Some of these observations regarding the Chinese are, in a high degree, applicable to the Arabs who frequent the Malayan countries, and under the specious mask of religion prey on the simple unsuspicious natives. The Chinese must, at all events, be admitted to be industrious; but by far the greater part of the Arabs are mere useless drones, and idle consumers of the produce of the ground: affecting to be descended from the Prophet and the most eminent of his followers, when in reality they are commonly nothing better than manumitted slaves, they worm themselves into the favour of the Malayan chiefs, and often procure the highest offices under them. They hold like robbers the offices which they have obtained as sycophants, and cover all with the sanctimonious veil of religious hypocrisy. Under the pretext of instructing the _Maláyus_ in the principles of the Mahometan religion, they inculcate the most intolerant bigotry, and render them incapable of receiving any species of useful knowledge. It is seldom that the East is visited by Arabian merchants of large capital, but there are numerous adventurers who carry on a coasting trade from port to port, and by asserting the religious claims of Sheikh, generally obtain an exemption from all port duties in the Malayan states. They are also not unfrequently concerned in piracies, and are the principal promoters of the slave-trade. This may serve, in some degree, to illustrate the necessity of establishing an equal and uniform system of port regulations throughout the whole of the Malayan countries; for if the Chinese, on the one hand, are permitted to farm import and export duties in different ports, they have every facility allowed them to form combinations, in order to secure a monopoly to Chinese traders; and on the other hand, if the Arabs, under religious pretexts, are entirely exempted from duties, they may baffle all competition, and engross the trade of the Malayan countries to the exclusion of European traders altogether. Let the Chinese and Arabs still trade to the eastward. Without them, the trade would be reduced to less than one-third of even what it is at present, for it is only through the stimulus which they give to the industry of the country that its resources are to be developed: but let their trade be regulated; and above all, let them not be left in the enjoyment of immunities and advantages, which are neither possessed by Europeans, nor the indigenous inhabitants of the country. Since the reduction of the Dutch influence in the East, several of the ports formerly dependant on them have almost become Arab colonies. The evil is obviously increasing every day, and can only be checked by encouraging the native population, and regulating on equal terms the duties of the Malayan and other Eastern ports.