yield him their fruit and their shade: nor does he waste his efforts on a thankless soil. The cottages, or the assemblage of huts that compose the village, become thus completely screened from the rays of a scorching sun, and are so buried amid the foliage of a luxuriant vegetation, that at a small distance no appearance of a human dwelling can be discovered; and the residence of a numerous society appears only a verdant grove or a clump of evergreens. Nothing can exceed the beauty or the interest which such detached masses of verdure, seattered over the face of the country, and indicating each the abode of a collection of happy peasantry, add to scenery otherwise rich, whether viewed on the sides of the mountains, in the narrow vales, or on the extensive plains. In the last case, before the grain is planted, and during the season of irrigation, when the rice fields are inundated, they appear like so many small islands rising out of the water. As the young plant advances, their deep rich foliage contrasts pleasingly with its lighter tints; and when the full-eared grain, with a luxuriance that exceeds an European harvest, invests the earth with its richest yellow, they give a variety to the prospect, and afford a most refreshing relief to the eye. The clumps of trees, with which art attempts to diversify and adorn the most skilfully arranged park, can bear no comparison with them in rural beauty or picturesque effect.'-p. 82.

Every village forms a community within itself, each having its officers, its priest, and its temple appropriated to religious worship-forming a true picture of the ancient and original form of patriarchal administration. The towns are divided into squares and streets; and the palaces of the princes or sultans are composed of several squares of gradually decreasing sizes, and arranged one above and within the other; a style which is general among the Hindoos, and strongly marks the architecture of the Burmans and Siamese.'

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The furniture of the cottage is equally simple with the cottage that contains it, and consists but of few articles; the bed is nothing more than a mat with pillows; the inhabitants use neither tables nor chairs; but sit cross-legged, and, in common with other Ma homedans, make use of their right hand only at their meals. Mahomedans, they have an aversion to swine's flesh and intoxicating liquors; and many families, preserving the remains of a superstition derived from their Hindoo ancestors, abstain from the flesh of the bull or the cow. Rice is in fact the chief article of their subsistence; they use no milk nor any preparation from it: white ants, grubs and worms are common articles of food. Their rice is frequently boiled in steam, and in this case is beautifully white. Indian corn is usually roasted in the ear; curry, pastry, and sweetmeats are almost in universal use. Various pungent pickles and condiments are used with almost every species of food. There are few, Mr. Raffles says, who are not able to obtain the

káti, or pound and a quarter of rice a day, with fish, greens, and salt, if not other articles, to season their meal. Famine is unknown; and although partial failures of the crop may occur, they are seldom so extensive as to be felt by the whole community. Water is the principal and almost exclusive beverage; it is generally drank warm; sometimes a little cinnamon or other spice is thrown into it; and tea is commonly taken between meals. Of these there are two a day -one just before noon, and the other between seven and eight in the evening. The betel leat and areca nut are indispensable articles for all classes; and the use of that deleterious drug, opium, is far too extensive for the health and happiness of the inhabitants: but it raises a revenue for the government, and on this ground the consumption of it is encouraged.

We must pass over the chapter on the importance of the Agriculture of Java, in which, however, will be found many very curious particulars. It may suffice to state that the Javans are a nation of husbandmen; that to the crop, the mechanic looks immediately for his wages, the soldier for his pay, the magistrate for his salary, the priest for his stipend, and the government for its tribute. The wealth of a province or village is measured by the extent and fertility of its land, its facilities for rice irrigation, and the number of its buffaloes.', This number in the provinces under the British government, containing about half the population, or two millions and a half, was, by a return of stock taken in 1813, found to be 402,054, and of oxen 122,691, while that of sheep did not exceed 5000: of goats there were about 24,000. For the mode of cultivating rice, maize, cocoa-nut, oil-plants, sugar-cane, coffee, pepper, indigo, cotton, and tobacco; and the nature of the tenure on which lands are held, and which is not very dissimilar from that system which, in India, regulates the respective claims of the Ryot, and the Zemindar, we must refer the reader to the work itself; in which he will not be disappointed in his research for information on all these subjects. Our limits equally forbid us to dwell on the chapters in which are described the manufactures of Java and its handicraft trades, in all of which, however, it may be observed that the Chinese have a very considerable share. As little could we attempt, in our contracted space, to give any intelligible account of the trade of the island, or follow Mr. Raffles in describing its advantageous situation for commercial intercourse with the Oriental Islands, India, China, Japan, &c. &c.—These chapters would, in our opinion, have come in better after the Manners, Customs, and Character of the natives had been described. To this part of the book we basten.

The Javanese are far from being deficient in natural sagacity or docility. Like most eastern nations, they are enthusiastic ad

mirers of poetry, and are said to possess a delicate ear for music. Though ignorant and unimproved, they are far from wanting intelligence in the general objects of their pursuit; they are very tractable; possess a quick apprehension of what is clearly stated, and attain a rapid proficiency in what they have a desire to learn. They are remarkable for an unsuspecting and almost infantine credulity; lending an easy credence to omens, prognostics, soothsayers, and quacks; they are the ready dupes of any religious fanatic; and give credit, without scruple or examination, to the claims of every pretender to supernatural powers. Listless and unenterprising, as they generally are, no sooner is their religious enthusiasm excited, than they become at once adventurous and persevering, esteeming no labour arduous, no result impossible, and no privation painful.

'We witnessed (Mr. Raffles says) an instance, both of their simplicity and of their energy, connected with this part of their character, which excited our astonishment. The population of some of the districts of Bányamás contributed their voluntary labour in 1814 to the construction of a broad high road, from the base to the summit of one of the loftiest mountains on the island, (the mountain Sumbing,) and this extraordinary public work was almost completed before intelligence of its commencement reached the government. It was in consequence examined, and found to be a work of immense labour and care, but without the least appearance of object or utility. Upon inquiring into the motive of such a singular undertaking, it was learnt that a general belief prevailed that there was a very holy man at the top of the mountain, who would not come down till there should be a good road made for him.'-(p. 246.)

Their village settlements constitute so many patriarchal societies, in which a spirit of kindness and benevolence almost universally prevails. This patriarchal spirit is traced in the reverence paid to age, in the veneration for the counsels of experience, in the submission to the commands of their superiors, in the warmth of their domestic attachment, and the affectionate and sacred awe with which they regard and protect the tombs and the ashes of their fathers. Our author thus describes the general moral character of the Javans.

When not corrupted by indulgence on the one hand, or stupefied by oppression on the other, the Javans appear to be a generous and warmhearted people. In their domestic relations they are kind, affectionate, gentle, and contented; in their public, they are obedient, honest, and faithful. In their intercourse with society they display, in a high degree, the virtues of honesty, plain dealing, and candour Their ingenuousness is such that, as the first Dutch authorities have acknowledged, prisoners brought to the bar on criminal charges, if really guilty, nine times out of ten confess, without disguise or equivocation, the full exfent and exact circumstances of their offences, and communicate, when

required, more information on the matter at issue than all the rest of the evidence. Although this may, in some degree, be the result of the former use of torture, it cannot be wholly so.'-p. 248.

Mr. Raffles says it is a mistake to suppose this people addicted to those acts of vengeance proceeding from an irresistible phrenzy, called mucks, where the unhappy sufferer aims at indiscriminate destruction, till he himself is killed like a wild beast, whom it is impossible to take alive. These fits of desperation, he tells us, are peculiar to the class of slaves, and take place exclusively in Batavia, Samárang, and Surabaya-that is to say, in the large towns containing a mixture of all nations. Without questioning the superior authority of Mr. Raffles over that of casual visiters, we may venture to say that on Celebes, and many other of the Asiatic islands, it is not merely the slave,

'Who runs a muck, and tilts at all he meets ;'

there are instances on record where whole villages, nay whole armies, have madly devoted themselves to inevitable destruction to avenge an injury or an insult. Indeed in a subsequent page Mr. Raffles himself says,

The

The phrenzy generally known by the term muck or ámok is only another form of that fit of desperation which bears the same name among the military, and under the influence of which they rush upon the enemy, or attack a battery, in the manner of a forlorn hope. accounts of the wars of the Javans, as well as of the Malayans, abound with instances of warriors running ámok; of combatants, giving up all idea of preserving their own lives, rushing on the enemy, committing indiscriminate slaughter, and never surrendering themselves alive.'— p. 298.

It has been truly said that men are just what their rulers make them; and there is much reason to think that if the Javans were really guilty of the robberies and assassinations of which they are accused, the crimes were more owing to the misgovernment of the Dutch, than to any natural propensity in the people to such atrocities.

The English,' says Mr. Raffles, 'never used bars or bolts to their houses, never travelled with arms, and no instance occurred of their being ill-used. The Dutch, on the contrary, placed no confidence: all their windows were barred, and all their doors locked, to keep out the treacherous natives, as they called them; and they never moved five miles abroad without pistols and swords.'

The nature of the government, as exercised by their own princes. before the arrival of the Dutch, and at present by the Susuhunan, or Sultan, or, as he is sometimes termed, the Emperor of Java, in the native provinces, is little calculated to improve the mind or condition of the subject. It is

in principle a pure unmixed despotism; but there are customs of the

country of which the people are very tenacious, and which the `sovereign seldom invades. His subjects have no rights, or liberty of person or property; his breath can raise the humblest individual from the dust to the highest distinction, or wither the honours of the most exalted. There is no hereditary rank, nothing to oppose his will. Not only honours, posts, and distinctions depend upon his pleasure, but all the landed property of his dominions remains at his disposal, and may, together with its cultivators, be parcelled out by his order among the officers of his household, the members of his family, the ministers of his pleasures, or the useful servants of the state. Every officer is paid by grants of land, or by a power to receive from the peasantry a certain pro portion of the produce of certain villages or districts.'-p. 267.

After this it is almost a mockery to talk of the administration of justice; the duties prescribed for the judge are such as they ought to be, but they are only on paper; it is here as in China,-the practice of the people differs from what they profess. Justice, however, is said to be administered and the courts regulated according to the Mahomedan law, tempered by the ancient superstitions and local customs of the country. The villages, each, possess a constitution within themselves, independent of the supreme governing power, precisely similar to that of a Hindoo village; and here, at least, the inhabitants have a chance of meeting with justice, especially as the right of election of their own chief is acknowledg ed, though not always allowed to be practised. It is scarcely necessary to say that the British government on the island showed its desire to protect the privileges of these societies, and in particular that of electing their own chief.

The external marks of that excessive humiliation which forbids a man to stand erect in the presence of his superior, are so little considered here as a degradation,that they are practised in all ranks, When a native chief moves abroad, all whom he passes must lower their bodies to the ground till they actually sit on their heels; and instead of an assembly of people rising on the entrance of a great man, as in Europe, they all sink to the ground, and remain in that attitude during his presence; this posture is called dódok, and may be translated into English by the word squatting. Mr. Raffles gives a ludicrous instance of its inconveniences.

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In travelling myself through some of the native provinces, and ticularly in Madúra, where the forms of the native government are particularly observed, I have often observed some hundreds drop on my approach, the cultivator quitting his plough, and the porter his load, on the sight of the Tuan Besar's carriage. At the court of Súra-kérta, I recollect that once, when holding a private conference with the Susunan at the residency, it became necessary for the Raden Adipári (prime minister) to be despatched to the palace for the royal seal the poor old man was, as usual, squatting, and as the Susunan happened to be seated with his

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