George Finlayson

“ What is defective in their character has been occasioned by perpetual slavery and oppression; yet notwithstanding all this, they display traits of moral feeling, ingenuity, and acuteness, which, under a liberal government, would seem capable of raising them to an elevated rank amongst nations. But they are perpetually reminded of the slavery under which they exist; the bamboo is perpetually at work, and every petty, paltry officer, every wretch who can claim precedence over another, is at liberty to inflict lashes on those under him. ”

“ Is the proximity of man necessary to give to rude nature an aspect or an impulse favourable for the support of animated creation in its various forms? On this desert island, the tall trees seemed to wave their tops in vain; the more humble shrub and herb flowered unseen, their sweets apparently unappreciated. The useful and friendly palm, the luscious plantain-tree, the scented jasmine, the elegant bamboo, the nutritious yam, were here the spontaneous production of the soil ”

“ But the greatest obstacle to the developement of industry proceeds from the oppressive nature of the military system, by which about two-thirds of the male population are compelled to serve as soldiers, at a low and inadequate rate of pay. Of all the grievances they labour under, it would appear that they consider this the most oppressive. It not only takes from agriculture and other occupations, the hands necessary for such labours, but by the idle habits which the military service generates in the men, it renders them unfit to return to that condition of life. ”

“ The darker shade of the valley contrasted admirably with the lighter colour of a few scanty patches of cultivation. Industry laboured at the oar, and a multitude of small boats gave life and animation to the scene.
The nature of the soil was too evident, from the situation of numerous villages erected upon bare and sandy beaches. These had no vestige of cultivation or of vegetation in their neighbourhood. They depended solely for subsistence upon the fisheries; and upon the dry sands we often saw small boats drawn up to the number of several hundreds in the same place. ”

“ It resembles the water in pits from which peat-moss has been taken; the taste is bitter and disagreeable.
At about half a mile distant north from an old and ruined fort, once occupied by the Dutch, we found an Epidendrum of gigantic size, the most elegant plant perhaps of the numerous tribe to which it belongs. Nothing in the vegetable [36] world could exceed in beauty the appearance of this stately plant as it stood erect on the stem of an aged tree, surrounded by its flowing leaves, rather resembling the frond of a palm than the leaf of an herbaceous plant. ”

“ They have all the thoughtlessness of to-morrow that characterizes savage life. Their tackling is so rude and scanty, that they are often reduced to the most urgent want. When they have made a meal, they lay basking in the sun, or repose under the dense shade of the mangrove, till hunger again calls them into action. They have scarce a rag of cloth to secure them from the scorching noon-day sun, or to shelter them from the damp and noisome dews and exhalations of night. Their women are not less dexterous than the men in managing their boats. ”

“ It was a pleasing and gratifying spectacle, so much are we in India accustomed to the opposite, to see a numerous, very muscular, and apparently hardy race of people, labouring with a degree of energy and acuteness, which gave to their physical character a peculiar stamp, and placed them in a highly favourable point of view, when compared with the habits of the nations around them. Their manner of using their instruments, so different from the puerile style of Indian artists, had in it much of the dexterity of Europeans: while their condition bespoke them a flourishing and wealthy tribe. ”

“ We see impressed upon the whole of the human race, through every variety, every modification of climate, under every condition of barbarous or of civilized life, one general, one universal form, from which there is, in fact, no deviation. It is true, that there are tribes so different from others in appearance, that we almost conclude that they constitute different species of animal beings. ”

“ Though there was here an assemblage of all that is usually considered favourable to the production and developement of the rich and beautiful in natural scenery, the general effect fell short of our expectation. We had, in fact, passed beyond that favoured belt of the equatorial region, on which nature has so lavishly bestowed her richest and most striking beauties. The activity and energy of vegetable life, which had so often attracted our admiration by the vast and varied forms to which it gave birth, was no longer sustained. ”

“ It is thus that the hot and dry winds of Upper India, to the extent of more than ten degrees beyond the tropic, exert such powerful and destructive influence on organized beings, and more particularly on the human frame. Its effects are too well known to require description. Inanimate life is not merely at a stand; it is threatened with total destruction, and with difficulty preserves a scanty gleam of future existence. Animated beings retire to the thickest shades, and even there pant for existence. ”

“ Premature old age had seized upon those that had grown up, whether from the scantiness of their food, its inferior quality, or uncertain supply, or from cares inseparable from this rude condition of society, is perhaps doubtful. Their shrivelled limbs, their wrinkled and contracted features, their half-famished forms, their scanty dress, bespoke a people supremely wretched ”

“ I may here briefly remark, before taking final leave of the Siamese, that the manners of the highest ranks are far from engaging. We should here look in vain for that courtly ease, and that polished exterior, so common to almost all Asiatics of high rank. An offensive coarseness, a manifest disregard to the feelings of others, and arrogance unbounded, have usurped its place.
Bad government has not been able to produce effects so baneful on the manners of the lower orders of the people. ”

“ Its beauties, however, are the gifts of nature more than of art. A vast expanse of water, conveyed by a magnificent river through a fertile valley, not so wide but that the eye can compass its several parts; ridges of lofty and bold mountains in the distance; the cocoa-nut, the areca, the banana ”

“ That a great, generous, and warlike nation, such as Great Britain, should incur the possibility of having her national honour slighted, if not tarnished, by any nation under the sun, far less by a semi-barbarous people, experience has rendered less a matter of surprise than of regret. ”

“ Thus, if not absolutely without religion, the Cochin Chinese can scarcely be said to derive moral feeling from this source. It may, perhaps, with truth be observed, that it is better that a people should have no religion than a false one. The nation in question will furnish an argument in favour of this opinion. It might be supposed that the first, the necessary consequence of the want of religion, would be a total disregard of right and wrong: this, however, is not the case, for in many respects the Cochin Chinese are superior to their neighbours, who are devoted to their national religion. ”

“ Our books had stated the place to be inhabited, but the dreary appearance of the island, the stunted form of its vegetation, its steril and forbidding aspect, and above all, the total absence of every thing calculated to remind us of humanity, soon destroyed the hopes we had cherished of mingling so soon in the concerns of our fellow-creatures, and of observing society under circumstances which might be supposed to confer on it a peculiar interest. ”

“ The more barbarous of the Orang Laut are not more squalid, or more wretched, than many of the fishing tribes that occupy the coasts of Cochin China. The facility with which subsistence, though a miserable one, is to be procured in this occupation, will account for the great numbers that are engaged in fishing. It requires no funds, and but little industry, to put a family in the way of providing for itself. ”

“ Here and there on the shores of the bay are to be found the huts of a few wretched creatures who live by fishing: whilst agriculture may be said to have no existence. Neither the betel, nor the cocoa-nut, is to be seen, nor a palm of any description; a few acres of rice ground are scarcely deserving of mention. The sweet potatoe and the Sesamum orientale thrive better; yet every thing indicates an ungrateful soil.
To the botanist, the mountains that surround the bay afford a field for researches as interesting, as it is inexhaustible. ”

“ Inferior to these in the knowledge of all the arts of civilized life, as well as in industry, stature, strength, and general appearance; but their superiors in point of courage and military enterprise, and above all in the possession of an ardent mind and exalted imagination, stand the Malays, a race of people whose origin, still involved in obscurity, would seem to be of no remote date. The most favoured of their tribes, have as yet made but little progress in civilization, whilst the majority would appear to be enthusiastically attached to the unrestrained condition of savage life. ”

“ Their curiosity was naturally excited by the contrast which they could not but draw between themselves and us, but in the gratification of this feeling, or in its expression, was neither coarseness nor absence of good-breeding; and the greatest liberty they ventured to assume was that of simply touching our dress, with the design, I presume, of ascertaining the materials of its texture, they themselves having little notion of any other fit for this purpose than silk, in which all ranks are almost exclusively clothed. ”

“ In the centre there is a small space covered with matting, the sole accommodation of the occupiers; bamboos serve for masts; the bark of trees is made into tackling; a few mats, sewed together, are the only sails, all of which, as well as fishing nets and lines, are made by every man for his own use. Thus equipped, they launch into the deep, carrying with them all that they possess, wander from bay to bay in quest of a subsistence, which their squalid and wretched forms would lead us to believe to be precarious and inadequate. ”

“ The order of them is quite reversed, that is, they are narrow towards the ditch, and wide towards the rampart! This is the case with all the embrasures on this side of the fort, and they would seem to be the only objectionable part of the work. We were now more struck than ever with the great beauty, magnitude, regularity and strength of this extraordinary work, for such it is in every point of view. Nothing can be more neat and regular than all the works, the glacis, the covered way, the ditch, the walls, and the ramparts. ”

“ The human mind, under every condition of life, has formed to itself certain notions of a future state. The untutored mind, led away by its fears, soon becomes involved in the intricate mazes of superstition, in which the mind too often paints undefined, unreal terrors. Such is the case with the Cochin Chinese, whose religion, if it is ever thought of, consists in the ceremony of placing on a rude altar some bits of meat and a few straws covered with the dust of scented wood, or in scattering to the winds a few [381] scraps of paper covered with gold foil ”

“ Such numerous fleets of boats naturally suggest scenes of industry, social happiness, and domestic comfort, connected with them. We imagine that in them we see the active aim that is to furnish to thousands of their fellow-citizens a large proportion of their daily sustenance. We imagine that this numerous body of men cannot but acquire wealth themselves, while they at the same time enrich the state. ”

“ The people are governed by opinion, absurd and unjust, not by reason, by sense, nor by kindness. The most degrading and brutal tyranny is mistaken for well-meaning patriarchal kindness; and the oppression of the multitude, and the grinding of the many, is regarded as the will of the Deity. No man either wishes for, or aspires to, freedom of thought or of action ”

“ We have no reason to believe that such is the case with the Siamese. The care and attention they have bestowed upon the remains of their relations, seem but to endear their memory the more to them. The fear of death is, besides, of that nature, that neither the most deliberate reason, nor the most obtuse feeling, can lay it altogether aside. ”