How far this account of the martial prowess of the inhabitants of Savu may be true, we cannot take upon us to determine; but during our stay, we saw no appearance of it. We saw indeed in the town-house, or house of assembly, about one hundred spears and targets, which served to arm the people who were sent down to intimidate us at the trading place; but they seemed to be the refuse of old armories, no two being of the same make or length, for some were six, and some sixteen feet long: we saw no lance among them, and as to the muskets, though they were clean on the outside, they were eaten into holes by the rust within; and the people themselves appeared to be so little acquainted with military discipline, that they marched like a disorderly rabble, every one having, instead of his target, a cock, some tobacco, or other merchandise of the like kind, which he took that opportunity to bring down to sell, and few or none of their cartridge boxes were furnished with either powder or ball, though a piece of paper was thrust into the hole to save appearances. We saw a few swivel guns and pateraros at the town-house, and a great gun before it; but the swivels and pateraros lay out of their carriages, and the great gun lay upon a heap of stones, almost consumed with rust, with the touch-hole downwards, possibly to conceal its size, which might perhaps be little less than that of the bore.
We could not discover that among these people there was any rank of distinction between the raja and the land-owners: the land-owners were respectable in proportion to their possessions; the inferior ranks consist of manufacturers, labouring poor, and slaves. The slaves, like the peasants in some parts of Europe, are connected with the estate, and both descend together; but though the land-owner can sell his slave, he has no other power over his person, not even to correct him, without the privity and approbation of the raja. Some have five hundred of these slaves, and some not half a dozen: the common price of them is a fat hog. When a great man goes out, he is constantly attended by two or more of them: one of them carries a sword or hanger, the hilt of which is commonly of silver, and adorned with large tassels of horse hair; and another carries a bag which contains betel, areca, lime, and tobacco. In these attendants consists all their magnificence, for the raja himself has no other mark of distinction.
The chief object of pride among these people, like that of a Welchman, is a long pedigree of respectable ancestors, and indeed a veneration for antiquity seems to be carried farther here than in any other country: even a house that has been well inhabited for many generations, becomes almost sacred, and few articles either of use or luxury bear so high a price as stones, which having been long sat upon, are become even and smooth: those who can purchase such stones, or are possessed of them by inheritance, place them round their houses, where they serve as seats for their dependants.
Every raja sets up in the principal town of his province, or nigree, a large stone, which serves as a memorial of his reign. In the principal town of Seba, where we lay, there are thirteen such stones, besides many fragments of others, which had been set up in earlier times, and are now mouldering away: these monuments seem to prove that some kind of civil establishment here is of considerable antiquity. The last thirteen reigns in England make something more than 276 years.
Many of these stones are so large, that it is difficult to conceive by what means they were brought to their present station, especially as it is the summit of a hill; but the world is full of memorials of human strength, in which the mechanical powers that have been since added by mathematical science, seem to be surpassed; and of such monuments there are not a few among the remains of barbarous antiquity in our own country, besides those upon Salisbury plain.
These stones not only record the reigns of successive princes, but serve for a purpose much more extraordinary, and probably altogether peculiar to this country. When a raja dies, a general feast is proclaimed throughout his dominions, and all his subjects assemble round these stones: almost every living creature that can be caught is then killed, and the feast lasts for a less or greater number of weeks or months, as the kingdom happens to be more or less furnished with live stock at the time; the stones serve for tables. When this madness is over, a fast must necessarily ensue, and the whole kingdom is obliged to subsist upon syrup and water, if it happens in the dry season, when no vegetables can be procured, till a new stock of animals can be raised from the few that have escaped by chance, or been preserved by policy from the general massacre, or can be procured from the neighbouring kingdoms. Such, however, is the account that we received from Mr. Lange.
We had no opportunity to examine any of their manufactures, except that of their cloth, which they spin, weave, and dye; we did not indeed see them employed, but many of the instruments which they use fell in our way. We saw their machine for clearing cotton of its seeds, which is made upon the same principles as those in Europe, but it is so small that it might be taken for a model, or a toy; it consists of two cylinders, like our round rulers, somewhat less than an inch in diameter, one of which, being turned round by a plain winch, turns the other by means of an endless worm; and the whole machine is not more than fourteen inches long, and seven high; that which we saw had been much used, and many pieces of cotton were hanging about it, so that there is no reason to doubt its being a fair specimen of the rest. We also once saw their apparatus for spinning; it consisted of a bobbin, on which was wound a small quantity of thread, and a kind of distaff filled with cotton; we conjectured therefore that they spin by hand, as the women of Europe did before the introduction of wheels; and I am told that they have not yet found their way into some parts of it. Their loom seemed to be in one respect preferable to ours, for the web was not stretched upon a frame, but extended by a piece of wood at each end, round one of which the cloth was rolled, and round the other the threads; the web was about half a yard broad, and the length of the shuttle was equal to the breadth of the web, so that probably their work goes on but slowly. That they dyed this cloth we first guessed from its colour, and from the indigo which we saw in their plantations; and our conjecture was afterwards confirmed by Mr. Lange’s account. I have already observed, that it is dyed in the yarn, and we once saw them dyeing what was said to be girdles for the women, of a dirty red, but with what drug we did not think it worth while to inquire.
The religion of these people, according to Mr. Lange’s information, is an absurd kind of paganism, every man choosing his own god, and determining for himself how he should be worshipped; so that there are almost as many gods and modes of worship as people. In their morals, however, they are said to be irreproachable, even upon the principles of Christianity: no man is allowed more than one wife; yet an illicit commerce between the sexes is in a manner unknown among them: instances of theft are very rare; and they are so far from revenging a supposed injury by murder, that if any difference arises between them, they will not so much as make it the subject of debate, lest they should be provoked to resentment, and ill-will, but immediately and implicitly refer it to the determination of their king.
They appeared to be a healthy and long-lived people; yet some of them were marked with the small-pox, which Mr. Lange told us had several times made its appearance among them, and was treated with the same precautions as the plague. As soon as a person was seized with the distemper, he was removed to some solitary place, very remote from any habitation, where the disease was left to take its course, and the patient supplied with daily food by reaching it to him at the end of a long pole.
Of their domestic economy we could learn but little: in one instance however their delicacy and cleanliness are very remarkable. Many of us were ashore here three successive days, from a very early hour in the morning till it was dark; yet we never saw the least trace of an offering to Cloacina, nor could we so much as guess where they were made. In a country so populous this is very difficult to be accounted for, and perhaps there is no other country in the world where the secret is so effectually kept.