Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Javanese, with a sprinkling of half-wild Papuans from Timor, Babber, and other is-
lands,—yet all goes on as yet very quietly. This motley, ignorant, bloodthirsty, thievish pop-
ulation live here without the shadow of a government, with no police, no courts, and no law-
yers; yet they do not cut each other's throats, do not plunder each other day and night, do
not fall into the anarchy such a state of things might be supposed to lead to. It is very ex-
traordinary! It puts strange thoughts into one's head about the mountain-load of government
under which people exist in Europe, and suggests the idea that we may be overgoverned.
Think of the hundred Acts of Parliament annually enacted to prevent us, the people of Eng-
land, from cutting each other's throats, or from doing to our neighbour as we would
not
be
done by. Think of the thousands of lawyers and barristers whose whole lives are spent in
telling us what the hundred Acts of Parliament mean, and one would be led to infer that if
Dobbo has too little law England has too much.
Here we may behold in its simplest form the genius of Commerce at the work of Civiliza-
tion. Trade is the magic that keeps all at peace, and unites these discordant elements into a
well-behaved community. All are traders, and all know that peace and order are essential to
successful trade, and thus a public opinion is created which puts down all lawlessness. Often
in former years, when strolling along the Campong Glam in Singapore, I have thought how
wild and ferocious the Bugis sailors looked, and how little I should like to trust myself
among them. But now I find them to be very decent, well-behaved fellows; I walk daily un-
armed in the jungle, where I meet them continually; I sleep in a palm-leaf hut, which any
one may enter, with as little fear and as little danger of thieves or murder as if I were under
the protection of the Metropolitan police. It is true the Dutch influence is felt here. The is-
lands are nominally under the government of the Moluccas, which the native chiefs acknow-
ledge; and in most years a commissioner arrives from Amboyna, who makes the tour of the
islands, hears complaints, settles disputes, and carries away prisoner any heinous offender.
This year he is not expected to come, as no orders have yet been received to prepare for
him; so the people of Dobbo will probably be left to their own devices. One day a man was
caught in the act of stealing a piece of iron from Herr Warzbergen's house, which he had
entered by making a hole through the thatch wall. In the evening the chief traders of the
place, Bugis and Chinese, assembled, the offender was tried and found guilty, and sentenced
to receive twenty lashes on the spot. They were given with a small rattan in the middle of
the street, not very severely, as the executioner appeared to sympathise a little with the cul-
prit. The disgrace seemed to be thought as much of as the pain; for though any amount of
clever cheating is thought rather meritorious than otherwise, open robbery and housebreak-
ing meet with universal reprobation.
