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]

[Footnote 5: By the last overland papers from Singapore (Sept.
1845), I observe, the Dutch Government has been importing rice
from Pondicherry to Java;--a proceeding quite unprecedented in
my time, and to be accounted for only by the extent to which
the cultivation of suga