garrison at Tarabangi, the only one in the country to which a military surgeon is attached. Twenty-five police servants or peons, distributed through the principal districts, are the instruments of police and sufficient to preserve the peace. A regent (at present a Bugis) is the highest native functionary. He has only the management, however, of the districts of Samangka and Telok Betong where he resides. In the other large districts there is a man who performs as it were the duties of a demang.* The orders of the government are given in the last instance to the head of a kampong, who suspends it on the court house and sees that it is executed. These kampong heads are sometimes no less than pangerangs. They not only exalt themseves readily with this title, but join to it high sounding names, for prince is not sufficient for them. Thus we have a pangerang Pah (tetrarch); a pangerang Segala ratu, and the most brave and deserving pangerang of Tarabangi has obtained the name of Semporna jaya. The numerous and high sounding titles may partly be the remains of the old republican relations, partly remnants of the time when the Sultan of Bantam paid the chiefs for much pepper with high titles.

Respecting the earlier history of the Lampongs little or nothing is naturally known. The original political condition appears to have been pure republicanism with which aristocratic elements were gradually mixed, and which have remained amalgamated to the present day. A proper state however was never formed, but cach kampong acted for itself, was independent, was at enmity with others around it, pillaged and burned them, as would still happen if the vigilance of the commander did not prevent it.

To the present time certain families in each village form a kind of noble guild, into which others also are received on their paying entrance money. The reception into the guild is accompanied with great festivities. The new member is drawn round the village in a kind of triumphant chariot (naig papadon) or is carried in a sedan chair and passes under a triumphal arch placed in the vicinity of the village hall, which is only opened on festive occasions. At the dinner in the village hall the entrant sits on the chair of honour in which he has been carried round. Nobility secures certain privileges, which however cannot be very great. For instance, it gives the right to take a part in the management of the affairs of the community, the chance of being elected chief, and such like. Each village has its council or public hall (sessah) which consists of a single spacious room, which however has different divisions, in which the different classes of the population sit separately. The walls and flooring are made of bambus interlaced. This house serves also as a place of accommodation for

The demang in Java is the native superintendent of the police in each district and subordinate to the Regent. Where there is more than one demang in a district, the highest is called demang Pattri.

travellers who pass through, who however cannot place their feet within it without asking the assent of one of the community who then enters before him. The orders of the government and of the commander are pasted on a board which is suspended from a pole in order that everybody may read them. We see how much these customs differ from those on Java, where from the lowest to the highest everything depends on single persons.

The kampongs or single districts in the Lampongs appear to have been independent from an early period, so that the idea of national junction or unity has never occurred. For this reason the Lampong districts have been nearly at all times under foreign subjugation, first under the Sultans of Bantam, and at a later period under the Dutch company. Even now, it sometimes happens that foreigners, for instance fanatic Bugis, easily gain a party and bring the country into a state of insurrection. The chief Mangko Negara, who for a long time resided on the bay of Semangka, is now, through the arduous exertions of the present commander, driven to the Tangamus mountains, where he lurks in the wilderness as a fugitive attended only by a few followers.

The whole population of the Lampongs is Mahomedan, but it is believed that the spirit of Islamism has less penetrated their hearts than in Java. Certainly as many or more idolatrous ideas, derived from the earlier heathenish time, have been retained by the people than on the neighbouring island. The saga of the primitive inhabitants of the country, who descended from Adam and Eve, and they again from an egg, is of foreign origin: only this appears to be national, that the egg and that which came out of it, were placed at a great lake which lies in the interior, in the high country where the Lampongs, Bencoolen and Palembang meet.

The language, finally, is not original, nor a proper dialect of one of the neighbouring languages, but is a mixture of nearly all the languages which are spoken round about. Most of the words are related to the Malay, while at the same time many have an agreement with the Sundanese, Javanese, Bugis and Rejang. Consequently, when all the foreign ingredients are abstracted, there remains a very small number of original or native words, so small even that they would form a mere fragment of a language or a dialect.

With respect to the syntax, the language appears to agree entirely with the Malay. I have principally noted the following exceptions of a phonetic character:

The language is very rich in dipthongs, and we find for example ei, ai, oi, oei (úí) principally at the end, of words as in place of api,-apoi. The language has besides the pure a and o, the mixed o which is between the two, and occurs so frequently in Javanese. The language has two different sounds of r, the pure r, and another guttural one, which may be expressed by rh, and which we can readily distinguish when spoken, but cannot explain. We further find a very strong tendency to throw away or to transmute the consonants. Thus from the Bugis lampa the Lampongs form lappa (to go) from telor, teloei (telui.)

The accentuation is of great importance in the Lampong dialect, for words which have a totally different signification are only distinguished from each other by the length or shortness of the syllables and sometimes by the accent alone. It is this circumstance which renders it so difficult to write the language in the letters of the European alphabet. The many amalgamations of the accents cannot be expressed by it.

The writing which is used in the Lampongs agrees much with that of the Rejangs, without however being altogether the same. In Marsden's history of Sumatra the alphabet is furnished with variations which have not come to my knowledge in the Lampongs, and besides, the alphabet of Marsden is not sufficiently complete to convey a just knowledge of it.

I am acquainted with very few alphabets, which are so simple as that of the Lampongs and at the same time so fitted to express all possible sounds in a systematic manner.

I have not heard or seen of any proper literature in the Lampongs, although every person writes and reads the language of the country. The people sing many pantuns, which have possibly been written down here and there. There is no trace of written romances or tales of pure historical character. The people write their love and other letters on lonthar leaves. According to Jacquet there must be amongst the papers of Raffles " a book in the Lampong language and characters" 4°. May this not be the collected orders and regulations, such as those which are hung up in the Village Hall? Or is it a translation of the Koran, possibly made by some priest?

The ordinary measure of Lampong is the kula.
One kula of rice has....
4 kattis.

Pepper (in many places).. 3
(and in others)..... 4

For the rest the gantang and pikol are also known as measure and weight.

Divisions and names of the different times of the day in the Lampongs.

1. Harani pagi or rahani pagi 6 o'clock in the morning.

63 7

"

11.

Harani mannem.. 12. Benerubuan dammar, that is, the time for lighting the resin torches (dammar.)....... 13. Pangan juan, that is, the young men and girls (muli) begin to sing pantuns... 14. Pangan juan battin, that is, the orang tua begin to sing, and the young men (mahami) and girls discontinue.....

... ...

15. Lebbar pangan juwan (singing and dancing are discontinued and the boys and girls go to rest)...

16. Tenga wingi (the time that it is well to be sleeping.)

17. Hapi sannak.

18. Hapi semun tua (that is, during these two hours neither old nor young are longer found

awake)....

8

212

245

19.

Kwassan ballak.

anam likor.
pitu likor.

3 tiga.
4 pah.
5 lima.

28 vòlu likor.

29 sivò likor.

30 tiga napulo.

31

tiga napulo say.

7 pitu.
8 vòlu.
9 sivò.

32 tiga napulo vò &e.

40

pah napulo.

60

savidakh.

REPORT ON THE CONDITION AND PROSPECTS OF THE ABORI

GINES OF AUSTRALIA.

By W. WESTGARTH, Esqre.*

I. Present Aboriginal Population.

THE information under this head is derived principally from the appendix to the Committee's Report, the particulars of which are exhibited, for the sake of greater distinctness, in a tabular form. These returns, though incomplete as regards the whole Colony of New South Wales are yet valuable in several respects, as affording some estimate of the ratio of population to extent of country, the proportions of the sexes, and of the children and adults of the Aboriginal tribes.

According to Mr Parker's estimate, by a census, taken partly in 1843, and partly in 1844, the total number of the Aborigines throughout the District west of the River Goulburn is 1,522. This District runs westward to the South Australian frontier, and north from Mount Macedon and Mount William to the Murray. The tribes on the banks of the Murray, still very numerous, are not included. Mr Watton, in the district or country around Mount Rouse, comprising about 20,000 square miles, estimates the numnumbers of the Aborigines at 2,000.

From the annexed table, it would appear that the proportion of males to females, of all ages, is about 1.56:1, or rather more than 3 to 2. The disproportion of the sexes is greater among the children than the adults: the proportion of male to female adults may be estimated at 1:55:1, and that of male to female childen at 1-8:1. The proportion of adults to children is 21 to 1. That proportion of the territory of New South Wales that may in a general sense be termed "occupied," extends over an area of about 320,000 square miles, and may be estimated to contain above 15,000 Aborigines. Allowing 80,000 square miles of this area to Port Phillip, and assuming Mr. Robinson's estimate of 5,000 Aborigines, there will be 1 Aboriginal inhabitant to each 16 square miles for that District, and 1 to 24 for the remainder of the Colony; the average for all New South Wales being one Aboriginal inhabitant to 21 square miles.

The following Report on the Condition of the Australian Aborigines was designed to form the usual section under the title "Aborigines," in the Report on the Port Phillip District for 31st July of the present year, which is now being got ready, but from the variety of useful information which has lately appeared connected with these Aboriginal tribes, the work has extended to so unexpected a length, that it has been printed in a separate pamphlet (Melbourne 1846). The writer has confined his attention, in the following pages,almost exclusively to the information regarding the Aborigines that has been published within the last two years, which is, in general, of a more practical character, and more applicable to the intention of the present work, than the observations of preceding writers. The object here proposed being to exhibit the condition and prospects of the Aborigines with reference to their civilization, or to any degree of benefit that it may be possible to confer upon them, the various and endless Mythologies (if they may be so dignified) of the different tribes are very slightly alluded to, and all theoretical inquiries as to the primeval origin of the race are entirely overlooked.