tory of Greece will be found equally applicable to this more extensive archipelago.
"Thus," he observes, "Greece in its early days, was in a state of perpetual marauding and piratical warfare; cattle, as the great means of subsistence, were first the great object of plunder: then, as the inhabitants of some parts by degrees settled to agriculture, men, women, and children were sought for as slaves. But Greece had nothing more peculiar than its adjacent sea, where small islands were so thickly scattered, that their inhabitants, and in some measure those of the shores of the surrounding continents also, were mariners by necessity. Water expeditions therefore were soon found most commodious for carrying off spoil. The Greeks, moreover, in their more barbarous state, became acquainted with the precious metals; for, the Phœnicians, whose industry, ingenuity and adventurous spirit of commerce led them early to explore the further shores of the Mediterranean, and even to risk the dangers of the ocean beyond, discovered mines of gold and silver in some of the islands of the Egean; and, on its northern coast they formed establishments in several of the islands, and Thasus, which lay convenient for communication with the most productive mines, became the seat of their principal factory. Thus was offered the most powerful incentive to piracy, in a sea whose innumerable islands, and ports afforded singular opportunity for the practice. Perhaps the conduct of the Phœnicians, towards the uncivilized nations among whom the desire of gain led them, was not always the most upright or humane; hostilities would naturally ensue, and hence might first arise the estimation of piracy which long prevailed among the Greeks as an honourable practice."
Java has long been advanced beyond that state in which piracy and robbery are held to be honourable in the eyes of men; but the picture will be found pretty correct of those islands strickly denominated Malayan.
The superior and extraordinary fertility of the soil may serve to account for the extensive population of Java, compared with that of the other islands, and, when, to the peaceable and domestic habits of an agricultural life, are added the facilities for invasion along an extensive line of coast, accessible in every direction, it will not have been surprising that she should have fallen an easy prey to the first invader. She appears to have lost, by these invasions, much of that martial spirit and adventurous enterprize which distinguishes the population of the other isles; but, at the same time, to have retained, not only the primitive simplicity of her own peculiar usages, but all the virtues and advantages of the more enlightened institutions which have been introduced at different periods from a foreign source. At all events, when we consider that
