[9] Mr. Crawfurd states that it is a similar product made from the sap of the Palmyra palm (Borassus flabelliformis), and not the sugar of the cane, that forms the saccharine consumption of tropical Asia, i. e., among the Cochin-Chinese, the Siamese, the Burmese, and the inhabitants of Southern India, including the Telinga nation who introduced Hinduism and Sanscrit names among these people, and probably were the first to teach them how to obtain sugar from the sap of palm-trees.
[10] The prices obtained for it are established as follows: On Madura and the north coast of Java, 6.92 guilders; on the south coast, 5.92 gl.; at Bencoolen, Padang, and Priaman, on the west coast of Sumatra, 6.66¾ gl.; Ayar Bangis and Natal, 6 gl.; Palembang, 5.10 gl.; Banca, 6.72 gl.; Bandyermassin, 6.66 gl.; Sambas and Pontianak, 5.10 gl.
[11] Of this number 27,105 are Europeans; 13,704,535 are natives; 156,192 are Chinese; 6,764 are Arabs; and 22,772 are from other Eastern nations. See [Appendix B].
[12] For a list of the number of ships that arrived during 1864, their tonnage, and the countries from which they came, see [Appendix E].
[13] Albinos are occasionally found among these animals. For a long time previous to 1840 there was a famous “white deer” on the coast at Antju, in the vicinity of Batavia. Many attempts were made to shoot it, and these invariably proved so unsuccessful, that the natives, finding they had an opportunity to give way to their insatiable love for the marvellous, were all fully convinced that this animal was invulnerable. It was, however, shot at last, and proved to be of a gray, rather than a pure white. In 1845 a young one of a pure white color was caught at Macassar.
[14] Jão de Barros, who wrote a classical history of the regions discovered and conquered by the Portuguese in the East, was born in 1496, and died in 1570. He never visited the Indies, but carefully and faithfully compiled his descriptions from the official records, which were all intrusted to his care, in 1532. The first decade of his work was published in 1552, the second in 1553, the third in 1563, and the fourth after his death. He was, therefore, a contemporary of most of the early navigators whose history he narrates.
[15] Diogo de Cauto, who wrote the “Asia Portuguesa,” was born in Lisbon in 1542, and died at Goa, the Portuguese capital of India, in 1616, at the age of seventy-four. It is believed that he went to India at the age of fourteen, and, after having lived there in the army ten years, returned to Portugal, but soon after went back, and continued there till his death. It is probable that he never visited any part of the archipelago himself, but obtained from others the information he gives us.
[16] The early kings of Macassar boasted that they descended from the Tormanurong, who, according to their legends, had this miraculous history as given in Pinkerton’s “Voyages,” vol. ii., p. 216. In the earliest times, it happened that a beautiful woman, adorned with a chain of gold, descended from heaven, and was acknowledged by the Macassars as their queen. Upon hearing of the appearance on earth of this celestial beauty, the King of Bantam made a long voyage to that land, and sought her hand in marriage, though he had before wedded a princess of Bontain. His suit was granted, and a son was begotten in this marriage, who was two or three years old before he was born, so that he could both walk and talk immediately after his birth, but he was very much distorted in shape. When he was grown up, he broke the chain of gold which his mother had brought from heaven into two pieces, after which she, together with her husband, vanished in a moment, taking with her one half the chain, and leaving the other half and the empire to her son. This chain, which the Macassars say is sometimes heavy and sometimes light, at one time dark colored and at another bright, was ever afterward one of the regalia of the kings until it was lost in a great revolution.
[17] Odoardo Barbosa (in Spanish, Balbosa) was a gentleman of Lisbon, who travelled in the East during his youth. From his writings it appears probable that he visited Malacca before it was conquered by the Portuguese in 1511. His work appeared in 1516. In 1519 he joined Magellan, and was treacherously murdered by the natives of Zebu, one of the Philippines, in 1521, four days after the great navigator, whom he accompanied, had suffered a like fate.
[18] Mr. Wallace estimated the value of the goods carried there from Macassar alone at 200,000 guilders (80,000 dollars), and those brought from other places at 50,000 guilders (20,000 dollars) more.