Chinese; though it appears, from its various dialects, to have been a kind of compound of that and other languages, derived from the various nations that first peopled these islands. Their manner of writing, and their architecture, are similar to those of China.

The internal trade of Japan is very extensive, and their industry will bear comparison with that of the Hindoos, or even Chinese. Foreign commerce, however, is vigorously opposed by the government, in consequence of the supposed Portuguese treachery before mentioned, and the attempts of the Jesuit misionaries to Christianize the people. The number of Dutch vessels allowed to come each year, and the quantity of each description of wares to be sold, are strictly defined. The ships, immediately on their arrival, are strictly searched, and the crews are kept, during their stay in port, completely secluded from the natives; while all the business transactions are conducted by the Japanese, who also unload and re-load the vessels. Nay, so rigid are they in preventing their subjects from having intercouse with other nations, that it is a capital offence for the natives of Japan to travel into other countries; and their seamen even, when accidentally cast on foreign shores, are, on their return, subjected to vigorous examination, and sometimes tedious imprisonment, to purify them from the supposed pollution contracted abroad.

The cautious and ceremonious way in which the Japanese transact their business with the Dutch merchants is thus described :-About the time when the Dutch ships are expected, several outposts are stationed on the highest hills by the government; and they are provided with telescopes, and when seen at a distance, notice is given to the governor of Nagasaki. As soon as they anchor in the harbour, officers go on board with interpreters, to whom is delivered a chest, in which all the sailors' books, the muster-roll of the whole crew, six small barrels of powder, six barrels of balls, six muskets, six bayonets, six pistols, and six swords, are deposited. This is supposed to be the whole remaining ammunition, after the imperial garrison has been saluted. These things are conveyed on shore, and housed; but returned again on the day the ship quits the harbour.

The beginning of the year is the time observed for holidays, or days of leisure and enjoyment; and at this time the ceremony of trampling on images, representing the cross, and the virgin and child, is performed. The images are of copper, about a foot long. This ceremony is intended to impress every individual with hatred of the Christian doctrine, and the Portuguese, who attempted to introduce it; and also to discover whether any remnant of it is left among the Japanese. It is performed in the places where the Christians chiefly resided. In Nagasaki it lasts four days; then the images are carried to circumjacent places, and afterward are laid aside till the next year. Every person, except the Japanese governor and his attendants, even the smallest child, must be present.

The population of Japan is supposed to exceed fifty millions. The army in time of peace consists of one hundred thousand infantry, and twenty thousand cavalry: the force during the war being increased by levies from the different provinces to four hundred thousand infantry, and forty thousand cavalry. The arms used by the former are the musket, pike, bow, sabre, and dagger; those of the mounted troops, being the lance. sabre, and pistol. Their artillery is verv inconsiderable.

THE EAST INDIA ISLANDS.

CEYLON.

CEYLON is a large island of the East Indies, separated from the conti nent by the Gulf of Manaar and Palk's Straits, near the southern extremity of Hindostan. It is two hundred and fifty miles in length from north to south, and averages about one hundred in breadth. The conquest of this island was the first attempt of Albuquerque, the celebrated Portuguese admiral. He found it well peopled, and inhabited by two different nations; the Bedas in the north, and the Cinglasses, or Singalese, in the south. The former were very barbarous; but the latter in some state of civilization. These, however, derived great advantage from the mines of precious stones, and also from their pearl fishery, the greatest in the East.

It is said that the proper name of the island is Singhala, and that part of the population called Singalese have a tradition that their ancestors came thither from the eastward nearly two thousand four hundred years ago; but many authors suppose them to be a colony of Singhs or Rajpoots, who arrived five hundred years B. c. From the ruins of cities, tanks, aqueducts, canals, bridges, temples, &c., at Trincomalee and other places, Ceylon has evidently been at some remote period a rich, populous, and comparatively civilized country. The Portuguese not only conquered, but tyrannized over them to such a degree, that they assisted the Dutch in expelling them from the island in 1658, after a bloody and obstinate war, by which all the Portuguese settlements fell into the hands of the Dutch East India Company.

The wars with the king of Candy, the most potent, if not the sole sov. ereign of the island, were very detrimental to Holland. In a sanguinary war, which ended in 1766, the Ceylonese monarch was driven from his capital, and the Dutch made a very advantageous treaty. Their sovereignty was acknowledged all over those parts of the country they possessed be fore the war, and that part of the coasts held by the natives was ceded to them. They were allowed to gather cinnamon in all the plains; and the court stipulated to sell them the best sort, which is produced in the mountains, at a very moderate price. The government also engaged to have no connection with any foreign power, and even to deliver up any Europeans who might happen to come into the island. In return for so many concessions the king was to receive annually the value of the produce of the ceded coasts; and from thence his subjects were to be furnished, gratis, with as much salt as they had occasion for. Matters were in this situation when the English attacked the Dutch in 1794, and conquered Trincomalee, and all their settlements in the island; and it afterward became a part of the price of the peace of Amiens in favour of England.

The English had no sooner taken possession, than they unhappily were involved in a war with the king of Candy, owing to some misunderstanding relative to certain articles of commerce; and the lives of many brave men were sacrificed to it; rather, however, by the treachery and bad faith of the Ceylonese king and his minister, than by fair and honourable warfare. The population of Ceylon, independently of the colusts who have to

various times possessed themselves of the coasts, consist of-1st, the native Singalese or Ceylonese, one branch occupying the Candyan territories, and the other the coasts; 2nd, the Veddahs, or aborigines, who, in an almost savage state, inhabited the mountainous regions and unexplored fastnesses; 3rd, the Moors, who are found in all parts of the island; and 4th, the Malabar and other Hindoos, who dwell chiefly on the northern and eastern coasts. Of all these races the Candyan Ceylonese differ east from Europeans in form, feature, and physical power. The Singa lese are more timid and effeminate; but it may be observed that although some assume a haughty and independent bearing, yet indolence, deceit, and revenge are the generally prevailing qualities of these islanders. There are also some Caffres and Javanese, a few Chinese and Parsee traders, and a considerable number of English, Dutch, and Portuguese; besides a hybrid population from the intermixture of all these and the native races.

The upper classes among the Singalese profess Christianity, and many are converts to Mohammedanism; but the general religion is Buddhism. The government is vested in the hands of a British governor, assisted by a council of European civil servants; but all laws, before being acted upon, are published in the official gazette, for their general diffusion and translation into the native languages.

SUMATRA.

SUMATRA is a large island in the Indian Ocean, being, next to Borneo, the largest in the eastern seas. It is about one thousand miles in length, from north-west to south-east; but in general, not more than one hundred and fifty in breadth. This is the first of the islands which form the great East India Archipelago; and it is separated from the peninsula beyond the Ganges by the straits of Malacca; which is the usual passage from the bay of Bengal and the Coromandel coast to Borneo or China, and, consequently to the Gulf of Siam, Cambodia, Cochin China and the Gulf of Tonquin.

Gold dust is an article of considerable traffic, and is brought by merchants from the interior to the sea-coast, where it is bartered for iron tools, and various kinds of East Indian and European manufactures of silk, cotton, broad-cloths, &c. But the most valuable and important production of the island is pepper, the average produce of which at this time is supposed to amount to thirty millions of pounds a year. Tumeric, cassia, ginger, coffee, and many kinds of scented woods are also produced here. After the capture of the Moluccas by the British, in 1796, the nutmeg and clove were introduced at Bencoolen, but though large quantities were raised, the quality was inferior to similar products obtained from Amboyna and the Banda isles. The Sumatran camphor is in high estimation. Cocoa-nut, betel, bamboo, sugar-cane, various palms, and an abundance of tropical fruits, are indigenous.

At Bencoolen, on the west side of Sumatra, is the English factory, belonging to the East India Company. The factory was once entirely deserted, through the frequent quarrels and bickerings of the natives and the English; and had not the former found that trade decreased in conse quence of the absence of the latter, they never would have been invited to settle there again.

PRINCE OF WALES' ISLAND.

PRINCE OF WALES' Island, or Pulo Penany, is situated in the straits of Malacca, about two miles from the west coast of the Malay peninsula. The India Company in 1784, came to the resolution of establishing a settlement there. The island is about seventeen miles long, by ten broad: its northern extremity runs nearly parallel with the main land, at a distance of about two miles, by which a fine channel is formed, where the largest fleet may ride in perfect safety; the height of the surrounding mountains acting as a barrier against the force of the prevailing winds In fact, the advantages attending this island, both in a political and commercial view, are obvious.

JAVA.

JAVA is a large island, extending in length nearly seven hundred miles, and averaging in breadth ninety; and it is separated from Sumatra by the strait of Sunda. Toward the close of the sixteenth century, Cornelius Houtman, a Dutchman, conducted four vessels to Java by the Cape of Good Hope; and his prudence procured him an interview with the princi pal king of the island; but the Portuguese created him some enemies. Having got the better in several skirmishes in which he was engaged, he returned with his small squadron to Holland, where, though he brought but little wealth, he raised much expectation. He brought away some Negroes, Chinese, and inhabitants of Malabar; a native of Malacca, a Japanese, and Abdul, a pilot of the Guzerat, a man of great abilities, and perfectly acquainted with the coasts of India.

The account given by Houtman encouraged the merchants of Amsterdam to form the plan of a settlement at Java, which, at the same time that it would throw the pepper trade into their hands, would place them also near the islands that produce the more valuable spices, and facilitate their communication with China and Japan. Admiral Van Neck was therefore sent on this important expedition with eight vessels, and arrived safe at Java, where he found the inhabitants prejudiced against his nation. They fought and negotiated by turns. At length they were permitted to trade, and, in a short time, loaded four vessels with spices and linens. The admiral, with his fleet, sailed to the Moluccas, where he learned that the natives of the country had forced the Portuguese to abandon some of the places in which they had settled, and that they only waited for a favour able opportunity of expelling them from the rest. He established factories in several of these islands, entered into a treaty with some of the kings, and returned to Europe laden with riches.

In 1602, the states-general formed the Dutch India Company. It was invested with authority to make peace or war with the eastern princes, to erect forts, maintain garrisons, and to nominate officers for the conduct of the police and the administration of justice. The company, which had no parallel in antiquity, and was the pattern of all succeeding societies of the kind, set out with great advantages; and, soon after its establish ment, they fitted out for India fourteen ships and some yachts, under the command of Admiral Warwick, whom the Hollanders look upon as the founder of their commerce, and of their colonies, in the East. He built a factory in this island, and secured it by fortifications. He had frequent engagements with the Portuguese, in which he generally came off victorious. A sanguinary war was the consequence of these hostilities be tween the two nations, 'n which the Dutch were successful.

Batavia, which, from a small beginning, has become the capital of all the Dutch possessions in India, has one of the best and safest harbours in the world. The city is surrounded by a rampart twenty-one feet in thickness, covered on the outside with stone, and fortified with twenty-two bastions. This rampart is environed by a ditch, forty-three yards over, and full of water. The river Jucutra runs through the midst of the city, and forms fifteen canals of running water, adorned with evergreens. The inhabitants consist of Dutch, French, Portuguese, Javanese, Chinese, Malays, Negroes, and many others. Coffee, sugar and spices are produced here in great abundance: and, together, it may be said to be one of the most valuable colonies belonging to any European nation. The island was taken by a British force from India in 1811, and held till 1616, when it was restored to the Dutch.

BORNEO.

BORNEO is one of the largest islands in the world, being fifteen hundred miles in circumference. It is seated under the equator, and occupies nearly the centre of the eastern archipelago. The west and north-east sides of it are a desert, and the east is comparatively little known. The inland parts are mountainous; and the south-east, for many leagues together, is an unwholesome morass.

The Portuguese, who first discovered Borneo, had been in the Indies thirty years before they knew anything of it more than the name and its situation, by reason of their frequently passing by its coast. At length Captain Edward Corral had orders to examine it with attention. From thence becoming acquainted with its worth, they made frequent voyages thither. They found the coast inhabited by Malayan Moors, who had certainly established themselves there by conquest; but the interior and part of the north-west coast are peopled by a savage race, believed to be the aborigines, and called Dyaks. They use long shallow canoes hollowed out of a single tree; and kiil wild animals for their food, by shooting them with arrows blown through a tube. They wear very little clothing, and have all the habits and superstitions of the most savage tribes. Borneo is rich in valuable minerals, and it is the only island of the eastern archipelago where diamonds are found. The climate is similar to that of Ceylon, and those parts of the island which are under cultivation are decidedly fertile.

CELEBES.

THIS is a large island, under the equator; the length and breath have not been accurately computed; but the circumference, taken at a medium, is about eight hundred miles. The principal Dutch settlement is Macassar, which contains Fort Rotterdam, the residence of the governor : they have also a fort at a place called Jampandam.

There are several independent tribes or nations of Celebes, each having their peculiar form of government. Among them the Tuwadju tribe, inhabiting the body of the island, are distinguished as an enterprising and ingenious people. Thefts, robberies, and murder are common with all the tribes. The island was taken by the British in 1814, but restored to Hol land in 1816.