irst time
and remain friendly; for all who have the least acquaintance with the
native character know their acute sense of false shame. To demand,
therefore, of the chief here to acknowledge our superiority would,
I am sure, be met with a haughty refusal. In a few years, if we
proceed mildly to establish a beneficial influence, they will fall
into our views without reserve; for, as I have often before stated,
their government is in the last stage of destruction and decay.

"The reconciliation of Muda Hassim was soon complete; and as to
the Kleeses of the Lord Melbourne, twenty in number, they were at
once surrendered to me, with a request that I would forward them to
Singapore as quickly as I could. The boat of the Lord Melbourne was
likewise given to me. I had some scruples about three Kleeses of the
Sultana, who had been sold at Malludu Bay, bought there by an Arab
seriff, and brought here. By all their laws and customs they were his
slaves, purchased at a distance, and, as I had no right to claim them
(supposing even that to be just), and was resolved not to leave them
in captivity, I paid a fair price for them at the rate of twenty-five
dollars per man. I regret to add, there is one other man not in the
place; and one is gone to Tutorga--about a day's journey hence.

"_28th._--I may here draw a brief sketch of the principal personages of
this most primitive court, beginning with its worthy head, the sultan.

"The sultan is a man past fifty years of age, short and puffy
in person, with a countenance which expresses very obviously the
imbecility of his mind. His right hand is garnished with an extra
diminutive thumb, the natural member being crooked and distorted. His
mind, indexed by his face, seems to be a chaos of confusion; without
acuteness, without dignity, and without good sense. He can neither
read nor write; is guided by the last speaker; and his advisers, as
might be expected, are of the lower order, and mischievous from their
ignorance and their greediness. He is always talking, and generally
joking; and the most serious subjects never meet with five minutes'
consecutive attention. The favorable side of his character is, that he
is good-tempered and good-natured; by no means cruel; and, in a certain
way, generous, though rapacious to a high degree. His rapacity, indeed,
is carried to such an excess as to astonish a European, and is evinced
in a thousand mean ways. The presents I made him were unquestionab