SHERIBON, or TCHERIBON, a town in the island of Java, and capital of a principality of the same name, 130 miles by the coast eastward of Batavia. The town is situated at the head of a deep bay, formed to the southeast of Point Indramayo, and to the westward of which there is good anchorage in the easterly monsoon. The bay is well sheltered from the north-west monsoon by a sand bank, which stretches from the north point of the bay to the eastward. Smaller vessels run along the bank to within three fourths of a league from the land. In order to enter the river, country craft drawing from four to six feet are obliged to wait for the high tides, on account of the small bank at the mouth. This was formerly a considerable military station; and the European town, which contains many good houses, was well peopled till within a few years of the British conquest, when a pestilential disorder carried off the greater part of the inhabitants; and since this period the town has been nearly deserted. This malady was ascribed to a morass, extending many miles to the eastward of the town, over which the wind blowing at particular periods of the year, wafts disease and death. Others, again, assign as the cause a cold dry wind, issuing through an opening in the mountains to the southward. There is a large Chinese village in the vicinity.

The surrounding district is remarkably fertile, and produces the finest coffee raised in the island, and which is particularly noted for the smallness of its grain. The other productions are timber, cotton, yarn, arrecá, indigo, sugar, and some pepper. Edible bird-nests also form a great article of trade. No less than four sovereigns formerly resided at Cheribon, to whose ancestors the whole territory once belonged; but the splendour of its former sovereigns has long passed away. In 1680 the country came under the protection of the Dutch East India Company, to whose servants the chiefs were bound to deliver the produce of the country at fixed prices. By different stipulations and treaties the power of the sultans was at last reduced to an empty name; and small districts were assigned them for their maintenance, out of which they were obliged to pay a certain proportion to their masters. When the British conquered the island, they were all miserably poor; and an old man, who was the head, had, by way of distinction, the name of sultan. A new arrangement was concluded with them, by which, in consideration of their being secured in the possession of certain tracts of land with an annual pension, they consented that the internal administration of the country should be exercised by the British. All the oppressive exactions from the people, either of their produce or their labour, were at the same time abolished, and a land-tax was imposed, which produced, in 1814, 235,306 rupees. Long. 108° 35'. E. Lat. 6° 43'. S.