly of opinion, that those arising from gin-drinking in England, and from whisky-drinking in Ireland and Scotland, far exceed them. Let any unprejudiced European walk through the native towns of Java, Singapore, or China, and see if he can find a single drunken native. What he will meet with are, numbers of drunken English, Scotch, and Irish seamen, literally rolling in the gutters, intoxicated, not from opium, but from rum and other spirits sent all the way from England for the purpose of enabling her worthy sons to exhibit themselves to Chinese and other nations in this disgraceful light. That spirit-drinking at home is no excuse for opium-smoking abroad, I admit; but I would recommend the well-intentioned persons who have of late been raising such an outcry on the subject of opium, to begin at home, and attempt to reform their own