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So they branched off to the left and wended their route along the banks of a noisy river, beneath the shade of huge trees which formed an avenue by the side of the water. On their right lay the endless padi fields of early green and ripening gold, all equally shimmering in the sun. This combination of ripe padi, side by side with newly sown, forms a striking feature of Javanese agriculture.
The sari of India replaces the sarong of Java, with fluttering folds of red and purple; children, clad only in silver chains and medals, or strings of blue beads, dart through the crowd, from whence the familiar types of Malay and Javanese personality are absent.
We dared not buy anything on account of our foreign accent; but we wandered from street to street, jostled by the crowd, stopping in front of the gayest booths, and even going into a side-show where a Javanese man was having fits to please the audience.
A siege of Batavia in 1629, by the Javanese failed in its purpose. Van den Broeck returned to Holland June 6, 1630. The second Dutch voyage to the East Indies under command of Georges Spilberg sailed from Holland August 8, 1614, with six vessels. Its object was chastisement of the Spanish.
Amongst the other industries for which the Malays, and the Javanese especially, are noted, the principal is the manufacture of textile fabrics; sometimes these are very skilfully dyed in ornamental patterns, and show considerable artistic taste.
I took with me from the hotel a young Javanese lad as guide to the counting-house of an English gentleman, whom I will call Mr Scott, and who, I heard, was one of the principal merchants of the place.
The Hindu cloudland which veils the Javanese past "was reached by a ladder of realities," for the exploits of gods and mythical heroes were afterwards attributed to native Rulers, until the medley of truth and fiction, history and mythology, became an inextricable tangle.
Doubtless at a very distant period the Malays invaded the shores, and drove the indigenous population into the interior beyond the mountains; afterwards, whether by accidents on sea, or desirous of availing themselves of the richness of the soil, they were joined by the Chinese, the Japanese, the inhabitants of the archipelago of the South Seas, the Javanese, and even the Indians.
We went to the horse of the Opzeiner, or overseer, a native of Amboyna Bouru being too poor a place to deserve even an Assistant Resident; yet the appearance of the village was very far superior to that of Delli, which possesses "His Excellency the Governor," and the little fort, in perfect order, surrounded by neat brass-plots and straight walks, although manned by only a dozen Javanese soldiers with an Adjutant for commander, was a very Sebastopol in comparison with the miserable mud enclosure at Delli, with its numerous staff of Lieutenants, Captain, and Major.
With the vulgar, the idea of a Malay and by the Malay they mean the entire Polynesian race, with the exception of the Javanese is that of a treacherous, blood-thirsty villain; and I believe the reason to be, that from our first intercourse to the present time, it is the Pangerans or rajahs of the country, with their followers, who are made the standard of Malay character.
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