They are civil, but the truth is not in them, and to be detected in a lie is not the smallest disgrace, it only causes a laugh. They are also great cheats. The men drink very hard, even the Mahometans; and the women are generally of easy virtue. Notwithstanding all this against them, they are a people of a natural good disposition; for when it is considered that they have been twice burnt out of the town by the enemy within the last six years, and that they have had a civil war desolating the country for the last seven years, and been subject to the inroads of the Fellatas during twenty years, and having neither established law nor government but what a present sense of right and wrong dictates, I am surprised that they are as good as they are. I witnessed while here several acts of real kindness and goodness of heart to one another. When the town of Bali was burnt down, every person sent next day what they could spare of their goods, to assist the unfortunate inhabitants. My landlady, who has given away a number of her female slaves to freemen for wives, looks upon them as her own children, attending them when sick; and one who had a child while I was here, at the giving it a name, she sent seventy different dishes of meat, corn, and drink, to assist at the feast on that occasion. In all my dealings with them they tried and succeeded in cheating me, but they had an idea that I was possessed of inexhaustible riches; and besides, I differed with them in colour, in dress, in religion, and in my manner of living. I was considered therefore as a pigeon for them to pluck. Had they been rogues, indeed, they might have taken all I had; but, on the contrary, I never had an article stolen, and was even treated with the most perfect respect and civility they were masters of. I believe it is generally considered in England, that when a negro slave is attached to his master, he will part with his life for him. Instances of this kind are not so common as they ought to be, when it is considered that all of these slaves are brought up from their childhood, and know no other parent or protector; and if they were to run away, or behave so ill as to cause him to sell them, they would never be so well off as they were before. Those who are taken when grown-up men or women, and even boys and girls, run whenever an opportunity offers, and, whenever they can, take their owner’s goods or cattle to assist them on their journey. Instances of this kind happened every night.