Page 108 - SEJARAH SOSIAL DAERAH KOTA BENGKULU

assassins, it was considered by them merly as an offer to pay the banggon,
or compensation for murder, and considering this payment fully to authorise
the act, expressed no surprise, exept that the Company should so readily
pay the bangoon for the heads of the conspirators, and not exact the same
in return for Mr. Parr's head.
The measures that followed were of a doubtful cast. As soon as it was
discovered that the designs of the people were confined to the assassition,
and not directed against the settlement generally, search was made for the
perpetrators of the act. It was thought unsafe to touch the Chiefs. Several
of the people were blown from the mouths of guns. As the danger di-
minished, the spirit of indignation and revenge seems to have increased. An
order was gi'-;en to burn and destroy every village within a certain distance,
and the work of devastation was carried on as if it were intended to place
the future security of the settlement in surrounding it with a desert. The
fruit-trees, venerable by their age, that surround a Malay vilalge, are the
protecting deities of the place, and are regarded with reverence and respect;
their diestruction is looked upon as little less than. sacrilege; yet the axe
was laid to their roots, and whatever could afford shelter or protection was
levelled with the ground, and the whole population of the suspected
vilages turned loose upon the country.
Some of the villages wer partially rebuilt; but never rose to their
former flourishing condition. The people of Duta Besar, estimated the
damage they then sustained at more than 3000 dollars in houses burnt and
fruit-trees cut down, and that they lost about three-fourths of their
buffaloes, which were either shot. stolen, or dispersed on the occasion. At
that time they had I 000 head, in 1820 they had only 300. No wonder the
people were poor - the country a wilderness.16)
(Artinya"Dapat memberikan kesan seakan-akan penduduk sudah terbiasa
dengan kemerdekaan tanpa hukum , tatkala mereka merencanakan balas
dendam terhadap gubernur dari setlemen lnggeris tanpa bermaksud me-
lakukan kejahatan selanjutnya, dan menyangka bahwa tindakan yang
demikian akan ditanggapi oleh fihak lnggeris sama sebagaimana yang
mereka lihat dari kacamata mereka sendiri. Dalam penggambaran berikut
ini tanpak betapa tidak tepatnya langkah tindakan yang dilakukan yang
lazim bagi masyarakat berbudaya terhadap rakyat seperti itu. Dapat

16) Memory, Sophia Raffles, p. ~02.

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