JAUTS, a people of Hindustan, who have at different times made some figure in its annals. The first historical mention of them occurs at the beginning of the eleventh century, on the invasion of India by Mahmood the Gaznevide. That conqueror found them established on the eastern bank of the Indus, prepared to oppose his passage. For this purpose they had mustered a large fleet of boats, to the number, according to some accounts, of eight thousand. They were completely defeated, however, and driven into the mountainous districts in the interior of India.

From this time the Jaunts remained in obscurity till the reign of Aurungzebe. Churamana, a Jaut of some distinction, collected then some troops of banditti, with whom he began to commit depredations on travellers. Popular and enterprising, he gradually rose from a captain of robbers to be a powerful chieftain; and availing himself of Aurungzebe's absence in the Deccan, became the terror of the country round. He had even the audacity, on one occasion, to plunder the rear of that monarch's army; and, when pursued, took refuge among the mountains of Narwar, where he eluded all attempts to extirpate his force. Under the growing imbecility of Aurungzebe's successors, the Jaunts continually extended their power, till at length, during the weak reign of Mohammed Shah, and under their enterprising head, Sooraje Mull, it rose to its utmost height. That chief wrested continually new concessions from the weak emperor, till he was able almost to dictate the counsels of the Mogul Court. A reverse, however, took place on the invasion of Northern India by Ahmed Shah, the sovereign of Cabul. Sooraje Mull, having opposed that invader, saw his territory overrun, and was obliged to seek aid from the Mahratta power. When the Mahrattas, however, invaded Delhi, the Jaut chief went over to Ahmed Shah, and offered to atone for former hostility by his services on that critical occasion. The battle of Panniput followed, in which the Mahrattas were totally routed, and their power for the time entirely broken. Ahmed Shah rewarded the services rendered by his new ally in this hour of need by the important cession of Agra and its district. Sooraje Mull, and his son Jowalier Sing, made repeated attempts to obtain possession of Delhi, but were always baffled by untoward circumstances. Jowalier Sing was assassinated by an impostor, who had undertaken to initiate him in the secret of the philosopher's stone. He left his son an infant; a circumstance which, affording an open field to the dissensions of the chiefs, weakened the Jaut power, and rendered it unable to contend with the other fierce competitors for the spoils of the Mogul. In their contests, particularly with Nijeeb Khan, they were gradually stripped of all their possessions, and at length reduced to the fortress of Bhurtpore, with a small surrounding district. When the British power became predominant in this part of India, Ranjeet Sing, rajah of the Jaunts, sought security by concluding a treaty with Lord Lake, by which, on engaging to assist Britain against all enemies, he not only retained the internal government of his territories, but was even exempted from paying any tribute.

Yet, in 1805, after the defeat of Holkar, he received that chief, with his discomfited army, into Bhurtpore. The place sustained a most desperate siege, and cost the British army an immense number of lives. At length the rajah, despairing of effectual resistance, agreed to compel Holkar to quit the place, and to give it up to the British, on condition of retaining the government of his territories and the fortress of Deeg. He was obliged, however, to pay twenty lacs of rupees, and to give ample security for a more faithful observance of this treaty than of the former. At a later period, disputes regarding the succession to the throne of Bhurtpore led to the interference of the British. The place was invested by a large force under Lord Combermere; and, on the 18th January 1826, the hitherto impregnable fortress was stormed and taken after a desperate resistance on the part of the Jaunts. JAVA.

The first in importance, although only the third in magnitude of the islands in the Indian Archipelago, lies between E. Long. 105. 12. and 114. 4. and S. Lat. 5. 62. and 8. 40. In form it is long and narrow, being 666 miles in length from E. to W., by from 56 to 136 in breadth. Area 50,260 square miles. To the N.W., it is parted from Sumatra by a strait, at its narrowest part only 14 miles wide, and with islands between; and to the E., from Bali, by a strait of no more than two miles broad. On its low, and in some measure sheltered N. coast, Java has a good many islands, by far the largest and most important of which is Madura, separated from it by a strait at one part only about a mile wide. On the bold precipitous S. coast there are very few islands, and only two of any considerable size, Baron and Kambangan. The coast line of Java, which is about 1400 English miles in extent, has many bays on its northern coast, but it is not deeply penetrated by any one of them, so that it has properly no harbour but one, that of Surabaya, formed between the main island and Madura, where the strait that divides them is still narrow. The southern coast is still less indented. Here there are two harbours only, Pachitan—inconvenient and unsafe—and Chaladap, formed between the main island and Kambangan, both out of the way of intercourse, and little frequented. On other parts of the S. coast there is no safe anchorage, while dangerous surge rolls in on the shore in all seasons. With the single exception named, the ports of the northern coast are but open roadsteads, with good anchoring ground; but the want of land-locked harbours is not felt so near the equator, where hurricanes are never experienced, and where the weather is only occasionally tempestuous at the change of the monsoons.

The physical outline of Java may be divided into five different sections of various breadth. Beginning from the western end and following the line of the northern coast, the first section ends with the eastern side of the bay of Batavia. This is about 75 miles in average breadth. The second extends E. as far as Cheribon, in Long. 108. 36., and is about 95 miles broad. Both these divisions are mountainous, the mountains being of less elevation than in the other parts of the island, but more crowded, and with narrower valleys. They constitute the proper country of the Sundas, who speak a distinct language, and are less advanced in civilization than the Javanese, the nation which occupies all the rest of the island. The third section extends from Cheribon to the western side of the promontory of Japara, in about Long. 110. 30., and its breadth does not exceed 50 miles, the island being greatly narrowed by the bay which extends for 140 miles from the point of Indramaya to that of Japara. The fourth section extends from the promontory of Japara to that portion of the island which is opposite to the western end of Madura, and this has an average breadth of about 100 miles. The fifth section embraces the remainder of the island, and is no more than 50 miles in breadth. In the three last sections, the mountains are of greater elevation, the plains more spacious, and along their northern coasts there runs generally a belt of alluvial land, varying from 5 to 15 miles in depth.

The geological formation of Java is eminently volcanic. A range of mountains runs in a longitudinal direction through the centre of Java, the peaks of which vary from the height of near 4000 to near 12,000 feet above the level of the sea. No fewer than 46 of these peaks are volcanoes, 20 of which are in a state of greater or less activity. The craters are sometimes of great extent, and their walls illustrate the structure of the mountains, which is either vertical and irregularly columnar, or disposed in oblique or horizontal strata.

Dr Horsfield gives the following account of the most remarkable crater in Java, that of the Tenger Mountain, in the eastern part of the island. "This mountain," says he, "constitutes one of the most remarkable volcanoes of the island. It rises from a very large base, in a gentle slope, with gradually extending ridges. The summit, seen from a distance, is less conical than most of the other principal volcanoes, varying in height at different points, from 7000 to 8000 feet. The crater is not at the summit, but more than 1000 feet below the highest point; and consists of a large excavation of an irregularly circular form, surrounded on all sides by a range of hills of different elevations. It is by far the largest crater in the island, and perhaps exceeds every other crater on the globe. It constitutes an immense gulf, the bottom of which is level, and denominated by the natives the dasar (the floor). This is naked, and covered with sand throughout; in one portion, near the middle, the sand is loose and blown by the wind into slight ridges, and to this the natives give the name of sigara-wadi, literally 'sea of sand.' The largest diameter of the crater is, according to my estimate, full 3 miles. From its interior, and towards the middle, there rise several conical peaks, or distinct volcanoes. The chief of these, the Mountain Brama (from the Hindu god Brama, whose emblem is fire), is a perfectly regular cone, and still in partial activity, with occasional eruptions. It is surrounded on one side by the 'sea of sand' above mentioned. Adjoining to it stands another conical peak, more than 1000 feet high, named Watangan (hall of audience), or Widakaren (abode of celestial nymphs), covered externally with sand, quite naked, and, on account of its steepness, its top has never been examined. At a small distance from the Brama rises a smaller cone, called Butak (the bald). The two last have not exhibited any volcanic activity in recent times."

"The range of hills surrounding the Dasar is very steep, and elevated to the N. At the opposite point it is lower, and affords a passage for men and horses; and, while I was occupied in examining the Brama, my assistants amused themselves by galloping over the extensive sandy plain, 6000 feet above the level of the ocean, much to the gratification of the attendant natives. The soil of the Tenger (wide or spacious) Hills is extremely fertile, consisting of a deep vegetable mould, accumulated for many ages on the sand and débris thrown up from the mountain."

The volcanoes afford examples of every kind of volcanic product, as lava, tufa, obsidian, sulphur, and ashes in a high state of commination.

South of the great central volcano is a range of low mountains skirting the southern shore of the island, and seldom exceeding 3000 feet high. In some places this chain comes into contact with the high central one, and covers its basis; but it is not stratified like the other, although consisting also of volcanic materials, chiefly basalt. Agates, chalcedony, flint, and petrified wood are found in it. The southern shore of the island is frequently bounded by steep and often precipitous piles of trap. Low ranges of limestone are seen in the low lands of the eastern parts of the island. In the western part of it, nearest to Sumatra, a few boulders of granite are occasionally found; but, as a general rule, this rock forms no part of the geological constitution of Java.

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1 Map of the Island of Java; with the Geographical Preface, &c., of Planter Javaeae Rariores, by Thomas Horsfield, M.D. Hot springs are frequent in many parts of the island, generally at the bases of the volcanic ranges, and several of them strongly impregnated with carbonic acid. Mud volcanoes exist in the low lands, yielding in some cases muriate of soda for culinary purposes.

The valleys of Java are numerous, but its extensive plains are not above six in number. In the first section of the island, or its western end, there is no considerable plain; in the second only one, that of Bandung. In the third and fourth sections there are four great plains, those of Surakarta, Maliyun, Kadiri, and Malang; and in the fifth, constituting the eastern portion of the island, there are two, those of Bandawasa and Pugar. All these plains are bounded to the E. and W. by mountains varying from 8000 to above 11,000 feet high, which furnish them with a perennial supply of water for irrigation. Although the valleys of Java are frequently narrow, a few of them are spacious, and of equal fertility with the plains.

Java has no extensive collection of water, salt or fresh, and no large lagoons connected with the sea. There exist, however, a few beautiful mountain lakes. One of these lies within the mountain Willis ("the green"), which parts the plains of Maliyun and Kadiri, and is known by the name of Gibbal. There is a second in the province of Cheribon, known by the Sanscrit name of Talaga, or the reservoir; and a third is in the province of Pasuruhun and called Baniunila, or the blue-water. In Java, however, there are several extensive marshes, which, in the season of the rains, become lakes, are navigated, and have fisheries.

The rivers of Java, especially on its northern side, are numerous; but, from the form of the island, they are of small size. None of them are navigable for vessels of burden, and few even for boats beyond the reach of the tide. They are all, more or less, obstructed by mud or sand-bars at their mouths. Though of little utility for trade, they are excellently adapted for irrigation. Few of the rivers of Java have specific names, but take their appellations generally from the places they pass by, and change them with every new one, a circumstance which may, perhaps, be owing to their small size and great number. There are, however, a few exceptions in some of the larger, as the Saraya, a river of the province of Banumas and the Praga, with its tributaries the Elos rivers of Kaulu, all debouching on the southern coast.

The largest and most useful river of the island is that usually called Solo, from its passing the native capital, of which this is the popular name. It has its source in one of the low ranges of mountains towards the southern side of the island, and after a tortuous course of 350 miles, reckoning only from the native capital, it empties itself into the sea by two mouths in the narrow strait between Java and Madura. It is par excellence the "great river." Except for the three last months of the dry season, beginning with August, it is navigable for large boats, and for the whole year for small ones. The second river in magnitude is called by the natives the Brantas, but usually by Europeans the river of Surabaya. This also has its origin in one of the low mountain ranges towards the southern coast, receives many affluents, and dividing itself into two branches, enters the sea by two mouths, one in the province of Pasuruhun, and the other in the narrow part of the strait between Java and Madura, passing by the town of Surabaya and contributing to form its excellent harbour.

The climate of Java is what may be expected in a narrow sea-girt country between five and eight degrees S. of the equator, having plains almost on a level with the sea, and inhabited land 5000 feet above it. The wet season begins with October and ends with March, and the dry with April, and ends with September. The monsoons are those of the southern hemisphere, the north-western correspond-

ing with the wet season, and the south-eastern with the dry. The setting in of these monsoons is irregular, and, even during their prevalence, there is some dry weather in the wet and not unfrequently rain in the dry. At the equinoxes, when the monsoons change the weather is very unsettled, and most tempestuous at the commencement of the winter solstice in September and October. Thunder-storms are then frequent, and often destructive to life. Land and sea breezes are experienced within 15 miles of the northern and southern coasts, and in particular localities of its eastern and narrowest extremity the south-eastern monsoon blows with great force across the whole island. The temperature, so far as the seasons are concerned, is equable. Near the level of the sea, which is that of the great alluvial band, which runs along the northern side of the island, and of the wide plains of the interior, Fahrenheit's thermometer seldom falls below 70°, and seldom rises above 90°. According to the elevation of the land, every variety of temperature is experienced from this last to 5° below the freezing point. Snow never falls, even on the highest peaks; but on these at the height of the winter, in July and August, ice a few lines thick is formed, and hoar-frost is seen every morning, called by the natives, poison-dew (ambun-upas), from its pernicious effect on vegetation. In the inhabited mountain valleys, at the height of 4000 feet, the thermometer is usually about 20° below what it is at the level of the sea. Here is experienced a climate agreeable and congenial to the European constitution; and here the corns, fruits, flowers, and esculent vegetables of temperate regions, have long been acclimated.

In point of salubrity, the climate of the high lands of Java is unexceptionable, and that of the low, containing the mass of the population, is generally equal to that of any other tropical country. In a few spots of the alluvial band of the northern coast, such as Batavia and Cheribon, deleterious malaria have occasionally prevailed, arising from the neglect of canals and water-courses, or from these being obstructed by volcanic débris; but these are exceptions, as are also a few forest tracts of the interior of the island. The extensive cultivation of rice by irrigation might have been expected to generate malaria, but such is not the case, nor has it ever been even alleged to have done so in the country itself.

The botany of Java is rich and diversified. Few of the plants being deciduous, the island presents, at all times, the same appearance as the most fertile temperate regions at the height of summer. Its villages, and even its towns, are in a great measure concealed from view, by the luxuriant abundance and perpetual verdure of its vegetation. Patches of sandy shore and lava-covered mountain peaks are the few exceptions. The vegetation varies considerably with the soil, whether composed of the débris of volcanic matter, by far the most prevalent one, or of calcareous rock, or of sandstone. But it varies more according to the elevation of the land, which gives rise to at least six different botanical zones. Of these the learned Dr Bleeker gives the following succinct but spirited description: "It is more especially on the low coast lands that we find superb palms, bananas, aroids, amaranthaceae, poisonous euphorbiaceae, and papilionaceous leguminosae. Scarce have we reached the height of 1000 feet above the level of the sea when our eyes are struck by the quantity of ferns which already preponderate over the other plants. Here, too, we are surprised by magnificent forests of slender bamboos growing spontaneously. The further we ascend, the greater is the change in the aspect of vegetation. Palms and leguminous plants become rare, and bamboos are less abundant. In recompense, we find forests of fig trees with their tall trunks, spreading branches, and thick foliage, enveloping more lowly trees and humbler plants, and exhibiting a majesty which even surpasses the splendour of the palms of the coast. Here, too, the ferns increase in number and extent, often with trunks several yards in height. Orchideous plants also present themselves in considerable numbers. Sometimes these are found solitary and independent, but more generally as pseudo-parasites, forming, in this case, along with an infinite variety of other plants, an additional vegetation on old trees, hardly distinguishable on this account on first view." "At a height considerably higher, the vegetation still loses nothing of its imposing aspect. The figs here fraternize with gigantic rasilamas (Liquidambar astingaria), with white trunks. To the Orchideae are added Nepenthes, with calyciform flowers (Nepenthes gymnophora); while numerous species of ferns are accompanied by Loranthaceae and elegant Melastomataceae. The region of figs and rasilamas is bordered above by that of oaks and laurels, and here the Melastomataceae and orchideous plants become still more abundant, while the vegetation receives a new ornament in numerous Pandans, particularly the Freicnntias, which are found as pseudo-parasites, rubiaceous plants being at the same time abundant, growing by themselves and flourishing in the shade. There is but one region higher than that of oaks and laurels, where the magnificence of the trees begins to decline. It would seem as if Nature, at the height of 5000 and 6000 feet, having accomplished her masterpiece, becomes powerless to maintain the tropical character of the vegetation. Therefore, rubiaceous, heaths, coniferous and other plants familiar to countries beyond the tropics, present to us the flora of higher latitudes. Cryptogamous plants, especially, are infinitely multiplied; mushrooms are abundant, and mosses cover the ground and invest the trunks and branches of trees. The ferns are now smaller in size, but play an important part, being of an infinite variety of forms, and constituting the mass of the vegetation." Such is the botanical character of the western or Sunda portion of the island; and although there be several plants peculiar to each, that of the central and eastern or Javanese portion does not materially differ from it.

The fauna of Java is proportionally as varied as its botany. Of mammiferous animals alone, it is thought to have no fewer than a hundred species, several of them peculiar to it. There are four species of monkey. Java has one species of sloth peculiar to itself, the Kuhang or Stenops Javanicus. The species of bats are numerous. One of these, the kalung of the Javanese, or Pteropus edulis, is remarkable for its size and numbers. A flock of these is easily mistaken by a stranger for crows; they are chiefly to be distinguished by their larger size and heavier flight. They feed on fruit, in the course of a night devouring the produce of several trees, and their flesh is considered esculent. The dung of another species, together with that of swallows which dwell in caves and old buildings, affords the only supply of saltpetre in Java and the other islands.

In Java, although the most populous and cultivated island of the Archipelago, wild feline animals are still numerous. The tiger, the same as that of Sumatra, of the peninsula, and of continental India, abounds in all the forests of Java. The leopard is also common, the same litter sometimes producing a black variety of it, in which the spots can only be distinguished in a strong light. Two small species of leopard are also found, Felis minuta, and the Linsanga graecilla, the last an anomalous animal with some of the habits of a weasel. Of the weasel family, Java has five species, two of which yield musk, and a third is the Viverra musanga, an animal of the size of an ordinary cat, and of very wide distribution, being found also in the Philippine Islands. Of the dog, besides the half-domesticated race, there are two wild species; but the fox, the jackal, the wolf, and the hyena of the continent of India, are unknown. There is one species of otter, the Aonyx leptonyx.

The elephant is not found in Java, nor does there exist any evidence of its ever having been indigenous, and this is the more remarkable as it is abundant in Sumatra. The animal, however, was known to the Javanese for ages, and was probably imported occasionally for the use of its princes. Java has one rhinoceros peculiar to itself, and differing even from those of Sumatra. It is an animal easily tamed, and when so, gentle in its habits. Besides the domesticated hog, Java has two wild species, the Sus verrucosus and Sus vittatus. Both are very numerous, and their depredations are a serious impediment to agriculture.

A wild ox is found in the forests of Java, the same as that found in the peninsula and Borneo, but which is wanting in Sumatra. It is the Bos saundersii of naturalists. The Dutch naturalists inform us that all attempts to tame it have been vain, as in the case of the buffalo of the American prairies. According to the Javanese, however, it will pair with the domesticated cattle, producing a fertile offspring, to which they attribute the largest breed of their oxen. The buffalo, Bos bubalus, is found wild in many of the forests of Java, but considered by naturalists to be derived from individuals in the domestic state that had escaped from servitude. The horse nowhere exists in Java in the wild state, but the numbers of this animal and of horned cattle in the domestic state throughout the island are very large, the Dutch returns reckoning the first at 320,000, and the last at about 2,000,000.

No wild goats exist in Java, but the domestic has been immemorially known, although of small importance in rural economy. The sheep, usually called by its Sanscrit name biri, but sometimes "the European goat," is very little known to the natives. Six different species of deer exist, the most numerous of which are the Cervus mantjoc and the Cervus ruza. These two will live and multiply in parks and paddocks, like our fallow and red deer, and are occasionally so kept. One species only of pigmy musk exists, the Moschus banchil of naturalists. One species of hare is found in the neighbourhood of Batavia, and to the distance of about 50 miles E. of it, but in no other part of the island. It is a small animal, not exceeding a rabbit in size, and even of less speed. It had been generally believed that it was originally imported from the continent of India, but the Dutch naturalists have lately described it as a distinct species, under the name of Lepus melanochua, from being black over the nape instead of red, as the European hare.

Of birds the number of species is large, but of individuals generally small. Dr Horsfield has enumerated no fewer than 176 species. Of gallinaceous birds there is one species of peacock, the Pavo specifer, equally handsome with the Indian. Two species of cock are found in the woods of Java, the Gallus Bankiva and the Gallus furecatus or Javanicus, a very beautiful bird, and peculiar to Java. This will pair with the common poultry, and the progeny is a hybrid, which for its beauty is sometimes kept by the natives. Two species of partridge are found in Java, the Perdrix Sinensis and Perdrix Javanica, and two small species of quail, the pugnacious propensities of the females of which, in the season of incubation, are availed of to produce a combat after the manner of fighting cocks. Of the pigeon tribe there are in Java no fewer than ten different species.

The family of birds most deficient in Java is that of web-footed water-fowl. There is but one species of duck, a teal, the Dendrocygna arcuata, and no species of goose, nor any migratory bird. There are, however, two indigenous species of pelican. The species of waders are numerous. The common snipe is abundant. Among the waders there are eleven species of stork or heron. Among smaller birds there are two species of cuckoo, one of which has a wild plaintive and monotonous note, not unpleasant to Europeans. With the Javanese, however, it is a bird of ill-omen. The mancho or Gracula religiosa, the speaking Java.

grackle, is common. The Java sparrow, *Fringilla oryzivora*, a great enemy of the rice crop, is but too common. The house sparrow is a stranger, introduced seemingly by Europeans. It is still, for the most part, confined to the European towns on the northern coast. Birds of prey are very numerous, but none of them of great size. There are eight species of eagle or falcon, and seven of owls, but no vulture. One species of black crow is abundant.

Fish are plentiful along the whole northern coast of Java, and a few species are of excellent quality, but, upon the whole, the abundance and the quality are not equal to those of the shores of the Straits of Malacca. The fresh-water fish are all of very inferior quality, and no migratory species frequent the rivers for spawning as they do on the rivers of the eastern side of Sumatra. Shell-fish are very abundant on the northern coast, especially oysters of excellent quality, and prawns, the last being much used by the people in the shape of the condiment called by the Javanese *tras*. The fisheries of the exposed southern coast of the island are unimportant.

Java, whether the inhabitants be of the Javanese or Sunda nation, is peopled by the same race, the Malayan. This is characterized by a short and squat person, the stature being about two inches less than that of the European, the Chinese, the Hindu, the Persian, or Arabian. The face is round, the mouth wide, the cheek-bones high, the nose short, small, never prominent as with the European, and never flat as with the African negro. The eyes are always black, small, and deep-seated. The complexion is brown, with a shade of yellow, not so dark as with the majority of Hindus, and never black as with some of them. Fairness is, indeed, in estimation with the Javanese and others of the same race. The hair of the head is abundant, always black, lank, and harsh, or at least never soft or silky. The hair on other parts of the body is either scanty or altogether wanting. The beard consists only of a few short straggling hairs, and there is none at all on the breast or limbs. The Javanese, personally, are not an agile people, and make very indifferent runners or wrestlers. As to moral character, the Javanese of the present day may be described as a peaceable, docile, sober, simple, and industrious people. The practice of running a muck, so frequent with the other cultivated nations of the Archipelago, is of very rare occurrence with them.

Java was populous, and to a considerable degree civilized for many ages before it was known to Europeans. De Barros describes the Javanese, at the arrival of the Portuguese, as what they still are, "the most civilized people of these parts" (*gentes de mais polícia*). They were then found carrying on trade from Sumatra to the Moluccas; they furnished bread-corn and manufactures to the less advanced nations in return for their rude productions, and they had effected conquests or settlements in Malacca, Palembang in Sumatra, and in the two fertile islands of Bali and Lombok. In fact, it is certain that the Javanese were, at this time, a far more civilized, probably even a more numerous people than either the Mexicans or Peruvians, who became known to Europe nearly at the same time. The essential part of Javanese civilization seems to be of native origin, and to have sprung up in the island itself, although it subsequently received considerable accessions by intercourse with Hindus.

With the exception of the people of Bali and Lombok, the Javanese are the only nation of the Archipelago that can be said to be almost exclusively agricultural. With the exception of the fishermen of the northern coast, and a very small proportion of artisans, the computed ten millions of the population of the island is directly or indirectly engaged in agriculture, and have made a respectable progress in it. To regulate the processes of agriculture, the Javanese have a rural calendar still in use. This consists of a year of 360 days, beginning with the winter solstice of the southern hemisphere in the end of June, and divided into twelve seasons of unequal length, varying from 23 to 41 days each. It details the times for clearing and preparing the land, for sowing, for transplanting, and for reaping the different crops. The native terms by which the seasons are named, are, for the most part, the ordinal numbers of the vernacular language, while the adaptation of the seasons to the latitude of Java, sufficiently show that this calendar is a Javanese invention, and not borrowed from strangers.

Irrigation, in so far as the rice crop is concerned, multiplies the productive powers of the soil from five to ten-fold, according to the abundance of water, and the facility of using it, and has been carried to such an extent in Java, that the majority of the arable land of the island consists of rice fields. The perennial streams and rivers, as they descend from the mountains, are, by means of embankments and trenches, diverted into small fields surrounded by low dikes, which can be flooded or drained at pleasure. The process of forming such lands is expensive and laborious, but when once formed, they are easily preserved. When the water for irrigated lands is sufficiently abundant and continuous, two crops of rice are raised within the year, and in some cases even three within fifteen months, the sun being hot enough to ripen rice in every season. The husbandman may follow his convenience as to the time of sowing, and in contiguous fields may be seen at once sowing and reaping rice, with every intermediate stage of the growth of the plant. When the water is not sufficiently copious for two crops, the rice is sown in the wet or hot season; and in the dry, or cold, crops considered of secondary value are produced, such as pulses, oil-giving plants, and cotton. No manure is ever applied to irrigated lands, nor are fallows practised.

Dry or upland arable is of small value compared to irrigated land. On the best dry lands rice is occasionally grown, but more generally these lands are used for such crops as pulses, oil-giving plants, cotton, sugar-cane, and tobacco, and on the mountain-slopes, at an elevation of 2000 and 3000 feet, for coffee.

In the most fertile parts of Java, which, from the neighbourhood of the high mountains, are usually also the most picturesque, the scenery is at once agreeable and magnificent, and certainly for grandeur and beauty excels all that may be seen, even in Italy, that country which in summer bears the nearest resemblance to Java. In such situations we have mountains 10,000 feet high, cultivated to half their height, the valleys below having all the appearance of a well-watered garden.

When Java first became known to Europeans, its principal agricultural products were rice, pulses, sesame, ground-pea, and other oil-giving plants, indigo and cotton, with palms and indigenous fruits. European intercourse has added to these maize, tobacco, and coffee. The quantity of its great staple, rice, which it produces, can only be estimated. With the exception of a small quantity of maize, rice is the only bread-corn of the Javanese; and, therefore, if we take the consumption per head at a quarter, or 448 lbs., this, on a computed population of ten millions, will make the total annual produce the same number of quarters. The export is, at present, too inconsiderable materially to affect this computation, for in 1848 it amounted to no more than 217,000 quarters.

From the first appearance of Europeans, and no doubt for many ages before, Java was the great granary of the other countries of the Archipelago. Recently the extensive culture by corvée labour of such products as sugar, coffee, and indigo, under an idle and pernicious hypothesis that some peculiar commercial advantage to the state belonged to their culture, has greatly interfered with the production of corn. The export of it has consequently dimi- nished, and the price materially risen; the consequence of which has been, that countries immemorially supplied by Java, now draw their corn from other places, such as Bali, Lombok, Siam, and Arracan.

The state of the mechanic arts among the Javanese is far below that of their agriculture, but still in advance of that of the other nations of the Archipelago; and with the exception of textile fabrics, not below that of the Hindus. About thirty different crafts may be enumerated as practised among them, the most important of which are the blacksmith or cutler, the carpenter, the kris-sheathmaker, the coppersmith, the goldsmith, and the potter. Both bricks and tiles are, at present, largely made; and excellent bricks are found in the remains of many ancient temples, proving that the art of manufacturing them has been known for many ages. Coarse unglazed pottery, similar to that of Hindustan, is also made; and the names of the different sorts all belong to the vernacular language. Beyond the manufacture of this coarse article, the Javanese have not advanced—all their better pottery having been for ages received from China.

Their skill in carpentry is displayed in house and boat building, in the fabrication of agricultural implements, and of the halts, shafts, and scabbards of warlike weapons. The ordinary dwellings of the peasantry consist of a rough frame of timber, thatched-on the coast with the leaves of the nipa palm, and in the interior with grass; having walls and partitions of split, flattened, and plaited bamboo work. They are always built on the ground. The dwellings of the upper classes differ, chiefly, in their greater size, with the exception of the palaces of the princes and higher nobility.

Boat-building is an art extensively practised all along the northern coast of Java. Their boats vary in form and size from mere fishing canoes to vessels of fifty tons. The building of ships is, at present, carried on under the direction of Europeans, the workmen, however, being all Javanese. When Europeans became first acquainted with the Javanese, they were possessed of vessels of large size, well entitled to the name of ships.

The agricultural implements of the Javanese are, like those of nearly every other Asiatic people, simple and rude. The Javanese of the present day have no architecture that deserves the name, and apart from the temples of their ancient worship, no relics remain of any kind of domestic architecture, of bridges, of reservoirs, or of embankments of rivers, such as are found in the country of the Hindus. The remains of the remarkable edifices connected with the Hindu religion are abundant; but it is singular that an improved architecture ceased with that religion, and that no Mohammedan structure of solid materials or beauty has been constructed since the adoption of the Mohammedan religion towards the end of the fifteenth century.

It is in working the metals, however, that the Javanese have most excelled, and as they acquired this comparative excellence without possessing any of the metals themselves, but having all of them imported, the fact may be considered as evidence of comparatively advanced civilization. According to the Javanese, the first rank among artisans is to be ascribed to the blacksmith, or at least to the cutler. The most esteemed product of his skill is the dagger, the well-known kris. Every man, and boy of fourteen, wears at least one kris as part of his ordinary dress, and men of rank two and sometimes four. Even ladies of high rank occasionally wear one. Swords are used only in native warfare, and are much less esteemed than the kris, the national weapon. The Javanese spear, a plain pike with an iron head, is a formidable weapon, from its long shaft of from 12 to 14 feet. Some of the Javanese krises, from their antiquity, are highly appreciated, and when sold bring enormous prices. The Javanese had also, before the arrival of the Portuguese, a knowledge of gunpowder and artillery.

De Barros, in describing an expedition which invaded Malacca in 1513, says, "that it was furnished with much artillery, made in Java, for," adds he, "the Javanese are skilled in founding or casting, and in all work in iron, besides what they have from India."

The Javanese, although they manufacture gold and silver ornaments of considerable beauty, execute nothing equal to the filigree work of Sumatra. In works in brass, their chief excellence consists in the fabrication of musical instruments, a full band of which is known throughout the Archipelago by the Javanese name of gamelan. The instruments consist chiefly of bars, constructed after the manner of the stacata, or of the gong, a word which has found its way into our dictionaries and is genuine Javanese. Some of these gongs have been made three feet in diameter. Musical instruments of this description are still manufactured in Java, and form an article of exportation, as, indeed, they are said to have done on the first arrival of the Portuguese.

The only textile material of native produce is cotton, rather a coarse article, and the only kind of cloth made from it is a stout durable calico, the mualins and other fine textures of Continental India being unknown as manufactures. The processes of cleaning and preparing the cotton, of spinning, weaving, and dyeing, are all carried on by women, and are purely domestic operations, as is the case with all the other nations of the Archipelago. The usual mode of giving variety of colours to the web is the simplest possible, consisting in weaving the previously coloured yarn in stripes, chequered or tartan patterns, so frequent with the other tribes, being against the taste of the Javanese. Another mode peculiar to this people consists in covering with melted wax the part of the cloth not intended to be dyed before putting it in the vat; the process necessarily requiring repetition in proportion to the number of colours intended to be given.

The only material, besides cotton, from which cloth is made by the Javanese is silk, and as the art of rearing the silk-worm has never been successfully introduced into Java, the raw material has always been imported. At present it is imported from China, an inferior silk, from which a coarse cloth is wrought with the same implements as that of cotton.

Paper is a manufacture peculiar to the Javanese. It is of the nature of the papyrus of the ancients, and not of the beautiful and ingenious fabric which the nations of Europe acquired from the Arabs of Spain, and so long known to the Chinese.

Of higher branches of knowledge, the Javanese know little. The Hindu system of noting numbers seems to have branches of been introduced from India, and not by the Arabs, for we find it in ancient inscriptions, both on stone and brass. The Javanese, however, have little knowledge of arithmetic.

Music is, probably, of all others, the art in which the Javanese, compared with most of the other Asiatic races, have made the greatest progress. In common with all the other nations of the Archipelago, they are passionate lovers of music, and have generally fine musical ears. Javanese melodies are wild, plaintive, and beyond all other Asiatic music, not, perhaps, excepting that of the Persians, pleasing to the European ear. Most of their musical instruments, too, are superior to those of other Asiatic nations. They have wind and stringed instruments, both of them rude and imperfect however. Their best and most frequent are those of percussion. Some of these consist of a single gong, or of a series of them representing different notes, and others of bars of brass or sonorous wood placed over troughs, and representing so many keys, after the fashion of the harmonicon. The late Dr Crotch, a most competent judge, after inspecting the fine collection of instruments brought to England by Sir Stamford Raffles, favoured the writer with his opinion of them, as well as of the general character of Javanese music. With respect to the single gongs, he thus expressed himself: "A pair of gongs was suspended from the centre of a most superb wooden stand richly carved, painted, and gilt. The tone of those instruments exceeded in depth and in quality anything I had ever heard." Of the instrument consisting of a double series of small gongs, he thus spoke: "The tone of this instrument is at once powerful and sweet, and its intonation clear and perfect;" and of the instruments of percussion generally, he observed that he "was astonished and delighted with their ingenious fabrication, splendour, beauty, and accurate intonation." With respect to the character of Javanese music generally, he made the following observations: "The instruments are all in the same kind of scale as that produced by the black keys of the pianoforte, in which scale so many of the Scots and Irish, all the Chinese, and some of the best Indian and North American airs were composed. The result of my examination is a pretty strong conviction that all the real native music of Java is composed in a common enharmonic scale. Some of the cadences remind us of Scotch music for the bagpipe. Others in the minor key have the flat seventh instead of the leading note or sharp seventh, one of the indications of antiquity. In many of the airs, the recurrence of the same passages is artful and ingenious. The irregularity of the rhythm or measure, and the reiteration of the same sound, are characteristic of oriental music. The melodies are, in general, wild, plaintive, and interesting. A full band of Javanese musical instruments, which consists of flutes, drums, gongs, and staccatas, will cost from L100 up to L400.

Two languages are spoken in Java, of the same general structure, belonging to the same class of tongues, and having many words in common, yet essentially differing from each other. These are the Javanese and Sunda.

The Javanese has been immemorially a written language, and its alphabet has extended to the Sunda language. Inscriptions on stone and brass carry us back in its history to the twelfth century. The written character is of two descriptions, that found in ancient inscriptions, and that at present current. They seem, however, to be essentially the same, and not to differ more than black letter from modern manuscript. The character is peculiar, essentially unlike that of the other alphabets of the Archipelago, and equally unlike any Hindu or other foreign character. It does not even, like several of the ruder alphabets of the Archipelago, follow the rhythmical arrangement of the Hindu alphabets. In fact, it has all the appearance of being an indigenous invention. The consonants alone are considered substantial letters, and the vowels mere adjective signs to modify them, or, as the Javanese designate them, their "clothing." The consonants are nineteen in number, but the initial vowel a is considered a substantive letter. This vowel, too, is inherent in, and follows every consonant, unless there be a contrivance to elude it. Independent of this letter, there are five other vowels. Javanese writing is neat and distinct, and, so far as concerns native sounds, perfect; for every sound in the language has its representative character, and the same character has invariably the one power and no other.

There are three dialects of the Javanese, the vulgar tongue, the polite dialect, and the ancient or recondite. All of them are marked by simplicity of grammatical structure, a simplicity which appears to be innate and original.

The foreign languages which we find mixed with the Javanese are Sanscrit, Arabic, and Telugu or Telinga. All these have found their way into it, not through foreign conquest and the intermixture and settlement of men of strange race, but through the influence of religion and commerce. Of these languages by far the largest infusion is of Sanscrit. Of the first conversion of the Javanese to Hinduism, and consequent influx of its sacred language into Javanese, there is no record whatever; but it seems probable, from the extent of the influence exercised, that the connection is of great antiquity,—probably little short of twenty centuries. In the ordinary language of Java, the proportion of Sanscrit words is about 11 in 100; but in the kawi or recondite, it is not less than 40 per cent. The proportion of Arabic words is comparatively small. The Telugu words introduced are very few in number.

The Sunda language, as already stated, differs from the Javanese, and is a ruder and less cultivated tongue. To judge by ancient inscriptions, it had once a peculiar character of its own, but is now written in the Javanese, with the omission of two letters, a palatal d and a t. It has no recondite, like the Javanese, and no ceremonial dialect, except in so far as it has borrowed, in the last case, a few words from that of the Javanese. Its literature, also small in amount, is taken from the latter.

The literature of the Javanese is sufficiently abundant, and exists both in the ancient and modern languages. In turn, both it is metrical throughout, the former being in different metres, borrowed from Sanscrit poetry, and the latter in native stanzas, of many kinds, and in a peculiar rhyme. The principal portion of Javanese literature consists of romances and of histories, partaking too much of the character of the romances. The romances are founded, some of them on Hindu legends, and others on ancient Javanese story. Of the Sanscrit poems, which describe the wars of the Pandus, and the adventures of the demi-god Rama, the Javanese possess abstracts both in the ancient and modern tongue. These two poems are to the Javanese what the poems of Homer were to the Greeks and Romans, and they have even transferred the scenes of them to their own island. The poem which describes the wars of the Pandus is known to the Javanese by the name of the Bratajula, a title which is composed of two Sanscrit words, signifying "the war of the descendants of Barat." This, the most meritorious production of Javanese literature, is said to have been composed in the twelfth century (1195), by a Brahmin of the name of Ampusidah, at the court of a Javanese prince.

It cannot with truth be said of Javanese poetry that it possesses either vigour or fertility of imagination. On the contrary, although a few better passages now and then occur, its general character is that of inanity and childishness. At the same time, it is certainly of a higher order than that of any other people of the Archipelago, while it is much inferior to the literature of the Hindus.

The native government of Java is a pure despotism. The sovereign is the arbitrary lord of all, including, in theory at least, the religion and the property of his subjects. All titles are derived from him, and are annulled at his pleasure. He names his successor out of the members of his family; and there is nothing hereditary, save the royal family, for which there is a superstitious veneration, very like idolatry,—even here, however, scarcely extending beyond the first generation.

The Javanese sovereign exercises his authority through a minister, having under him four assistants, who are his deputies, as he himself is of the sovereign. Two of these are charged with the administration of the royal household and capital, and two with the administration of the provinces, of which, in the Javanese portion of the island, when under native rule, there were not fewer than forty. These were under the administration of governors bearing the Sanscrit title of bopati. These had their deputies, so that a provincial government was a copy in miniature of the supreme administration. The province was divided into districts, administered by officers, and each district was composed of a certain number of villages, each having its head man and deputy.

The village community constitutes the most important part of the Javanese institutions. The Javanese village, like the Hindu, is an incorporation, in which the powers of self-government to a large extent are inherent. Its officers consist of the head man, his assistant or deputy, and the village priest, who are elected by the occupants of the land, and in a few cases by its proprietors. With these village officers rests the collection of the public taxes, and the whole care of the police.

In the structure of Javanese society there is no other distinction of classes, except that of nobles and commonalty. Slavery is at present unknown in Java, in so far as concerns its native inhabitants, nor is it known to have existed in any period of Javanese history, which is remarkable enough since it prevails more or less among all the less advanced nations of the Archipelago. That at a remote and early time it did exist in Java there can be no doubt. Its disappearance must be attributed to density of population, with its concomitant cheapness of labour, which made it more economical and convenient to employ free men than to breed and maintain slaves, and assuredly to no higher motive.

The main source of the revenue of a Javanese prince is derived from the rent of land, or a tax on rent; and Java is probably the only country of the Archipelago, with the exception of Bali and Lombok, in which, from the relation between land and population, a real land rent can be said to exist. This rent is chiefly found in the irrigated land, that is, in the land of the highest fertility, and is composed of two elements—the difference in the quality of different lands, and the value which in the course of ages has been invested in such lands in converting them into water-fields.

In the ruder country of Sundas there are some remains of a private and heritable property in the land, but in the country of the Javanese sovereign has gradually taken the whole rent as tax, reducing the cultivators to the condition of mere occupiers or tenants at will, he himself having become the virtual proprietor.

All other sources of taxation than the land are, under the native government, comparatively trifling. In some cases a small capitation tax is levied, but this also is confined to the cultivators. A property in the nests of the esculent swallow, and in certain fish-ponds or stews, formed another branch of the native revenue. Taxes on consumption in the shape of customs, transit duties, and market dues formed a third, but probably most of these are of comparatively modern origin, and will be presently considered.

Java was unknown even by name to the civilized nations of ancient Europe, and even to those of the middle ages. It is first named by Marco Polo, who, in his junk voyage from China to the Persian Gulf, passed through the northern part of the Archipelago about the close of the thirteenth century. He gives the name as Ciava or Java, but his information being mere hearsay is in other respects erroneous. Thus, mistaking probably the products of its commerce for its indigenous productions, he enumerates among the latter cloves and nutmegs, and gold in quantity "exceeding all calculation and belief," although it produces none at all.

No sooner had the Portuguese reached India by the Cape of Good Hope than the name became familiar enough to Europeans. L. Barthelemy visited the island and remained fourteen days in it, but his account is obviously false or worthless, for he describes parents as selling their children to be eaten by the purchasers, and himself as quitting the island in haste for fear of being made a meal of. Edoardo Barbosa, although he had not visited it, describes its productions, its trade, its manufactures of arms, and the persons, dress, and manners of its inhabitants, with much accuracy. Pigafetta, although his information respecting it was derived, as he tells us himself, from the old pilot who accompanied him from the Moluccas, is even more correct than Barbosa.

How very little, however, was really known of Java by the early Portuguese of India, is to be seen from what De Barros, master of all the Indian archives, says of it in his Third Decade, published in 1663, no less than fifty-two years after the conquest of Malacca, and several years after his countrymen had visited China, discovered Java, and traded with both. He makes it to consist of two islands, Java and Sunda; and his work contains a rude map, in which a great river, or rather a strait of the sea, is represented as dividing them. This he calls the river Chiamo, which may possibly be the Chitando of the Sundas, a considerable stream at the eastern boundary of their country, and which, in their language, signifies "boundary water or river."

It is only from the time of the Javanese conversion to the Mohammedan religion, which all parties are agreed in asserting to have been consummated by the overthrow of the most potent Hindu state of the island, in 1478, that their history begins to have some faint semblance of congruity. All that transpired previous to this date is more a matter of archaeology than of history or chronology. They possess chronological tables, but in these the earlier period is palpably fabulous; the dates, after the manner of the Hindus, being expressed, not in numeral characters, or in words representing numbers, but in mystical terms, differently interpreted by different parties. It is a favourite notion with Javanese chronologists that the islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali, Lombok, and Sumbawa, formed at one time a continuous land, and they assign precise dates posternously modern, to the times when they became so many different islands. But there, according to these statements, was separated from Java in the year 1192, Bali from Java in 1282, and Lombok from Sumbawa in 1350, that is above half a century after Marco Polo had passed through the Archipelago.

From the eleventh century the Javanese chronology assumes an air of at least some feasibility; but even from that time down to 1478, there is much discrepancy between different statements, according as the mystic words in which dates are expressed are interpreted. Thus, the "thousand temples" of Brama, the finest remains of Hinduism in the island, are said by one account to have been built in 1066, and by another in 1266.

The great events of Javanese history are the respective conversions of the people to Hinduism and Mohammedanism. Of the time when the first of these took place, or the manner in which it was brought about, we have no positive information. The evidence derived from language and ancient monuments sufficiently attests the general prevalence, if not, indeed, the universality of some form or modification of the religion of the Hindus over the land; and anything beyond this is matter of conjecture or conjecture. Another state existed which had acquired a considerable amount of civilization and power, as is shown by the ruins of palaces and temples; but none of them had any durability—none of them ruled over the whole island, while several of them, according to tradition, existed at one and the same time.

The Hindus, it is highly probable, migrated to Java and established their religion in it at a very early period, probably as early as the sixth century. That the Hindus and their religion, however, existed in Java from the end of the thirteenth to that of the fifteenth century, is a matter of certainty, proved by monumental dates entirely reliable.

The history of the conversion of the Javanese to the religion of Mohammed, even at this comparatively recent period, is much enveloped in fable. The parties who effected the conversion were the mixed descendants of Arabs, Persians, Malays, and Mohammedans of Hindustan,—parties who had settled on its northern coast for the purposes of trade; who were intimately acquainted with the natives of the country and their language; who, in process of time, had acquired wealth and influence. Of such men were the real missionaries of Islam in Java converted, and the work of conversion was evidently a slow one. As early as the year of our time 1358, an unsuccessful attempt had been made by missionaries of this description to convert the Sunda nation. Another was made in 1391 to convert the proper Javanese; and the tomb of one of the reputed saints who made this attempt, one Maulana Ibrahim, still exists in Gresik, bearing the year of Salivana, 1334, or of our time 1412. In the year of Christ 1460, the Mohammedan converts assembled a force for the conquest of Majapahit, the capital of the principal Hindu state, but were defeated; and it was not until 1478, eighteen years after, that they succeeded in capturing the capital, overthrowing the state, and establishing their own power and faith.

The Sunda nation appears to have been converted about the same time, the conquests proceeding from Cheribon, and ending with Banam in 1480. The Mohammedan chiefs assumed the government of the respective states which they had subjugated under the title Sasana, abbreviated Sasana, a spiritual title, meaning "object of reverence," which one of the native princes still retains.

According to these statements, the work of conversion ran over a period of at least 139 years. Even at the lapse of this time, however, it does not appear to have been completed; for, according to De Barros, when Henrique Lemos visited the country of the Sandas in 1522, forty-four years after the supposed final conversion of the Javanese, he found idolatrous temples, monasteries, and the practice of idolatry still existing. For a century after the overthrow of Majapahit, Java appears to have been split into many independent states. When first visited by the Portuguese, such was unquestionably its condition. "The island of Java," says De Barros, "is divided into many kingdoms;" and he enumerates no fewer than fourteen, most of which, notwithstanding much confusion of orthography, can be identified with the existing names of provinces. About the year 1578, however, a native chief, the governor of the province of Mataram, on behalf of the king of the neighboring state of Pajang, raised himself to sovereign power, and founded the family from which has sprung the two existing native rulers. In the course of the first four reigns of this dynasty, most of the proper country of the Javanese, with the island of Madura, were subjugated, and the princes of the Sunda country made tributary.

It was during the reign of the second prince of this dynasty, that the Dutch made their first appearance in Java, under Houtman, in 1595. In 1610 they obtained permission from the Sunda prince of Jacatra, to build a fort near to the sea, which they called the city of Batavia. In 1619 this fort was besieged by the joint forces of the princes of Jacatra and Bantam, aided and abetted by the English. It was relieved by a Dutch fleet under Admiral Koen, and the assailants defeated and driven off. It was after this event that the name of Batavia first given to the fortress was bestowed on the town. In 1628 Batavia was besieged by a numerous army sent against it by the reigning prince of Mataram, with the hope of expelling the Dutch from the island; but by the skill and courage of the European garrison, the rude and disorderly host was baffled and routed. From this time the history of Java is properly that of its European conquerors. No considerable territorial acquisition, however, was made until 1674, when the Dutch obtained acession of the principality of Jacatra. From that time until 1730, every war carried on by them with the native princes, whether as principals or auxiliaries, invariably ended in a cession of territory to the former; so that, at present, hardly one-fourteenth part of the Island is in possession of native rulers, and even that is entirely tributary and dependent.

From the year 1674 to 1830, the Dutch, as principals or auxiliaries, have been engaged in no fewer than four great wars, all of long duration. One of which, begun in 1674, lasted for thirty-four years; one in 1718, lasting for five years; one in 1740, for fifteen years; and another in 1828, for twenty-three years; so that, of one-third part at least of a period of 156 years, civil war raged in the Island.

The Dutch have divided their possessions in Java into twenty provinces or residencies, each of which is administered by a resident or prefect. Six of these belong to the country of the Sandas, and fourteen to that of the Javanese. The two remaining native states, although administered by their own princes, are virtually Dutch provinces, and placed under the control of an officer, with the same title as those of the provinces under direct Dutch rule.

Attempts have been made at various times to estimate the total population of Java. The first of these was by the historian Valenya, who estimates the population in his time (1726) at 3,190,750; and Mr. Macintosh (1811), at 3,730,000. This estimate was made shortly after a civil war of five years duration, and in 1755, immediately after the finest parts of the island had been the scene of a civil war of fifteen years, an estimate was made which gave Java 1,941,911, or including Madura, 2,001,911. This would seem to show that in less than thirty years a decrease had taken place exceeding a million and a quarter. At the close of the last century, estimates of the population were made, which raised the joint population of Java and Madura to 3,559,611. This was after a continued peace of forty-five years; and shows, compared to the last estimate, an increase exceeding a million and a half. In 1808 another estimate was made, and by this the number was made 3,730,000. In 1815 a census was taken during the temporary occupation of the English, which valued the population of Java at 4,390,061, or including Madura, to 4,615,276. In 1820 a census was taken which gave the population at 5,403,766. Ten years later another was taken, and this raised the number to 7,801,451; and consequently gave a decennial increase at the rate of about 44 per cent. The census of 1845 made the joint population of Java and Madura 9,530,781, or of Java alone, 9,235,033. The last census is that of 1852, and this made the joint population of Java and Madura 9,943,075. The population was estimated as being, on 31st Dec. 1853, 10,290,000.

The inhabitants of Java, besides Javanese and Sundanese, consist also of Madurese; for there are not confined to their own island, but form the larger part of the population of that section of Java which fronts Madura. This portion having been depopulated by the civil wars of the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, the Madurese began to emigrate to their own less fertile land; and this emigration still goes on, so that the Madurese in Java are probably at present more numerous than in their parent country. For the whole island, including Madura, the proportions of the three nations is supposed to be 65 in 100 of the Javanese; 26 of the Sundanese; and 8 of the Madurese.

The most numerous class of stranger-settlers are the Chinese; the census of 1852 makes their numbers 125,407, the greater number consisting of a mixed race. The small proportion of Chinese in Java is, of course, in some measure attributable to the nature of the labour market, in so far as respects unskilled labour, that being already preoccupied by the native population; but it arises also from the constant interference of the Dutch government on their settlement. They are obliged to pay a mulct for leave to enter, and a larger one for permission to quit, besides other taxes—all of them imposts to which no other class of strangers is subjected. Jealousy of Chinese settlement is, indeed, a principle of long standing in the Dutch administration. In the early part of the last century their numbers alarmed the government, and their wealth and prosperity appear to have excited the envy of the Dutch colonists; and in 1723 the local government issued a decree against Chinese immigration, which, however, was never fully acted on. They were, however, prohibited from passing beyond the limits of the city of Batavia without a license; and all who could not render an account of themselves satisfactory to the European authorities were imprisoned or sent back to China. These restrictions drove the Chinese to revolt; and on the 25th of September, 1750, the Chinese quarter of Batavia was attacked by a mob, consisting of soldiers, sailors, European settlers, and natives, and in the course of two days, 10,000 of the Chinese are stated to have been slaughtered, and their houses pillaged and burnt. Those who escaped the massacre retreated into the interior of the island, and the result was a civil war, which, in one form or another, lasted for fifteen years. The local government sent a letter full of excuses to the emperor of China, to which the emperor did not vouchsafe a reply. In justice to the Dutch nation it should be noticed, that the whole proceeding was conducted in good faith; and the weak and timorous governor, who was the cause of, or winked at the massacre, was duly punished.

The other Asiatic people, who in the main consist of Arabs, or rather, for the most part, of their mestizo descendants, and of natives of the other islands of the Archipelago. All these are grouped together in the census of 1852, and their total number, including slaves, is no more than 37,701. The number of slaves is but 9410. None of these are Javanese, but all natives of the other islands of the Archipelago, or their descendants, chiefly of Celebes, Sumatra, and Bali. All of them are domestics of Europeans or Chinese. The practice of employing free Javanese as domestic servants was introduced by the English during their temporary occupation of the island, and has been followed by the Dutch.

The revenue of the European government of Java is that of the Revenue whole island, including Madura, excepting owing to some taxes on consumption, the territories are subject to the two remaining native princes, embracing an area of 2220 square miles, and a reputed population of 350,000. It is derived from multifarious sources, and may be briefly described, taking the figures from the public accounts of 1843, as given by Mr. Temalock. These may be sufficient for a general view, as no material change has since been made in the fiscal system.

During the five years' temporary occupation of Java by the British government, from 1811 to 1816, nearly the whole ancient system of monetary dues, forced deliveries, and corvée labour was overthrown, and free industry open trade, and free labour substituted for them. The merit of this great revolution in the administration of the island belongs to the late Sir Stamford Raffles, the British lieutenant-governor of Java, under the authority of the government of India; and he carried his bold and valuable innovations into effect with a courage, industry, and perseverance entitled to the greatest praise. The financial system which he adopted, however, was not so happy—in so far as the land-tax was concerned, for it proceeded on the principle of the states entering directly into an arrangement with each individual occupant of a few acres, in the case of Java probably not fewer than half a million. Under this system, the tax was paid either in money or in kind, at the option of the occupant; and being generally paid in the latter, it followed that the government was converted at once into warehouse-keepers, and corn merchants. As in our own territories on the continent of India, the new system was found mischievous and impracticable. The land was over-assessed, and the hypothetical land-tax could not be realized. After two years' trial, the Dutch commissioners who received charge of the island, judiciously abandoned the Ryotwarrie system of 1814, and arranged with the heads of the village corporations for the land-tax, leaving its distribution among the occupants to these corporations themselves. This natural and simple system, the only one suited to such a state of society as that of Java, after being in operation for 14 years, was partially relinquished in 1832, and the old system of forced deliveries of certain agricultural products, and of corvée labour in raising them, was to a large extent restored. The pretext for this was the hope of greater gain by exemption that, by the immemorial usage of the country, the state was entitled to take, at its option, its tax in money, in kind, or in corvée labour. Under this system a considerable portion of the tax on rent is remitted, and some of the best land with the labour of its peasantry has been appropriated to the cultivation of products deemed peculiarly fitted for the markets of Europe, such as coffee, sugar, and indigo, with tea, cinnamon, and cochinseal, the last three expressly introduced into the island for this special purpose. By this impolitic measure, the Dutch government has become, once more, a cultivator, a trader, and necessarily, from its position to a certain extent, a monopolist trader. The evil effects of such a system on that wealth, which is the only source of public revenue, must be obvious to every enlightened statesman.

The actual amount of the tax on rent or land-tax remaining to the Dutch government, after deducting exemptions, was, in 1843, allowing 20 pence to the florin, Ls.85,551. To this, however, is to be added a sum of Ls.26,215 for the quit-rents of lands laid aside at times in fee simple to Europeans, with other titles of the nature of a land-tax, as the rents of certain fish-ponds, etc., amounting to Ls.27,302, making the total landed realised Ls.89,853. No account is rendered of revenue from the sale of land appropriated to the culture of produce for government, but a few facts are stated which will give a tolerable notion of the extent to which this very barbarous system is carried. The number of Javanese families from which corvée labour was exacted for the culture of coffee, in 1841, was 453,289, and for that of sugar, indigo, and cinnamon, 350,955, making the total number, exclusive of those employed in the cultivation of tea and cochinseal, which is not stated, 704,244 families, equivalent to a population exceeding three millions and a half, or 40 parts in 100 of the entire population of the European portion of the island. The quantity of land set aside for the cultivation of sugar, indigo, and cinnamon, amounted in 1841 to 317,635 acres, and this consisted of the richest irrigated lands of the island, usually yielding two yearly harvests, and equal in value to ten times that of the average of all dry lands. The quality of land, of an inferior description, appropriated to the culture of coffee and tea, all perfectly fitted for the growth of maize, is not stated, but some notion of it may be formed from the number of families employed, as above given, and from the number of trees, which amounted in 1841 to 336,922,460.

The taxes on consumption are multifarious, consisting of monopolies, excises, customs, transit and market duties, taxes on fisheries, and on the slaughter of cattle. The chief monopolies are those of the vend of opium and salt. In 1843 the first of these amounted to Ls.796,630, and the last to Ls.384,159. The monopoly of opium is at once productive and unexceptionable in principle. That on salt is, of course, a poll-tax, which amounts to about 4s. on each family, and is only less onerous than our own in Bengal, from the salt of Java, the produce, chiefly by solar evaporation, of its northern coast, being better, cheaper, and more economically distributed to the consumers than that of Bengal. Another monopoly is that exercised in certain caves producing the excellent swallow nests, and this, as the birds are the chief means of commerce, and strangers the chief purchasers, is a most valuable source of revenue. In 1843 its amount was Ls.24,371. The sale of timber from the teak forests, which are the exclusive property of the government, constitutes another monopoly, of which the produce in the same year was Ls.42,141. These different items make the total revenues arising from monopolies Ls.1,247,201. In the public accounts, the monopoly of the tin of Banca is set down as Javanese revenue, and stated at the sum of Ls.250,000. As the revenue of Java alone supplies the funds with which the mining and smelting is carried on, this branch is therefore correctly enough included in the financial resources of that island.

The export and import duties of Java in 1843, including post charges, amounted to Ls.460,840; and the market, transit, and ferry dues, to Ls.262,672. The tax on the slaughter of cattle was Ls.39,341, and the fish and fowl duties Ls.37,911. It is not necessary to add that the two last, as taxes on necessaries of life, are injurious imposts. A strange want of attention to obvious principles is evinced by the European government of Java, connected with the slaughter of cattle. The slaughter of the buffalo is expressly prohibited, with the avowed object of increasing the number of this animal for the benefit of agriculture. The certain effect of the prohibition, however, must of course be the very reverse of what is intended, for the rearing of these animals is surely discouraged, not promoted, by depriving the owners of a market for the old, imperfect, or superfluous ones.

The excise on distilled and fermented liquors, and on tobacco, yielded between them, in 1843, only Ls.38,843. The taxes on consumption yielded, in all, monopolies included, a revenue of Ls.2,007,488.

The direct taxes, land-tax excepted, are of very trifling amount. Stamp duties yielded Ls.24,452, and taxes on transfers and successions Ls.19,470, plain proofs of the real poverty of the ten millions of people, and similar to those which are afforded from the same class of taxes in our own Indian possessions. The capitation tax paid by the Chinese yielded no more than Ls.3477, and that on slaves only Ls.204. A tax on gaming was far more productive than either of these, for it produced Ls.37,161. A duty on auction sales gave Ls.24,173, and the profits on public pawnbrokers' shops Ls.27,905. The tax on carriages and horses kept for private use gave the small sum of Ls.550 only, and the post-office and stage coaches no more than Ls.18,228. Printing is a monopoly in the hands of government, and is represented as yielding a profit of Ls.4833. The tribute paid by native princes, amounting only to Ls.1287. To these items are to be added the sale of such articles as rice, sugar, tea, gold, and sundries, amounting to Ls.78,483. The whole amount of these direct or miscellaneous taxes is Ls.166,938, or excluding the sale of produce, probably not the productions of Java, Ls.945,421.

The account of receipts contains, in all, forty-five different heads, without, however, any logical arrangement. The sums, too, are for the most part gross receipts, not including charges of collection, which are not separately given. The total revenues of Java in 1843 were Ls.3,209,357, including the monopoly of tin, but exclusive of the profits of trade on commodities sold in Europe—if there should be any. The rate of taxation per head on the population of Java, subject to European rule, is about 7s. 5d., and would probably amount to at least 10s., had not the resources of the island been dissipated in idle and wasteful governmental speculations, agricultural and commercial. In the British settlement of Singapore, without land-tax, customs, post-dues, and monopoly, poll taxes, gaming tax, or stamp duties, the rate of taxation per head is better than 18s., or 142 per cent. lower than that of Java. The difference is evidently owing to the superior industrial strength of the population of Singapore; its superior freedom in the exercise of that strength, and its comparatively superior wealth.

The expenses of the government of Java in 1843 were given at the sum of Ls.291,606. Thus, then, the expenditure exceeded the amount of the taxes by the enormous sum of Ls.3,022,249, to be made good, by the contingency of profits on produce remitted to Europe. The civil charges came to Ls.827,825, the military to Ls.720,310, the naval to Ls.133,846, and the extraordinary expenditure, on account of Sumatra, to Ls.220,076. The expense of despatching government produce, exclusive of freight and charges, amounted to Ls.7,5212, while the interest of the public debt, nearly all incurred in twenty-seven years' time, came to Ls.1,018,463, or about half of that of British India, with a hundred and twenty millions of inhabitants, and which it has taken a century to incur.

The internal trade of Java embraces that of all the Netherlands possessions in India, as it is the entrepot for the whole of it. It includes also a large remittance for the public revenue in the shape of produce, as coffee, sugar, indigo, tin, and spices. Java and the other Dutch possessions were opened to trade by the English in 1816, with a considerably improved commerce, and certainly, at all events, with a clear field for the establishment of a liberal system. The company has assuredly not been taken advantage of. Double duties have been imposed on all goods imported under a foreign flag, and other contrivances of the exploded mercantile system have been had recourse to, in order to give trade a direction to Holland, a costly expedient injurious to the colony and of no substantial value to the mother country. In 1824, and within eight years after the restoration, a new East India Company was set up as one of these contrivances, the Handel Maatschappij or trading association. This association is merchant, shipowner, agent, for the sale of the government produce in Europe, carrier of this produce, and farmer of some branches of the public revenue of Java. Originally, there was guaranteed to it, a fixed and certain interest on its capital stock, and even the sovereign of the Netherlands was a sleeping partner of it. The false hypothesis on which this retrograde policy was adopted, was a supposed necessity for encouraging what was called the improvement capitals and enterprise of England and America, as if the former capital and enterprise of Holland, which used for similar difficulties had not achieved much greater things, was unequal to carry on the trade of its own colony without pilloving and bolstering. This company has been in existence for thirty years, and we may see by the result how little it has effected. In 1851 the value of all the imports into the Dutch East India possessions, exclusive of government stores, was L2,512,939, but that of the exports L6,119,083. Of the exports, no less than L3,294,750 consisted of government produce, chiefly sent to Europe through the Handel Maatschappij, or Commercial Association, leaving for the exports of private merchants no more than L2,152,200, a large portion of it the property of the privileged society itself. From this statement it will appear that the exports, instead of being nearly the same as the imports, as they ought in all fair trade, exceed them by the enormous sum of L6,606,150, or by 144 per cent. It is evident that the difference, whether it ever reaches the treasury of Holland or not, is merely tribute paid by Java, and this, too, in a form the most injurious. The figures are still further altered that of the export trade of the Dutch possessions in India; nearly two thirds parts are carried on by the government with the colonial revenue, while little more than one third of it is conducted by private capital and enterprise. This is assuredly the greatest violation of the sound principles of commercial policy, which has been perpetrated since the overthrow of Indian monopolies, and one which ought not to have been witnessed in our times.

In 1844 the total value of the imports of Java was L2,339,971, which shows that in the seven years ending with 1851 they had fallen off by no less than L172,922. In 1842 the value of the exports was L5,034,529. In the nine years, therefore, between 1842 and 1851, there had increased in the sum of L1,114,560.

The government of Java and the other Netherland possessions of India is vested in a governor-general, named by the king and answerable for his acts only to him. He is commander-in-chief of the military and naval forces, and possesses absolute legislative and administrative power. The liberty of the press does not exist; indeed, there is no press at all except that of the government, the political literature of Java consisting of two newspapers, the government gazette, and another equally under a rigorous censorship. In the three small British settlements, in the same quarter of India, there are also free as the journals of England or America.

For the administration of justice there is a supreme court sitting at Batavia, which has a principal jurisdiction in a few cases, but is generally a court of appeal and cassation for the whole Netherland possessions in India. There are three provincial courts at the three principal European towns—Batavia, Semarang, and Sarabaya—for the administration of civil and criminal justice, one of the judges of which goes on circuits. Justice to natives and Chinese is administered by the country courts in which the president or chief civil administrator presides, having native chiefs for assessors. In criminal cases, the jurisdiction of these courts is confined to offences not capital, and, in certain civil cases, appeals from them lie to the supreme court.

The finances are under the management of a director-general, a director of receipts and domains, a director of produce and warehouses, and a director of cultivation—these officers constituting the finance board. For keeping and auditing the public accounts, there is a distinct department—the chamber of accounts. From the mixing up of cultivation and trade with governmental affairs, the duties of these two departments become sufficiently onerous, complex, and always greatly in arrears.

The tributary princes, of which the number of principal ones is fewer than one-and-twenty, administer the civil governments of their own countries. Of these there are five in Java, two of them only considerable; three in Madura, two in the group of islands at the eastern end of the Straits of Malacca, three in Borneo, two in the Moluccas, four in Celebes, one in Sumbawa, and one in Sumatra.

(J.—N.C.)