Java: Past Present, a Description of the Most Beautiful Country in the World, Its Ancient History, People, Antiquities, and Products

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Of these and many others of perhaps lesser importance I have made use and now and again drawn freely upon them. Otherwise the history is the result of personal study. The study of' Eastern peoples during my twenty-five years' sojourn in the Far East has always been a peculiarly delightful subject to me, but no Eastern folk have interested and fascinated me more than the J avans of the Dutch East Indies. Their daily tasks, their religion, their amusements, their customs, their feasts, their life, I have quite entered into and lived in thought as one of them. Sorrows they have none, at least not as we know them. The more I knew of them the more excitement was engendered to learn and study them further.