Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/60

48 PUBLIC REVENUE. nishing a short account of the condition of landed tenures among the different tribes. Agriculture can hardly be deemed the primary occupation of the maritime tribes, who are so much engaged in fishing and traffic. Whenever, among them, the right of property in the soil is worth ex- ercising, it is sure to be claimed. I do not dis- cover, among them, that any numerical propor- tion of the produce of agriculture is claimed, but among those with whom I am best acquainted, a stated tax on all cultivators is imposed. This, by the Malays of Perak and Queda, is called Rtipai^ and consists of about one hundred pounds of rice for the land cultivated, be its extent what it will, but that extent, from the state of society, is necessarily limited by the labour of the individual and his fa- mily, and cannot exceed a few acres. The nobles, or officers of government, instead of the sove- reign, receive this contribution on the estates as- signed to them, on a principle to be afterwards ex- plained. Among the governments of Celebes where the sovereign is every thing, and the people nothing, it would be incompatible with the absolute sway of the former to suppose him not vested with a proprietary right in the land. A tenth is thus the numerical proportion of the crop exacted from the people for the benefit of the immediate lord, from which one-third is paid to the general fund for 7 •