The great islands of the Indian Archipelago, singularly rich in all endowments of nature, have for ages enjoyed a high degree of culture. Conveniently placed, they have received all the advantages of contact with the civilization of China, India, and even that of the Arabs from the distant west of Asia. Never were people more favourably situated for obtaining foreign systems of weights and measures, if they felt so disposed, than the Malays of Java and Sumatra and the other islands of the Indian Archipelago. That admirable observer, John Crawfurd, writing in 1820 says[225]: “In the native measures everything is estimated by bulk and not by weight. Among a rude people corn would necessarily be the first commodity that would render it a matter of necessity and convenience to fix some means for its exchange or barter. The manner in which this is effected among the Javanese will point out the imperfection of their methods. Rice, the principal grain, is in reaping nipped off the stalk with a few inches of the straw, tied up in sheaves or parcels and then housed or sold, or otherwise disposed of. The quantity of rice in the straw which can be clenched between the thumb and the middle finger is called a _gagam_ or handful, and forms the lowest denomination. Three _gagams_ or handfuls make one _pochong_, the quantity which can be clenched between both hands joined. This is properly a sheaf. Two sheaves or _pochongs_ joined together, as is always the case, for the convenience of being thrown across a stick for transportation, make a double sheaf or _gedeng_. Five _gedengs_ make a _songga_, the highest measure in some provinces, or twenty-four make an _hamat_, the more general measure. From their very nature these measures are indefinite and hardly amount to more accuracy than we employ ourselves when we speak of sheaves of corn. In the same district they are tolerably regular in the quantity of grain or straw they contain, but such is the wide difference between different districts or provinces, that the same nominal measures are often twice, nay three times as large in one as in another. For the _hamat_ or larger measure perhaps about eight hundred pounds avoirdupois might be considered a fair average for the different provinces of Java. This may convey some loose notion of the quantities intended to be represented. For dry and liquid measures they may naturally have recourse to the shell of the cocoanut and the joint of the bamboo which are constantly at hand. The first called by the Malays _chupa_ is estimated to be two and a half pounds avoirdupois. The second is called by some tribes _kulch_ and is equal to a gallon, but the most common bamboo measure is the _gantung_, which is twice this amount. To those exact and business-like dealers, the Chinese, and in a less degree to the Arabs and people of the east coast of the Indian Peninsula, the Indian islanders are chiefly indebted for any precision we find in their weights. In all the traffic carried