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Only a moment later and the main topmast also fell upon the deck, while Captain Lambert lay weltering in his blood, mortally wounded. Lieutenant Chads, on whom the command now devolved, found the Java perfectly unmanageable. The wreck of the masts hung over the side, next to the enemy, and every discharge of the Java's own guns set her on fire.
Subterranean activity increases during the rainy season, and tremors of earthquake occasionally startle the equanimity of those unused to the perils of existence on this thin crust of Mother Earth, for Java's teeming soil and population rest upon an ominous fissure of the globe's surface, and twelve of the forty-five volcanos on this island of terror and beauty are still moderately active, sometimes displaying sudden outbursts of energy.
And of all the elements that made up Java's good fortune, there was not one which filled him with such pride and exultation as his son.
Broken fountains, and mouldering vases once filled with orange-trees, outline the balustraded terraces; gilt pavilions lift their upcurved eaves above a wild growth of oleander, but the enchanted scene of old romance is given up to bats and lizards, for the crumbling Taman Sarie is now a fast-vanishing monument of Java's buried past.
To the south, was the Seméroe, Java's loftiest volcano; to the east, the Yang Plateau; to the north, the sea and the island of Madoera. We could trace the coast-line 9,000 feet below, away westward beyond Sourabaya, where white-crested surf beat silently upon the streak of yellow sand.
The gold-embroidered jacket of civil or military rank, with the kris thrust into a brilliant sash, here supplements the universal sarong, itself of bolder design and glowing colour in this old-world realm of Mataram, the centre of Java's historic interest.
The ruined temples of Brambanam memorialise that phase of Java's religious history, when the altars of Buddha were finally deserted, and Hinduism became the paramount creed of the fickle populace.
A lengthened survey of Java's political economy and past history would be out of place in a slight volume, written as a "compagnon de voyage" to the wanderer who adds a cruise in the Archipelago to his Eastern itinerary, but the colonial features of Dutch rule which have produced many beneficial results demand recognition, for the varied characteristics of national genius and racial expansion suggest the myriad aspects of that creative power bestowed on humanity made in the Divine Image, and fulfilling the great destiny inspired by Heavenly Wisdom.
The present Commodore Kearny commanded this ship, and he took us down to the Rock. The reason of our volunteering was this. The men-of-war of the Dutch and the French, rendezvoused at Mahon, as well as ourselves. The French and our people had several rows ashore. Which was right and which wrong, I cannot say, as it was the Java's men, and not the Delaware's, that were engaged in them, on our side.
For two hundred years Perboewatan has not smoked like that, and, slight though it is at present, I cannot help thinking that it indicates an impending eruption, especially when I consider that earthquakes have become more numerous of late years, and there was one in 1880 which was so violent as to damage seriously the lighthouse on Java's First Point."
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