[Page 603]
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Some account of Batavia
his relation with sickness, the existence of an opinion so contradictory to human reason, & which seemd totaly unconnected with religion, was with me long a subject of doubt, but the universal testimony of every Indian I ever heard speak of it was not to be withstood, it seems to have taken its rise in the Islands of Celebes &Bouton, very many of the inhabitants of which have crocodiles in their families, from thence it has spread itself all over the Eastern Islands, even to Timor & Ceram, & west again as far as Java & Sumatra, on which Islands however such instances are very scarce among the natives, to shew how firmly this prejudice has layd hold of the minds of these ignorant people, I shall repeat one story out of the multitude I have heard confirming it from ocular demonstration
A Slave girl who was born & bred up among the Enlish at Bencoulen on the Island of Sumatra, by which means she had learnt a little English, she told me that her father when on his Death bed told her, that he had a Crocodile for his sudara, & chargd her to give him meat &c. after he was gone, telling her in what part of the river he was to be found, she went she said constantly & calling him by his name Radja pouti (white king), he came out