Of the causes which have tended to lower the character of the Asiatics in comparison with Europeans, none has had a more decided influence than polygamy. To all those noble and generous feelings, all that delicacy of sentiment, that romantic and poetical spirit, which virtuous love inspires in the breast of an European, the Javan is a stranger, and in the communication between the sexes he seeks only convenience, and little more than the gratification of an appetite. But the evil does not stop here: education is neglected and family attachments are weakened. Among the privileged orders, the first wife is generally selected by the friends of the party, from motives of interest, and to strengthen family alliances, and the second is rather to be considered as the object of the husband's choice. But if his circumstances admit of it, he has no scruple to entertain other women as concubines, who hold an honourable rank in his household. The progeny from these connections is often immense. It has already been stated, that a Javan chief has been known to have upwards of sixty acknowledged children; and it too often happens, that in such cases sons having been neglected in their infancy, become dissipated, idle and worthless, and spring up like rank grass and overrun the country, or serve but to fill up a long and useless retinue. Fortunately for the peasantry, who are the mass of the population, they have escaped this deteriorating institution; and perhaps much of the comparative superiority of the character of the peasantry over that of the higher orders is to be attributed to this advantage. The higher orders have also been more exposed to the influence of Mahomedanism and European innovation; and if the former has removed from their usages some traits of barbarism, and tended to the developement of their intellectual qualities, it has introduced Mahomedan vices; and the European power having gradually obtained its supremacy over the island, rather by stratagem and intrigue than by open conquest, it is probable that the necessity under which the natives found themselves to resist its encroachments by similar means, has powerfully contributed to corrupt their natural ingenuousness. It is not at the court of the sovereign, penned up as he now is, and kept like a bird in a cage by the intrigues and power of the European authority, that we are to look for the genuine character of the people; neither is it among those numerous chiefs and petty chiefs attendant on the European authorities, who by continual association have, in a great degree, assimilated with them. What we have said of the Javans must therefore be considered, as more particularly applicable to the peasantry or cultivators, who compose three-fourths of the whole population, and is to be received with some reserve in its application to the higher classes.