"
The Dutch have 35,000,000 under their sway in Java and the other
Malay Islands; as many as Great Britain has within her borders.
The world gets most of its spices and its coffee from these
people. So the Dutch are not to be credited only with having taken
Holland, you see.
Another Chinaman is reported gone to-day: all have to be embalmed,
of course, and the doctor gets as his fee $12.50 for each corpse.
He complained to me the other day that these people would not take
his medicines, and, Scotchman--like, didn't see the point I
made--that they might naturally hesitate to swallow the potions of
one whose highest reward arose from a fatal result. The Heathen
Chinee is not a fool. The coffins of the dead on the wheel-house
begin to make quite a show; they are covered with canvas, but one
will sometimes see the pile. Not one of these men could ever have
been induced to leave his home without satisfactory assurance that
in case of death his remains would be carried back and carefully
buried in the spot where he first drew breath. I remember reading
in MacLeod's "Highland Parish" that so strongly implanted is this
sentiment in the Highlanders that even a wife who marries out of
her clan is brought home at her death and buried among her own
kith and kin. I confess to a strange sympathy with this feeling
myself.
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