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SOME NOTES ON JAVA 
 
 AND ITS 
 
 ADMINISTRATIOOY THE DUTCH 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY SCOTT BOYS 
 
 LATE BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE 
 
 ALLAHABAD : 
 
 PRINTED AT THE PIONEER PRESS 
 1892 
 
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PREFACE. 
 
 At Sydney in the spring of 1889 A. D., 
 while I was negotiating a passage to 
 England for my wife and myself via 
 China and Japan, an opportunity un- 
 expectedly offered itself of visiting Java 
 en route to Hong Kong. We did not let 
 the chance slip, and at once, as became 
 globe trotters, searched the booksellers' 
 shops for anything wliich might enable 
 us, on reaching the island, to pose before 
 our fellow-travellers as experts in the 
 matter of " Krises " and connoisseurs in 
 coffee. To our disappointment we were 
 unable to find any books of any kind re- 
 lating to Java, except a record of travel 
 called " The Australian abroad," and 
 we had to content ourselves with the de- 
 termination to make the best use of our 
 eyes and ears while we were in the island, 
 and to pay an early visit to the British 
 
 42844G 
 
11 
 
 Museum after our arrival in England to 
 get at the best books which have been 
 written on this most interesting Dutch 
 possession. 
 
 From the day when, passing through 
 the straits of Lombok, between the two 
 mighty peaks of Lombok and Bali, we 
 found ourselves within the great volcanic 
 girdle which encircles the Malay Archi- 
 pelago, until we left Batavia on our way 
 to Singapore, we never ceased to wish 
 that every day which was available might 
 be extended to a month, and that many a 
 friend whom we had left in India could be 
 brought to our side to share in the very 
 thorough enjoyment which our visit to 
 the beautiful region secured for us. 
 
 The following pages are the outcome 
 of our short sojourn in Java and of the 
 renewal of the pleasures of that sojourn 
 obtained from what has been written 
 about the island and its administration 
 by the Dutch. Little, except some com- 
 parisons between the methods of govern- 
 ment adopted by Holland and by the 
 English in the government of their East- 
 
Ill 
 
 ern possessions, and some vain regrets 
 that we, as well as the Dutch, cannot 
 sometimes see ourselves as others see us, 
 can claim in this pamphlet to be original, 
 but I have not shrunk on this account 
 from issuing it, judging that some who 
 have not the time or opportunity to con- 
 sult the works from which much of my 
 information is drawn, will be glad of 
 that information in a compact form, 
 while I am sure that I myself, on near- 
 ing the Javan coast, would have wel- 
 comed any such notes on the country I 
 was about to visit. 
 
 It is too much to hope that any re- 
 marks which I have ventured to make on 
 our administration in Hindustan, or that 
 any description which I have given of 
 the results of a directly contrary system 
 pursued in Java, will have the slightest 
 effect in making our rulers pause and 
 consider whether European methods are 
 in all cases suited to Oriental peoples, 
 and especially whether we are justified 
 in deliberately denationalizing the land. 
 But unquestionably a study of Java and 
 
IV 
 
 of its government is one of the first 
 duties of an Indian governor, and if that 
 is fairly undertaken it will lead, I think, 
 inevitably to this conclusion, that in 
 many matters it is a mistake to insist 
 that our Oriental subjects should conform 
 to our Western ideas and that, above all, 
 the salvation of the Dutch Government 
 has been its resolute determination to 
 maintain the State's right in the soil, 
 rigidly excluding the middleman and 
 permitting no growth of any proprietary 
 right. 
 
 The books which I would suggest to 
 the reader who wishes to further inform 
 himself about Java are — 
 
 1. Sir Stamford Raffles' History of Java. 
 
 2. Sir Stamford Raffles' Minnie on his Ad- 
 
 ministration. 
 
 3. Java : or, how to manage a Colony, by 
 
 J. W. B. Money. 
 
 4. The Malay Archipelago, by A. R. Wallace. 
 
 5. Max Havalaar, by Multatuli (E. D. 
 
 Dekker). 
 
6. Boro-Boudottr, dans tile de Java, by Dr. 
 
 C. Leemans. 
 
 7. J. Crawfurd's History of the Indian Archi- 
 
 pelago ^ 1820. 
 
 8. J. J. Stockdale's Sketches of Java, 18 12. 
 
 9. Colonial Essays, translated from the Dutch, 
 
 by Van der Aa. Rice and Coffee culture 
 in Java, 1864. 
 
 10. Official and Secret Papers relating to the 
 Sale ofLandSy and other Subjects, during 
 the British Administration of Java ^ 1883. 
 
 H. S. B. 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA 
 
 I. 
 
 Although the Dutch have occupied portions 
 of Java for nearly three centuries, they have 
 done but little towards tracing the history or 
 even collecting the traditions of their great 
 dependency ; and it was not until after the con- 
 quest of the island by the British and its re- 
 occupation by the Dutch in 1814 A.D., that the 
 latter appear to have been awakened to the 
 duty of unravelling, as far as possible, the few 
 clues which were then left to the early history 
 of this most interesting part of what is now 
 called the Malay Archipelago. Without going 
 further back than the commencement of our 
 own era, and probably not further back than 
 some twelve or thirteen centuries, we find that 
 no less than three of the great religions of the 
 world have competed for possession of this 
 beautiful island, and, therefore, as we should 
 expect, the traditions of the people concerning 
 
2 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 the origin of the races found in the country are 
 broken and confused. But when the Dutch 
 first settled on the shores of Java in 1595 A.D., 
 and when we English a few years afterwards 
 followed to compete with them for its trade, 
 the Mussulmans had not held the government 
 of the country for more than two hundred 
 years, and it is quite certain that, had the early 
 Dutch and English settlers been animated then 
 by the antiquarian spirit, there would have 
 been open to them far more sources of inform- 
 ation than are available now or were at hand 
 even when Sir Stamford Raffles, in 1812 A.D., 
 first attempted to glean the few straws which 
 were then left on the field of historical inquiry. 
 Nor have the eff'orts of the Dutch in the direc- 
 tion of antiquarian research since that date 
 been very systematic or profound ; and the suc- 
 cessive immigrations of the Hindus, of the 
 races professing and preaching Buddhism, and 
 of the proselytising Mussulmans, still remain 
 shrouded in much uncertainty and offer incom- 
 parable attractions to the enthusiastic student 
 of ethnology. Now that a man like Dr. Brandes 
 sits as Curator of the Museum of Antiquities at 
 Batavia, we may hope that the early days of the 
 peoples, who raised such magnificent monu- 
 ments of devotion as Bram-Banam and Boro 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 3 
 
 Bodho, will be cleared from much of the mist 
 which at present shuts off the inquirer from 
 any clear view. 
 
 The Javan era corresponds within a few years 
 with the Hindu Sambat era, commencing in 
 the year 74 A.D., and it is certain that it is only 
 due to a miscalculation that it does not exactly 
 tally. It is without doubt the same era, and 
 its use by the Javans is absolute proof that the 
 immigrations of the Hindus occurred at a date 
 not prior to the commencement of that cycle* 
 It is not unnatural that the Javans should wish 
 to throw their beginning^ as the conquerors of 
 their island, as far back as possible, and we 
 accordingly find them asserting that the founder 
 of the Javan colony arrived from India in the 
 very first year of the era. Aji Saka, who is said 
 to have been prime minister of Prabhu Jaya 
 Bhaya, Prince of Astina, and fifth son of Pandu 
 Devanatta, is named as the leader of the first 
 expedition. He is said to have found the 
 country held by Rasaksas or giants, whom he 
 fought gallantly, but whom apparently he did not 
 subdue, for he returned to his master in Gujerat 
 for reinforcements, with which he succeeded 
 in making good his position in the island. 
 
 Other accounts state that the religion and the 
 arts of India were introduced by a Brahman, 
 
4 SOME NO 7ES ON JA VA. 
 
 Tritesta, at the commencement of the Javan 
 era ; but the fact that the early traditional 
 sovereigns of Java correspond both in order of 
 succession and in name with well-known kings 
 in India, indicates very clearly that the Hindu 
 occupation of the island really commenced after 
 the date of those kings. The accounts, there- 
 fore, which put the commencement of the 
 Javan sovereigns five centuries after the first 
 landing of Aji Saka, and which make the first 
 colonisation of the island to have been effected 
 under the sixth descendant of Prabhu Jaya 
 Bhaya of Astina, are certainly more likely to 
 be correct. It is also highly probable that the 
 ^* Saka " affix to the name Aji only indicates an 
 era, the third Saka of the Kaliyuga, commencing 
 78 A.D., and that Aji Saka was really only an 
 impersonation of the era itself — an impersona- 
 tion with which the Hindus in Java subse- 
 quently associated the introduction of letters 
 and religion, the framing of their laws and the 
 commencement of settled government. Fa Hian, 
 who visited Java (Ye-pho-ti) in the beginning 
 of the fifth century of our era, says that at that 
 time there were Brahmans and heretics, but no 
 Buddhists on the island. The colonisation 
 must, therefore, have taken place before that 
 date. One fact appears to be quite certain : 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 5 
 
 the immigration came direct from the continent 
 and not by way of the Malay Peninsula. Java 
 and the contiguous islands of Bali and Madura, 
 which are so near that they may be taken to be 
 a part of Java, abound with the remains of 
 Hindu temples, but in the whole of the Malay 
 Peninsula and in Sumatra there has not been 
 found a sign of Hindu occupation. It is abso- 
 lutely certain, therefore, that the colonisation of 
 Java was effected by emigrants sailing from 
 India across the Bay of Bengal. The accounts 
 which attribute the foundation of the first per- 
 manent settlement to the sixth descendant of 
 Prabhu Jaya Bhaya tell that he sailed with 
 5,000 followers in six large ships and first 
 landed in Sumatra, but, not finding the country 
 agree with that which had been described by 
 Aji Saka, he re-embarked and finally reached 
 the land of promise, settling at Matarem and 
 being proclaimed under the name of Sawela 
 Chala. Two thousand more emigrants with 
 their wives and families followed soon after, 
 and a city was founded, called Mendang Kamu- 
 lan, afterwards named Bram-Banam, the date 
 of this event being given as 525 Javan era, or 
 603 A.D. Other accounts make Prabhu Jaya 
 Bhaya himself to have reigned in Java in the 
 year 1000, Javan era, and Bram-Banam to have 
 
6 5 OME NO TES ON J A VA . 
 
 been founded eighteen years afterwards. The 
 earlier date would seem to be the most probable. 
 The remains of the temples at Bram-Banam 
 attest the size and importance of Mendang 
 Kamulan, and of the principality of which it 
 was the capital. So numerous are the smaller 
 temples which surround the central edifice that 
 the place is spoken of as the " thousand 
 temples/' and in actual numbers there still 
 exist between two and three hundred. The 
 extraordinary feature of this group of buildings 
 is that, while the central pile was undoubtedly 
 Brahmanical — containing as it does an image of 
 Durga, which might have been brought from 
 any of Kali's shrines in India, so exact is the 
 reproduction of the goddess in the act of des- 
 troying — and while many of the statues which 
 are found around the place are also Brahmani- 
 cal, the smaller surrounding temples contain each 
 a most unmistakable figure of Buddha, similar 
 to those found on the great Stupa of Boro 
 BodhOjWhich is a pure Buddhist monument 
 without the faintest admixture of Brahmanism. 
 This very remarkable mingling of the two re- 
 ligions is characteristic of a very large number 
 of the sacred buildings of Java, and it clearly 
 indicates that for many generations the two 
 faiths existed side by side, the adherents of 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 7 
 
 each agreeing to live amicably one with the 
 other, and probably each adopting portions of 
 the worship of the other's religion. Indeed, 
 this fair land of Java seems to have set an 
 example to the Eastern world of toleration, for 
 when, centuries after, the Mussulmans succeed- 
 ed in converting the whole population to the 
 religion of Mahomed, the proselytising was not 
 effected, as in other Oriental countries, with 
 fire and sword : and the perfect state in which 
 we find such edifices as Boro Bodho show that 
 there was in the process no exhibition of that 
 iconoclastic zeal which usually has distinguish- 
 ed the propagation of Islam. This is especially 
 fortunate in a land like Java, where there exist 
 but few trustworthy written records, and where 
 history will largely have to be read in the 
 stones of her monuments. 
 
 A most remarkable fact about the few records 
 which do exist is the entire absence of any 
 mention of the Buddhists. We have apparent- 
 ly absolutely no tradition of the introduction of 
 the law, no account of the arrival of any mis- 
 sionaries, no history of any contest between the 
 rituals or the dogmas of the two religions. This 
 doubtless is largely accounted tor by the friendly 
 terms, if not terms of partnership, on which the 
 Brahmans and the Order had mutually agreed 
 
8 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 to live. Had the two religions been in open' 
 conflict one with the other we should most 
 undoubtedly have heard much in the histories, 
 however incomplete and untrustworthy in other 
 respects, of the tyranny or the hateful tenets of 
 the respective sects. Silence on these points 
 on the part of the historians clearly indicates that 
 they saw nothing abnormal in the relations of 
 the two religions, and that those relations were 
 amicable and had lasted for some generations 
 prior, at any rate, to the writings of the annals. 
 Dr. Leemans in his elaborate monograph on 
 the Stupa of Boro Bodho says that in the sixth 
 century of the Christian era we find Buddhism 
 and Brahmanism existing in Java side by side, 
 that in the ninth century Buddhism had taken 
 the lead, and that in the twelfth or thirteenth it 
 began to yield to Sivaism : but he does not detail 
 his ground for making these statements. Ap- 
 parently Dr. Friederich had discovered some 
 inscriptions, which, however, have not been pub- 
 lished. One fact about Buddhism in Java is 
 certain. It was not imported from Southern India, 
 either with the original emigrants or at a sub- 
 sequent date, nor was it imported from Ceylon 
 or Burma. The Buddhism of these countries 
 was that of the Southern Church, while all the 
 Buddhist remains in Java tell us plainly that 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. q 
 
 the tenets and the ritual of the Northern 
 Church ruled in that island. The Northern 
 Church occupied Nepal, Tibet and China, so 
 that we are led to the conclusion that the 
 preaching of the law in Java was possibly done 
 by Chinese missionaries, and the first inter- 
 course with China is said to have occurred in 
 the time of Panji, an adventurer, who obtained 
 considerable power about the tenth Javan cen- 
 tury. We may perhaps then assume, in want 
 of better grounds, that the Javans made their 
 first acquaintance with the purer religion about 
 1000, Javan era. It is generally thought that the 
 Stupa at Boro Bodho was constructed about 
 1200 (Javan) : and the wonderful preservation of 
 the fabric would certainly indicate that its date 
 cannot be very much more ancient. On the 
 other hand the Buddhism of the builder of 
 Boro Bodho was of a very pure type, and could 
 scarcely have come from China at a very late 
 date. 
 
 If Buddhism was introduced from China, 
 then, curiously enough, the first contact of the 
 Javans with Islam occurred about the same 
 time, the son of Kuda Lalean, a Javan sover- 
 eign, having visited India about 1084 (Javan), 
 where he became a convert to Mahomedanism. 
 It was, however, not until nearly three cen- 
 
I o SOME NO TES ON J A VA. 
 
 tunes later that Mahomedanism became a pro- 
 minent religion in the country. In 1247 
 (Javan) Raden Wijaya established the great 
 kingdom ot Majapahit, the rulers of which ex- 
 tended their sovereignty over the whole island, 
 and also exercised a protectorate over Sumatra. 
 This was the last great Hindu Raj which held 
 sway in Java, and the remnants of the Brahmans, 
 who still exist in Bali, look back with longing 
 and regret to those last days of their glory. 
 On the northern coast of Java Islam was gra- 
 dually obtaining a firm hold, conversion to the 
 new faith being the work of Arab missionaries 
 who came from the rich shores of the islands of 
 the Archipelago. By the middle of the four- 
 teenth (Javan) century there were several cen- 
 tres of aspiring Mahomedans, and in 1400 
 (Javan) these Mussulmans, conspiring with 
 certain base-born sons of the Majapahit Raja, 
 overthrew the Hindu dynasty with its Prince 
 Augka Wijaya, destroyed the city and set up a 
 Mahomedan kingdom with its capital at Demak. 
 By 1421 the whole island, with the exception 
 of the westernmost principalities, had become 
 Mahomedan. The Hindus, who resisted con- 
 version, fled to Bali, an island at the extreme 
 south-eastern extremity of Java, and thither 
 the Mussulmans have never followed them. 
 
SOME NOTES ON JA VA. 1 1 
 
 When the Portuguese first visited Java in 1511 
 A. D. they found a Hindu king still reigning in 
 Bantam, but within the sixteenth century of 
 our era this principality also had submitted to 
 the new religion. 
 
 It is clear, however, that Mahomedanism has 
 never sunk into the souls of the Javans as it 
 has in other Oriental countries, and a Wahabi, 
 and even an average Mussulman of India, would 
 be scandalised at the want of zeal on the part 
 of these simple sons of Islam. To the Anglo- 
 Indian travelling through the country it is 
 scarcely apparent that there is a single Mahom- 
 edan in it. No mosques or idgahs are visible, 
 no muezzin is heard, no devout Moslem is no- 
 ticed by the wayside or at the house-door fal- 
 ling on his knees at the hour of prayer. In 
 the families of the well-to-do classes the cere- 
 monies attending the peculiar rite by which 
 children are admitted to Islam, include pro- 
 cessions, accompanied with much display, 
 through the streets, but no stranger would 
 imagine that the spectacle was a part of a Ma- 
 homedan rite. Fabulous beasts of all kinds, 
 giants and giantesses, trophies such as might 
 appear in a Lord Mayor's show, follow one 
 another in quick succession, but no sign of the 
 faith of Mahomed is to be seen. The whole thing 
 
12 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 is clearly a survival of the old Hindu pageants 
 which have been adapted to the new ceremo- 
 nies. When our sepoys during our occupation 
 in 1812 — 14 A. D. celebrated the Mohurram 
 after Indian fashion, they very much astonished 
 the Javans. The only bigoted religionists are 
 the Hadjis, almost without exception Arabs, who 
 figure as Moulvis or panghulus (village priests) 
 and who take care to drive a good trade in 
 tithes and fees. These Hadjis are invariably 
 found to be at the bottom of all the insurrec- 
 tions with which the Dutch have had to deal. 
 The Dutch in consequence discourage as much 
 as possible all pilgrimages to Mecca, as they 
 find the lower Hadjis are apt to make common 
 cause with the foreign Sheikh. 
 
SOME NO TES ON JAVA. 13 
 
 II. 
 
 It was in 1595 A. D. that the Dutch first ap- 
 peared in Java and established their settlement 
 at Bantam, in the west of the island. Thence 
 they proceeded along the coast to Madura at 
 the far eastern extremity, and here they were 
 guilty of a barbarous massacre of the inhabit- 
 ants. In 1598 A. D. they returned to Bantam, 
 and not long afterwards obtained a position on 
 the swamps of Jakatra, where in 162 1 A. D. 
 they founded their town of Batavia. After the 
 fall of Majapahit in 1478 A. D. the island of 
 Java had broken up into a number of petty 
 states once more, which for the next century and 
 a-half, time after time, were united into larger 
 kingdoms, only once again and again to suffer 
 disruption. The Dutch availed themselves ot 
 these internecine quarrels to advance their own 
 interests, and in 1646 A. D. they negotiated 
 their first treaty. This was followed by other 
 treaties, ranging from 1677 A. D. to 1691 A. D., 
 securing the cession of large territory and mo- 
 nopolies of pepper, sugar and cloths. The 
 English during this period had been at Bantam, 
 where they settled in 1602 A. D., but in 1683 
 A. D. they retired from the competition with 
 
1 4 SOME NO TES ON J A VA. 
 
 the Dutch and withdrew from Java altogether 
 just as Holland obtained control over the 
 whole island, with the exception of the Sulta- 
 nates of Surakarta and Jokhyokarta in the east 
 and the Preanger territories in the south-west. 
 In the middle of the eighteenth century the 
 Dutch were engaged in a prolonged war with 
 the object of subduing the eastern portion of 
 the island. Up to 1742 A. D. the whole of 
 this portion of Java was held by the Susuhnan. 
 The Dutch, taking advantage of the ambition 
 of a young prince of the reigning family, by 
 name Manhu Buni, urged him privately to lay 
 claim to the province of Matarem as his ap- 
 panage, a province which the Dutch wished to 
 detach from the Susuhnan. Manhu Buni, 
 nothing loth, made his claim, which was, as 
 calculated by the Dutch, scornfully rejected. 
 A civil war was commenced, which gave the 
 Dutch the opportunity they wanted, and, after 
 twelve years, they succeeded in partitioning 
 the dominions of the Susuhnan into three por- 
 tions. One, now called the Sultanat of Sura- 
 karta, sixteen districts, remained with the Su- 
 suhnan ; another, seven districts, went to Man- 
 hu Buni as Sultan of Jokhyokarta, and the 
 third portion, thirty districts, by far the largest 
 slice of the whole, embracing a stretch of 250 
 
SOME NO TES ON JAVA. 15 
 
 miles of coast line, was ceded to the Dutch, by 
 whom it has been ever since held. The Sul- 
 tans after the issue of this war held their re- 
 duced dominions as vassals of the Dutch, until, 
 in the third decade of the present century, a 
 second war left the Princes with practically no- 
 thing left of their old territories except their 
 private domains. During the eighteenth cen- 
 tury the Dutch Indies were administered by 
 the Dutch East India Company, their charter 
 including Sumatra and many of the islands in 
 the Archipelago. This century of maladminis- 
 tration landed the Company in 1795 A. D. in 
 debt to the amount of 160 millions of florins, or 
 13 millions sterling. 
 
 The Company was dissolved and a Commis- 
 sion was appointed from Holland, which mere- 
 ly suggested reductions and failed to cut away 
 the root of the evil, which was the monopoly 
 system. The deficits still went on, and then 
 attention was turned towards the methods pur- 
 sued in British India. Ignorance, however, of 
 these institutions, combined with prejudice in 
 favour of exclusive trading, defeated amend- 
 ment, and another Commission, which sat in 
 1803 A. D., maintained the forced contingents 
 of produce, the forced services and the mono, 
 polies of' pepper and cofiee. Certain reforms 
 
l6 SOME NOTES ON JAVA, 
 
 in the judicial and the police administration 
 were recommended, as also were the separation 
 of the Government proper from the direction of 
 trade, which was to be handed over to a Board 
 of Revenue and Commerce. The resolution 
 on this report abolished monopolies : but it fell 
 through, and Marshall Daendels was sent out 
 to institute reforms and protect the natives. He 
 did nothing, says Raffles, but squeeze them a 
 little tighter. In 1811 A. D. Holland became a 
 province of France and the English at once 
 occupied Java, which they held for three years, 
 restoring the island to the Dutch in 1814 A. D. 
 The occupation of Java by the English seems 
 to be a convenient point in its history at which 
 to take a brief survey of the country in its eco- 
 nomic, social and political aspects as they pre- 
 sented themselves to an observer at that time, 
 and as they are described by Sir Stamford Raf- 
 fles in his graphic account of Java and the 
 Javans in his Minutes, written as Governor-Gen- 
 eral of this island and of the other islands of the 
 Archipelago. The island of Java measures dd^ 
 miles in length, varying in breadth from 135 to 
 56 miles, and is 50,000 square miles in area. 
 It forms the western end of that belt of vol- 
 canic islands which encircles the Malay Archipe- 
 lago, and which is traceable through Bali, 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 17 
 
 Lombok, Sotnbawa, Flores, and Timor. From 
 one end to the other it is mountainous, there 
 being few plains which are unbroken for many 
 miles by one range or another. All these 
 ranges are volcanic, and the number of volca- 
 noes are innumerable, over forty of them being 
 more or less active at the present day. Semeru, 
 the loftiest, is 12,238 feet high. The eruptions of 
 some of them have been very terrible within the 
 memory of living Javans, the latest being that 
 of Krakatoa, an island lying in the Straits of 
 Sumatra. In thejeastern part of the island is a 
 singular crater, that of Grobogan, more than a 
 mile across, the greater portion of the area of 
 which is covered with a crust of caked volcanic 
 earth, while in the centre is a large lake of 
 boiling mud, similar to, but much vaster than, 
 Tikitiri in New Zealand, from which great globes 
 of mud rise almost free of the hideous cauldron 
 and fall back with appalling throbs into the 
 seething mass, only to be forced up again and 
 again by the power of the steam below. In 1822 
 the outburst from Galung-gung destroyed 114 
 villages and 4,000 lives were lost. Another 
 eruption in 1867 killed 1,000 people in the dis- 
 trict of Jokhyokarta, and in 1872 the eruption 
 of Merapi was very severe. Off Banjuwangi 
 submarine earthquakes are very frequent, and 
 
1 8 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 twice, within a very few years, both the ocean 
 telegraph cables between Java and Australia 
 have been destroyed at a point not many 
 miles distant from the eastern extremity of 
 Java. 
 
 The soil of the valleys is extraordinarily fer- 
 tile, consisting entirely of the disintegrated de- 
 bris of the mountains and continually renewed 
 year by year by the washings from the hill 
 sides. The eastern end of the island is more 
 fertile than the western : and yet the western 
 is magnificent, even when it is compared with 
 the richest plains of Hindustan. It may be 
 said, indeed, that the soil is absolutely inex- 
 haustible everywhere. No manure is ever 
 given nor is any required, for the water, which 
 is trained on to the cultivated lands from the 
 sides of the mountain by the most elaborate 
 system of irrigation ducts, brings its own ma- 
 nure with it in the shape of the most fertilis- 
 ing pulverised volcanic soil. The teak forests 
 are very fine, occupying at the present time, it 
 is estimated, some 2,300 square miles. The 
 denudation of this magnificent timber land has 
 been proceeding almost as recklessly as in our 
 Australian Colonies, but fortunately the conti- 
 nuous moisture of the undergrowth checks 
 damage by forest fires. 
 
SOME NO TES ON JAVA, j g 
 
 The hills not only ensure fertility to the valleys, 
 but they furnish every climate short of the Sub- 
 Arctic. The volcanic peak of Bali is ii,ooo feet 
 high, and throughout the island these magnifi- 
 cent cones, each like a Vesuvius, but ten times 
 larger, rise into the sky, springing themselves 
 from uplands which are elevated from three to 
 five thousand feet above the sea. The result 
 is that, though the island is so near the Equator, 
 the climate of many places is quite temperate, 
 and in those parts is exceedingly healthy and 
 suitable for Europeans. So much is this the 
 case that in 1672 A. D., when Holland was 
 overrun by the French under Louis XIV., the 
 Dutch actually contemplated transferring the 
 whole of the population en masse to Java. In 
 the low grounds near the coast the Hollanders 
 would have plenty of opportunity of introduc- 
 ing the familiar canals of the home country, 
 and this they have actually done in all the prin- 
 cipal seaport towns, such as Batavia, Samarang 
 and Soerabia, with, however, very doubtful ad- 
 vantage, for the malaria in these cities is very 
 bad, and it cannot be lessened by these canals, 
 which are cut through the inhabited quarters in 
 many directions. 
 
 The wet season lasts from October to April. 
 There is incessant thunder and lightning, but 
 
20 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 the storms are not violent and the seas of this 
 part of the Archipelago are almost always 
 smooth and quiet. These waters are therefore 
 well suited to the native form of boat, the 
 "prahu, " in which the Javans boldly venture 
 out fishing fifty or sixty miles from land, abso- 
 lutely certain of getting a steady breeze in the 
 latter part of the day to bring them landwards. 
 The Javans never seem to have advanced in 
 ship-building beyond the " prahu," which is 
 an open boat ; and this indicates that all exter- 
 nal commerce must have been carried on by 
 other nations seeking Java, such as the Malays, 
 Bugis (of the Celebes), Indians, Chinese, and 
 Arabs. The Javans themselves never ven- 
 tured beyond their own coasts and the islands 
 in the immediate vicinity in the search of trade. 
 Descended, as most of them must be, from the 
 daring mariners who crossed the Bay of Ben- 
 gal in search of new lands, it seems strange that 
 this should have been the case. Java was in 
 former times the granary of the eastern islands, 
 and in addition to rice she exported in Raffles' 
 time, for the use of the other Malay islands, 
 salt, oil, tobacco, timber, Java cloths, brassware, 
 &c., while she imported from the same islands 
 tin from Banka, Bugi cloth from the Celebes, 
 ponies from Sumbawa, gold dust, diamonds, 
 
SOME NO TES ON JAVA. 21 
 
 camphor, tortoise-shell, dyeing woods, nut- 
 megs, cloves, mace, beche de mer and edible 
 birds'-nests. These last mentioned articles of 
 commerce sold in Raffles' time for their 
 weight in silver, the Chinese being the buyers. 
 Java, as well as other islands in the Archipela- 
 go, produces these, and Holland used to get a 
 revenue of 200,000 dollars per annum from 
 this item alone. The bird which constructs 
 this nest is a swallow which builds in the 
 caverns in the rocks. The nests are gathered 
 sometimes twice a year, just after the young are 
 fledged, but care must be taken not to drive 
 away the birds by too frequent disturbance. 
 
 The ancient Javan commerce was all but 
 annihilated by the Dutch restrictive system, 
 native traders being forbidden to traffic in any 
 of the articles included in the Dutch monopolies, 
 e.g.f coffee, salt, indigo, opium, timber, four 
 kinds of spices, pepper, tin, Surat silks, Indian 
 cloths and Japan copper, while numerous pro- 
 hibitory orders were issued about navigation 
 to and from certain ports, shackling every 
 movement of commerce. The ordinances ob- 
 structed trade in the interior quite as much as 
 on the sea and at the ports, endless transit dues 
 being, levied on all merchandise at every stage. 
 These transit dues were farmed out to the 
 
2 2 ' SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 Chinese, who levied pretty well what they 
 pleased, and into whose hands the unrestrict- 
 ed trade of the country, except the local bazaar 
 trnde, naturally passed. 
 
 Marshall Daendels constructed with forced 
 labour a magnificent grand Trunk Road trom 
 one end of the island to the other, and cross 
 roads of a similar kind were made leading to 
 the main ports; but the natives were not al- 
 lowed to use these metalled lines of communi- 
 cation. They were compelled to follow their 
 own tracks. Nothing strikes the traveller so 
 much, even at the present day, as the perfect 
 state in which these military lines of communi- 
 cation are kept : the very sides of the road 
 looking as if they were swept and sodded, the 
 grass banks topped with neat bamboo fencing 
 and each tree protected while young with the 
 same kind of trellis-work. All this is effected 
 at a nominal cost to the Government, the 
 whole being carried out by the Corvee system. 
 But no less remarkable is the entire absence of 
 cart traffic on these lines. It is evidently still 
 forbidden. Pack animals alone are allowed. 
 The system of post travelling is as well ar- 
 ranged as the roads are good. At every five 
 miles a covered archway spans the road, under 
 which on each side are stabled the Government 
 
6 OME NO TES ON JAVA. 23 
 
 stage ponies. The traveller's hired carriage, 
 generally a small phaeton, draws up under this 
 staging house, out of the sun and sheltered 
 from rain ; the six ponies, which are the ordi- 
 nary team, are changed, and away speeds the 
 traveller over the well-kept track. The fares 
 for these journeys are not high, and the strang- 
 er is inclined to think much good of a Govern- 
 ment which looks after his comfort so success- 
 fully. 
 
24 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 III. 
 
 As we are swiftly and pleasantly carried 
 through the Javan uplands in our well-found 
 stage carriage, drinking in the soft morning air 
 of an April day, we can follow up at our leisure 
 the thoughts suggested by the scenes we pass 
 through and the faces we meet on the wayside. 
 Life in the country in Java is astir very early in 
 the day. With the dawn the roads begin to look 
 like ant-tracks, so thickly are they thronged 
 with the peasantry on their way to the fields or 
 the bazaar. For the markets are held at sun- 
 rise and all such business is concluded early in 
 the day. The village markets look like what 
 are sometimes seen in India— " meena bazaars :" 
 for not a male creature is to be seen in them. 
 Buyers and sellers are one and all women, 
 and very practical dealers they seem, doing 
 their business without one-fifth of the noise 
 which rises from an Indian bazaar. All the 
 village women dress in one unvarying colour — 
 indigo blue—wearing nothing on their heads, 
 their hair drawn off the face and knotted at the 
 back of the head. Their clothes are univer- 
 sally neat and good of their kind. The cloth is 
 all woven in the peasants' own houses, each 
 
SOME NO TES ON JA VA. 2 $ 
 
 house containing a spinning wheel and a loom. 
 Scarcely a man, v»^oman or child is to be seen 
 in rags. The women wear the sarong, a cloth 
 joined at the ends and wrapped round the 
 waist and legs as a petticoat. Round the body, 
 supporting the breasts, is wrapped a cloth 
 called the kemban, and over all is worn a loose 
 chemise or gown (kalambi) reaching to the 
 knees. The ladies in the upper classes wear 
 coloured sarongs of bright red and yellow pat- 
 terns, the manufacture of which sometimes is 
 very costly, the process of getting out the pat- 
 tern with the aid of wax and the dyeing tub in- 
 volving much time and labour. Over the body 
 is worn a white jacket (kobaia), and on the feet 
 which are bare the smartest of slippers. Voi/a 
 toui ! The Dutch ladies most sensibly have 
 adopted this dress, and up to five o'clock in the 
 afternoon they wear nothing else, walking out, 
 driving and doing their shopping in this 
 costume, supplemented by a smart sunshade. 
 The native men of the lower orders wear 
 drawers, the sarong (unjoined and called a 
 jarit) folded round the waist, a jacket with 
 short sleeves and a handkerchief on the head, 
 worn turban fashion. Often to this is added 
 an enormous spreading hat made of leaves 
 or of bamboo, and still more often a hat 
 
26 SOME N07ES ON JAVA. 
 
 which looks like an inverted basin, in which 
 the head half disappears and which is coloured 
 outside with gold, red and blue patterns. 
 Neither men nor women cut their hair. The 
 former gather it into a knot on the top of the 
 head, as the women do at the back. 
 
 The pan-dan must have been imported from 
 India by those who came from there in the first 
 settlements, and pan-eating is as much a habit as 
 in India. Other favourite .delicacies are not 
 so unobjectionable, especially trasi or blachang^ 
 which are dried shrimps, salted and pounded 
 into cheeses. The putrescent fluid from these 
 is made into a sauce, and the intolerable stench 
 which loads the air as a consignment of this 
 truly awful concoction goes by on its way up 
 from the coast is indescribable. Some Javans 
 still refuse to eat cow's or bullock's flesh, re- 
 taining their Hindu prejudices. Neither will 
 they eat any milk food, butter or cheese — the 
 idea being doubtless the same as the reason 
 which induced Manu to forbid the flesh of 
 cattle, namely, the protection of agricultural 
 stock. A Javan again points to his Hindu 
 descent when he refuses to use his left hand 
 at his dinner. The meals are served exactly 
 as in Hindustan, the diners sitting on the 
 ground, cross-legged, and the meals being 
 
SOME NO TES ON JAVA. 27 
 
 served on brass or wooden dishes. The 
 staple food is of course rice. But of whatever 
 the dinner may consist, all certainly get enough 
 and are well fed. This fact is well marked. 
 The children especially show signs of care 
 and good nourishment. Their sturdy little 
 limbs and quick movements are very pleasant 
 to watch. No such miserable little scarecrows 
 are to be seen as are only too common in vil- 
 lages in British India, 
 
 The villages and the houses in them match 
 their owners. There is no crowding of hut 
 against hut, as in India, where the pressure of 
 population or other causes have compressed 
 the village dwellings into as small space as 
 possible. In Java it is not unusual for the 
 inhabited portion of the village to occupy at 
 least one-tenth of the whole area, and when we 
 penetrate the neat trellis work fence which sur- 
 rounds the " campong " we find that each culti- 
 vator's hut has an enclosure with a small garden, 
 the bamboo being again brought into requisi- 
 tion to make a surrounding fence, with an orna- 
 mental lych gate at the entrance. The houses 
 have no mud walls. They are made entirely of 
 wood, bamboo, wattle and thatch. Flowers and 
 creepers are not wanting and the signs of com- 
 fort and prosperity are conspicuous. The open 
 
2 8 ^OME NOTES ON J A VA. 
 
 " alum-alum" (or " chaupal") is kept clean and 
 trim : and on one side is the unpretentious 
 mosque, a structure of bamboo and leaves, and 
 opposite to it the house of the bakal, or, as he 
 would be styled in Hindustan, lumberdar or 
 patel. In the middle of the alum-alum grows 
 the familiar fig tree, and as we gaze we admire 
 the tenacity with which the Hindu clung to the 
 remembrance of his old home when he was 
 transplanted into this new country. Looking 
 from a hillside down upon a plain studded with 
 these picturesque villages, each embowered in 
 a luxuriant grpwth of bamboos and trees, the 
 spectator is reminded much of some of the love- 
 ly " duns " on the road into Kashmir, short of 
 the Rattan Pir. The hamlets look like green 
 islets in a sea of golden rice. 
 
 Immediately outside the ring fence which has 
 been described commences the rice or other 
 cultivation. Not a square yard of ground seems 
 to be wasted, and the care and evident labour 
 with which each bit of slope is terraced and 
 supported, the greatest area thus being obtain- 
 ed for the rice crop, is most admirable. These 
 terraces are carried up the sides of the highest 
 mountains, the mighty volcanoes themselves 
 allowing the cultivation to creep up within 
 what looks a dangerous distance from their 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 29 
 
 craters. The water for irrigating the crops is 
 brought from the hillsides and is unfailing. 
 This enables the cultivator to get two rice 
 crops of! the same field, and this staple appears 
 on the village lands in the month of April, in 
 all stages of growth from sowing to harvest. 
 The main crops are rice, Indian corn, beans, 
 sugarcane (eight kinds), coffee, pepper, indigo 
 and tobacco. During the past three years a 
 blight has affected the sugarcane, stunting the 
 growth and seriously diminishing the outturn. 
 This has been a severe blow to the factories. 
 Rice is still an article of export, so that, in spite 
 of the enormous increase of the population, 
 which now is said to reach twenty millions as 
 against five millions in Raffles' time, the island 
 more than feeds itself. The cocoa tree, with its 
 beautiful blossoms and fruit, both on the tree 
 at the same time, is to be found in many of the 
 peasants' gardens, and the cocoanut and the 
 sugar palms abound. All the Indian fruits are 
 to be seen in the bazaars, together with the 
 dorian and the mangosteen. 
 
 Wayside stalls for refreshment are numer- 
 ous, those for cooling drinks, apparently mostly 
 concocted with rice water, being especially no- 
 ticeable. But the "kalwar," with his tempt- 
 ing array of dirty bottles, is conspicuously 
 
3 o SOME NO TES ON J A VA. 
 
 absent. Not a liquor shop is to be seen, and it is 
 a fact that the people are eminently temperate. 
 No doubt the Mahomedan religion has much to 
 say to this, and such drinking as goes on is done 
 in private. The Dutch, however, discourage 
 all liquor traffic, and the use of opium is much 
 restricted. The upper classes, corrupted by 
 luxury, just as in British India, indulge in 
 drinking far more than the lower orders, as 
 they also excel them in other forms of vice and 
 -sensuality. Those who smoke — and the habit 
 is certainly not so prevalent as in Hindustan — 
 smoke cigarettes, the tobacco being rolled up 
 in the thin dry leaf that is stripped off the head 
 of the Indian corn. Chewing or sucking to- 
 bacco is the commoner mode of enjoying the 
 weed among the vulgar, and the sight of a 
 twist of shag tobacco stuck betweeen the front 
 teeth and the lips, protruding out of the mouth 
 and obstructing all speech, is not pleasant to 
 look upon. 
 
 As the Anglo-Indian passes through the out- 
 skirts of the villages he is not surprised to see 
 going on the very same competition in kite-fly- 
 ing which is so familiar in Hindustan. This 
 with cock-fighting, quail-fighting, pigeon-flying 
 and also, among those who can afford such 
 spectacles, animal fights, such as tiger versus 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 31 
 
 buffalo, bull versus bull, and ram versus pig, 
 are clearly survivals of Hindu customs brought 
 with them by the emigrants. Not so with 
 their music and musical instruments. Fortu- 
 nately the original Indian colonists left behind 
 their tomtoms and their other instruments of 
 ear-torture. Neither in the Javan airs nor in 
 the character of their orchestra is there any 
 trace to be found of the music of Hindustan. 
 The immigrant Hindus have got their scales, 
 their melodies and their instruments from the 
 aborigines or from the neighbouring islands. 
 The gamlan pelog, or full band, consists main- 
 ly of large metal or wooden harmonicas struck 
 in slow cadence, blows on metal gongs of vary- 
 ing depth of sound marking the pauses. There 
 is also a harp which plays a subordinate part 
 and a drum which is unobtrusive. There are 
 no stringed instruments other than the harp, 
 and there are no wind instruments. The airs 
 are in the major key and the effect is exceed- 
 ingly good. A complete " gamlan" costs from 
 3,000 to 4,000 florins. 
 
 The national dance is almost the exact re- 
 production of the Indian nautch, and the nautch 
 girls also correspond both in appearance and 
 in their mode of life. The drama of the coun- 
 try consists of shadow plays, shadows being 
 
32 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 cast upon a screen with the aid of puppets. 
 The plots are taken from the Hindu mythology, 
 the wars of the Pandus and the story of Rama. 
 Scenes from the earlier history of Java are also 
 enacted, and a careful study of these shadow 
 plays would probably throw some light on the 
 first days of the Hindu occupation. 
 
 While the surroundings and the amusements 
 of Javan peasantry are under notice, it will not 
 be out of place to quote more or less fully 
 Sir Stamford Raffles' opinion of the Javan 
 character. When he inquired of the Dutch their 
 character he found tliem stigmatised as indolent, 
 treacherous and deceitful. Sir Stamford admits 
 that among the higher orders were to be found 
 in many cases violence, deceit and gross sen- 
 suality, but he considers the Javan peasants to 
 be simple, natural and ingenuous. He found 
 them generous and warm-hearted ; in their do- 
 mestic relations kind, aflectionate, gentle and 
 contented ; in their public relations obedient, 
 honest and faithful. In their intercourse with 
 society this keen observer saw them display in 
 a high degree the virtues of honesty, plain deal- 
 ing and candour. Prisoners brought to the bar 
 in nine cases out often, he found, confessed 
 without disguise or equivocation the full extent 
 and exact circumstances of their ofiences, and 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 3^ 
 
 communicated, when required, more informa- 
 tion on the matter at issue than all the rest of 
 the evidence, reminding us forcibly of the ordi- 
 nary Indian offender. 
 
 They seemed to be liberal and profuse where 
 this was possible, and fond of show and dis- 
 play, while they undoubtedly were most hospit- 
 able. He found them most keenly sensitive to 
 praise or shame, but he thought that either 
 national oppression or their agricultural habits 
 had rendered them somewhat indifferent to 
 military glory. They were characterised ra- 
 ther by passive fortitude than by active cour- 
 age, and endured privations with patience. 
 While mostly strangers to unrelenting hatred, 
 jealousy would urge them to serious crime, and 
 a husband's wounded honour would be seldom 
 healed. In manners they were easy, courteous 
 and respectful even to timidity, while in every 
 family the respect for parents and old age was 
 most marked. A strong corroboration of the 
 truth of this picture of the Javan peasant's cha- 
 racter is found in the fact that the description 
 might be applied word for word to the Indian 
 ryot, where he can be found living his own 
 simple life, undemoralised by strife in the law 
 courts or struggles with an oppressive land- 
 lord. 
 
34 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 Raffles says that when the English took 
 possession of the country they found that the 
 Dutch invariably slept with closed doors and 
 guarded houses, but that the English kept their 
 houses open night and day, and their confidence 
 was not misplaced. But it must be remember- 
 ed that this remark was made in 1811 A. D., 
 just after the terribly vigorous administration 
 of Marshal Daendels. That officer, as we have 
 seen, was sent to Java " to protect the natives/' 
 This shows that, in the opinion of Holland, 
 the people bad not altogether been well treat- 
 ed, but Marshal Daendel's idea of protection 
 was to sacrifice 10,000 lives in the construc- 
 tion of his system of military roads, and under 
 his administration many districts were nearly 
 depopulated by the migrations from the Dutch 
 Provinces to the Native States. Under this 
 state of things it is not wonderful that the 
 Dutch slept uneasy in their beds, or that they 
 pronounced the Javans to be deceitful and trea- 
 cherous. 
 
 The Javans proper are an agricultural race, 
 closely attached to the soil, of quiet habits and 
 contented disposition. They leave trade almost 
 entirely to the Malays and Bujis, who being 
 maritime and commercial races, are adventur- 
 ous and accustomed to distant and hazardous 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 35 
 
 enterprises. These people are found mostly in 
 the seaports and generally have their own 
 quartiers in the cities. The trade in the in- 
 terior is almost entirely in the hands of the 
 Chinese, of whom, in Raffles' time, there were 
 100,000 in the island : and the mixed race be- 
 tween these people and the Javans is also 
 very numerous. Prior to the English occupa- 
 tion the settled policy of the Dutch had been 
 to depress the natives and encourage the 
 Chinese, whom they found to be exceedingly 
 usfcful as farmers of the revenue. A reaction 
 from this policy has now set in and immigra- 
 tion from China is discouraged. It is possibly 
 the great superiority of the soil which accounts 
 for the tenacity with which the Javan clings to 
 his agricultural pursuits ; it is more probable 
 that the characteristics of the Indian race are 
 reproduced in the Javan. Again, as in India, 
 " infancy and marriage go together," the hus- 
 band of sixteen taking home his bride of thir- 
 teen. Marriage contracts are almost identical 
 in their steps with Hindu usage. A bachelor 
 is well nigh unknown. If the bridegroom can- 
 not attend the marriage ceremony he sends his 
 " kris " as proxy ! Dissolutions of marriage 
 are frequent and easily obtained, the wife pay- 
 ing a fine and the husband giving alimony : 
 
36 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 but children cost little to rear and are valuable 
 for their services. They therefore do not suffer 
 from this cause. 
 
 Slavery, up to Raffles' time, had been pro- 
 moted by the Dutch, and he estimated that there 
 were 30,000 slaves in the island. No Javan 
 was, however, ever reduced to slavery, this class 
 being entirely recruited from the neighbouring 
 islands. It is probable that the connection 
 formed with the indigenous Javans by the con- 
 quering colonists saved the whole native-born 
 population from liability to slavery after the 
 settlement of the country. It seems, however, 
 that the condition of slaves in Java was never 
 intolerable. It is possible that the system of 
 forced labour — which is, and apparently always 
 has been, such a marked feature in the econo- 
 mics of Java — may have been a survival of 
 the servile labour of the indigenous Javanese, 
 but it is more likely that in this, as in so many 
 other customs, the Indian principle was intro- 
 duced and ^' begari " became an important ele- 
 ment in the social Javan life. No Javan thinks 
 of disputing the claim of his chief to dispose of 
 a large portion of his labour just as he pleases, 
 and the labour is given just as much as a 
 matter of course to the Government, when it 
 is required. As may be expected, this system 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 37 
 
 works in many cases terribly unequally and 
 oppressively, but its effects will be considered 
 more conveniently when the land tenures are 
 discussed. 
 
 The labour of women in the country districts 
 is as much valued as that of the men. The 
 men plough, harrow and weed : the women 
 transplant, reap and carry. In the fields agri- 
 culturists are entirely relieved from one portion 
 of labour which falls so heavily on our cultiva- 
 tors in India. No water has to be raised. 
 Abundance of irrigation is obtained from the 
 hundreds of channels which run all over the 
 country, and no machinery of any kind is re- 
 quired to bring water to each man's field. 
 Curiously enough, up to Raffles' time the Ja- 
 vans themselves used no mill for expressing the 
 juice from the sugarcane, but left this process 
 to the Chinese, obtaining their sugar entirely 
 from the tari tree. All this has been changed, 
 and there is now, under the culture system (of 
 which more hereafter), an enormous area under 
 cane. 
 
 In the matter of education the Dutch adopted, 
 and still to this day adopt, a very decided 
 policy. They deliberately keep the Javans 
 ignorant of all Western literature. There are 
 schools in the villages, generally presided over 
 
38 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 by one of the priests, but instruction in Dutch 
 or in any other language except the Javan 
 vernacular is rigorously excluded. Primary 
 education alone is attended to, and no higher 
 education of any kind permitted. Neither is 
 the use of Dutch in conversation with natives 
 encouraged : and should a Javan acquainted 
 with the Dutch colloquial address an official in 
 that language he finds himself at once checked 
 and rebuked by being answered in the verna- 
 cular. The Hollanders at any rate are deter- 
 mined that they will create for themselves no 
 difficulties of the sort that they see surrounding 
 the English in India. They argue that the 
 Javans would generally make no good use of 
 their education, and the spectacle of the "Con- 
 gress" certainly leads them to think that this 
 opinion is well justified. This is only one of 
 the points in which the Dutch system is 
 diametrically opposite to the liberal and self- 
 sacrificing policy of the British, and it is this 
 contrast in the administration which makes the 
 study of the government by Holland of its great 
 Oriental dependency and a consideration of the 
 results so intensely interesting and instructive 
 to the Anglo-Indian. 
 
 The Javan language is no doubt the language 
 of the aborigines, or rather of the race which 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 3^ 
 
 occupied the island when it was colonised by the 
 Hindus, largely mingled with words of Sanscrit 
 origin. Valentyne says that in the high or court 
 Javan language at least three out of four words 
 come direct from the Sanskrit : and this is ex- 
 actly what we should have expected, the Hindus 
 as conquerors insisting on imposing their tongue 
 upon the conquered race, just as the Norman 
 haughtily disdained to accept Saxon from those 
 whom he had subdued. The consequence is that 
 there still run side by side two Javan vernacu- 
 lars—the polite language in which Hindu words 
 abound, and the language of the commons in 
 which they are far less frequent. Both languages, 
 however, are written in the same character, 
 which is a corrupt form of the Pali : and this in- 
 dicates that the aborigines possessed no written 
 characters until the Hindus introduced theirs 
 into the island. Nor have any such characters 
 been found on any inscriptions. The language 
 of the common people owes little or nothing to 
 the Arabic, in spite of the intercourse with the 
 Malays. It has four very distinct dialects, the 
 Sunda in the west and south-west, the Javan in 
 the north and east, and the dialects of Madura 
 and Bali. In this vulgar tongue nouns have no 
 gender, number, or case, and adjectives are 
 indeclinable. In addressing one of the upper 
 
40 SOME NO TES ON J A VA . 
 
 classes a Javan is obliged to use the court 
 language, and similarly children in addressing 
 their parents will, as far as possible, use the 
 same language in token of respect. The people, 
 therefore, have really to be acquainted with 
 both vernaculars. The classic language "Kawi," 
 in which nearly all mythological poems are 
 written, consists almost entirely of Sanskrit, 
 and this in a far less corrupted form than the 
 Pali, In Bali, which is the last stronghold of 
 Hinduism, the Kawi is still the language of 
 religion and of law, the knowledge of it being 
 mainly confined to the Brahmans. The Kawi 
 was undoubtedly the channel through which the 
 Sanskrit element penetrated the vernacular 
 dialects of Java, and even now the educated 
 and half-educated will endeavour to introduce 
 Kawi words into their writings, just as the 
 police diary writer in India interlards his jargon 
 with Persian and Arabic words. Devanagri is 
 also found in some few manuscripts, and there 
 are inscriptions in this character on some of 
 the temples. All old writings of importance, 
 such as the mythological works mentioned 
 above, are in verse, and we find the origin of 
 the Hindu deities, the wars of the Pandus, &c., 
 all localised. In the Ramayana, however, the 
 story is for the main part laid in India, and is 
 
SOME NO TES ON JAVA. 41 
 
 only so far localised that, after the death 
 of Ravana, Hanuman is made to migrate 
 to Java. The custom of burying dates in sen- 
 tences by giving certain values to words and 
 letters obtains as in Persia and India. 
 
42 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 IV. 
 The land system, obtaining in Java when 
 the Dutch first landed, was almost identical 
 with that prevailing in Hindustan, and it is 
 quite certain that it was carried from the latter 
 country to their new settlements by the emi- 
 grant Hindus. We find the sovereign acknow- 
 ledged without question as the owner of the 
 soil, the cultivator occupying it under unvary- 
 ing conditions, the governors receiving assign- 
 ments of the revenue of large areas in payment 
 for their services in administration. Pro- 
 prietary right, as we English understand it, 
 never existed. The land was national property, 
 the nation being represented by the sovereign. 
 Sir Stamford Raffles, after a very full investiga- 
 tion into the land-tenures, writes : — "Generally 
 speaking, no proprietary right in the soil is 
 vested in anyone between the cultivator and 
 sovereign, the intermediate classes, who may 
 at any time have enjoyed the revenues of vil- 
 lages or districts, being deemed the executive 
 officers of Government who received these 
 revenues as a gift from their lord, and who 
 depended on his will alone for their tenure." 
 Again, Herr Knops, one of the Dutch Com- 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA, 43 
 
 missioners for the investigation of land-tenures, 
 writes : — " There is not a single Javan who 
 supposes that the soil is the property of the 
 regent, but they are all sensible that it belongs 
 to the Government, nominally called the sove- 
 reign among them. The Javan's idea of pro- 
 perty is modified by the three kinds of subjects 
 to which it is applied : rice-fields, gagas, or fruit 
 trees. A Javan has no rice-field he can call 
 his own. Those of which he had the use of 
 last year will be exchanged next year for others. 
 They circulate from one cultivator to another, 
 and if any villager were excluded, he would 
 infallibly emigrate. It is different with the 
 gagas, or lands where dry rice is cultivated. 
 The cultivator who clears such lands from 
 trees or brushwood and reclaims them from a 
 wilderness, considers himself to be a proprietor 
 of the same. With regard to fruit trees, the 
 Javan cultivator claims those he has planted 
 as his legal property without any impost. If a 
 chief were to transgress against this right the 
 village would be deserted." 
 
 No co-parcenary communities are traceable 
 anywhere in the island, indicating that no col- 
 lector of revenue or headman of a village has 
 ever yet succeeded in so strengthening his 
 position as to become actually the proprietor, 
 
44 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 capable of leaving the property to his heirs. 
 The boundaries of villages in Java are not well 
 defined as in India — a fact which indicates the 
 absence of all idea of property either on the 
 part of an individual landlord or of a communi- 
 ty. No sales of land have been known, although 
 the assignees of the revenue could sell their 
 assignments to others. This system of *' pusa- 
 kas," or jaghirs, as they would be called in 
 India^ was carried to a great length. Every 
 " tumangung " or ruler of a province was paid 
 by the sovereign by a pusaka. He in his turn 
 would grant pusakas to his demangs (tehsildars), 
 and the demang to the bukal (lambardar). 
 Similarly all the underlings and petty officials, 
 the kliwons, the jeyang-sekars (armed police), 
 the retinues of the chiefs of various grades, — all 
 were paid in assignments of the revenues of 
 lands. All this opened the door to great 
 abuses, but in no cases did the grantees suc- 
 ceed in usurping the proprietary right. No 
 length of holding, no application of industry or 
 capital could justify any Javan in calling any 
 rice-grounds his own. Nor could he gain a 
 title even to a definite term of occupancy. Nor, 
 of course, could any right of inheritance accrue. 
 As a matter of convenience the cultivators' heirs 
 succeeded to their fathers' position, just as the 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA, 45 
 
 son of the bukal might succeed his father, in 
 the headship of the village, and just as the 
 demang's heir might succeed him : but no such 
 right of succession was recognised. 
 
 Dr. J. Crawfurd, who was resident at Sura- 
 karta, in his history of the Indian Archipelago 
 published in 1820 A. D., says that, in what- 
 ever country of the Archipelago arbitrary Gov- 
 ernment then existed, the titles of the prince, of 
 his nobility, and of many of his officers of 
 Government, would be found generally to be 
 purely Hindu. He goes on to say : — ''It is 
 among the Javanese properly so-called that the 
 proprietary right of the sovereign in the soil 
 is most unequivocally established. Such is the 
 universality of this principle that I do not be- 
 lieve, in the whole territory of the native princes, 
 there are a hundred acres over which, by the 
 law or customs of the country, any distinct 
 proprietary right could be pointed out indepen- 
 dent of the sovereign. There may be here 
 and there a little forbearance from motives of 
 religion ; but a proprietary right in the soil on 
 the part of a subject, it is not going too far 
 to assert, would be unintelligible to the people, 
 so strongly contrasted are their opinions and 
 oursonthis point." And again: — "In the highly 
 peopled provinces of Java, where the popula- 
 
46 SOME NOTES ON JA VA. 
 
 tion begins already to press on the good land, 
 the cultivator exercises no right over the soil, 
 and I hardly know any privilege v^^hich he 
 possesses in regard to it except the liberty of 
 abandoning it." 
 
 The only exceptions to the general rule, which 
 excluded the idea of individual right in landed 
 property, are to be found in the mountainous 
 and wooded tracts occupied by the Sundas in 
 the west of the island, where private pro- 
 perty is established and the holder's interest is 
 transferable. This right has doubtless arisen 
 in these tracts from the necessity of offering 
 superior inducements to the reclaimers of such 
 lands to settle in those parts, and it may be 
 compared to the rights acquired by ryots in 
 India who, under clearing grants, felled the 
 dense forests of the Terai tracts. The right of 
 the cultivator in his " gaga " lands, mentioned 
 by Herr Knops, arises in the same manner. 
 The cultivator under native rule paid nominally 
 as land-revenue one-fifth of his produce ; but 
 under unscrupulous officials this was often 
 increased to as much as two-fifths, and Raffles 
 found this rate not an uncommon one. This 
 share might be either taken in kind or at a 
 valuation— a practice exactly similar to that 
 prevailing in most of the grain-rented districts 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 47 
 
 of the North of India. Crawfurd describes the 
 process thus : — " Suppose the crop of a given 
 quantity of land consists of 60 parts. One- 
 sixth is deducted at once for reaping, which, in 
 almost all cases, goes to the cultivator and his 
 family. Of the remaining 50 parts, two go to 
 the village priest, after which the remainder 
 is divided into equal parts between the culti- 
 vator and the sovereign. The shares of the 
 parties are therefore as follows : — 
 
 Cultivator's share 
 
 .., 34 parts. 
 
 Priest 
 
 ... 2 „ 
 
 Sovereign 
 
 ... 24 „ 
 
 Total ... 60 „ 
 
 " One-fifth of the sovereign's share has been 
 occasionally paid as commission for collection. 
 This would reduce the sovereign's actual share 
 to one-third of the gross produce of rice-lands." 
 In addition to this fifth of the produce the 
 officials representing the sovereign could, if 
 they wished it, take the whole produce of the 
 cultivator at the harvest price. The main 
 ch-ecks upon the extortionate use of this power 
 were the difficulty of getting rid of the pro- 
 du<:e and desertion of the villages. 
 
 In practice this power was not in the old 
 days abused to any great extent, the wholesome 
 check of emigration restraining the chiefs from 
 
48 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 going too far. In Java, too, as in India, the 
 power of "adat" (usage), a word clearly in- 
 troduced by Mahomedans, is great, and high 
 and low obey it. A small ground-rent for 
 houses was also payable by the cultivators, and 
 in many districts a capitation-tax was levied. 
 Then there were contributions at births and 
 marriages in the chiefs family, and contributions 
 for charitable and religious objects. The roads, 
 dams and irrigation channels had to be maintain- 
 ed, and the maintenance came out of the pockets 
 of the cultivators. Anglo-Indian officials in the 
 North of India will recognise some of these 
 imposts under the names of " parjot," " mar- 
 wanah," &c. Besides the land-revenue and 
 other dues the cultivator is bound to render to 
 the sovereign or his representatives one day out 
 of every five of his labour. In 1879, 2,030,136 
 persons in the island were subject to the corvee, 
 each person being liable for 52 days' labour 
 in the year. In the same year the total popula- 
 tion was put at — 
 
 Europeans ... ... ... 29,998 
 
 Chinese ... ... .„ 200,303 
 
 Arabs »►. ... ... 9,610 
 
 Natives ... ... ... 18,824,574 
 
 Others ... ... ... 3,344 
 
 Total ... 19,067,829 
 SO that roughly one out of every nine persons is 
 bound to render this service, and there is no 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 49 
 
 doubt whatever that this obligation is much 
 abused up to the present day. Every underling, 
 however low, who can represent himself, truly or 
 not, as the servant of the official, lords it in the 
 village and makes the first cultivator he catches 
 work for him. So also all officials — high and 
 low — passing through the villages, consider 
 themselves entitled to free supplies. These 
 two customs, which almost exactly find their 
 counterparts in the Indian " begari " and " ras- 
 sad," form the two main counts upon which 
 ** Max Havelaar " arraigns the Dutch Govern- 
 ment in the powerful indictment which, under 
 the guise of a novel, he brought against his late 
 masters in 1868 A. D. He shows how, up to 
 the present day, the customs which may have 
 had their origin in unobjectionable feudal ser- 
 vices, often in the hands of exacting native 
 officials become terrible instruments of oppres- 
 sion, and how the Dutch, while they issue 
 voluminous philanthropic instructions to 
 their officers, in which the protection of the 
 natives figures as one of their first duties, never- 
 theless shut their eyes to the tyranny which 
 in some regencies is practised with impunity, 
 the general desire being that things may go 
 easily, that there may be no open scandals, and 
 that high native officials, through whom the 
 
50 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 Javans are ruled, may be conciliated. It is 
 quite certain that in India abuses under the 
 guise of rassad (supplies) and begari (unpaid 
 labour) are not so flagrant as in Java ; but that 
 they exist every European official will admit, 
 and it is our bounden duty to persistently dis- 
 courage these practices and protect our native 
 fellow-subjects from themselves. 
 
 The system of administration in Java under 
 the native sovereigns was almost identical with 
 that of Akbar in India. We have, under differ- 
 ent titles, the same very complete division of 
 the country into provinces, districts, sub-dis- 
 tricts and villages. The headmen of the villages 
 trere, as in India, chosen by the villagers them- 
 selves. The rulers of the sub-districts, districts 
 and provinces, were appointed, and all held office 
 at the pleasure of those who nominated them. 
 With their duties as revenue collectors they 
 combined the offices of criminal and civil 
 judges, being assisted by the Mussulman law 
 officer and a legal counsellor, who was the 
 expounder of local customs which regulated 
 much the dispensing of justice. The parallel 
 between the Javan and Indian system is curi- 
 ously exact. 
 
 When the Dutch had made good their foot- 
 ing in the island they made no attempt to un- 
 
SOME NOTES ON JA VA. 5 1 
 
 dertake its government. So far as the natives 
 were concerned, they left them and their man- 
 agement entirely to their native rulers. Their 
 policy was entirely commercial and avowedly 
 selfish. They insisted on certain articles of 
 commerce being kept close monopolies for them- 
 selves ; they demanded from each district a 
 forced contingent of rice, leaving the tumangungs 
 (or regents) to levy it from the villages in 
 what manner they pleased ; they compelled the 
 regents to supply whatever labour they re- 
 quired for their public works, and after they 
 had started the coffee plantations, they required 
 the regents to see that every cultivator planted, 
 nurtured and plucked a certain number of coffee 
 trees ; they required that the services of 32,000 
 famiHes should be placed at their disposal for 
 the felling of timber in the Government forests ; 
 and in other ways they endeavoured to bleed 
 the country for their own benefit, without 
 attempting to give it anything in return. Dur- 
 ing this period, therefore, the unhappy country 
 had not only to endure the ills which were in- 
 digenous, but it had, in addition, to suffer the 
 oppression consequent on the presence of a 
 foreign power, which insisted on the native 
 rulers extorting produce and forced services 
 from the people for their white masters as well 
 
52 SOME NOTES ON JAVA, 
 
 as for themselves. But this endeavour on the 
 part of the Dutch to work the so-called colony 
 for the benefit of the mother-country by such a 
 clumsy and narrov^ system, v^^as a disastrous 
 failure. In order to keep up the price of the 
 monopoly products they actually often destroyed 
 a large quantity of them; timber accumulated 
 to such an extent that it rotted at the depots ; 
 the deficits every year became more and more 
 serious, and long before the English took pos- 
 session, the island had ceased to be of any com- 
 mercial advantage to Holland. 
 
 Sir Stamford RafQes had not been long in 
 Java before he determined on a complete 
 change of system. The Dutch monopolies were 
 abandoned, freedom of cultivation was estab- 
 lished, the forced deliveries of rice were stop- 
 ped, all tolls on inland trade were abolished, 
 and taxes on coasting trade removed, the port 
 dues were equalised and their collection taken 
 out of the hands of the Chinese. The salt 
 farms were resumed and administered direct, 
 and the " blandongs " (the system under which 
 the teak forests were worked) were abolished, 
 a certain area being reserved to be worked by 
 paid labour, and the rest thrown open to private 
 enterprise. But the greatest relief to the 
 people was given in the abolition of all forced 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 53 
 
 services. The coffee plantations were no 
 longer managed as Government properties by 
 compulsory labour. The cultivators were left 
 to keep them up or not, just as they pleased, 
 the Government undertaking to purchase all 
 coftee which the growers could not dispose of in 
 the open market at a rate double that which 
 was paid by the Dutch. The villages were 
 held bound, as heretofore, to furnish their 
 quota of men for works on the roads and other 
 public works ; but all this labour was now to 
 be paid for at the regular market rate. In 
 order to provide revenue wherewith to admi- 
 nister the country, RafQes commuted all the 
 imposts on the cultivators into one fixed tax, 
 namely, two-fifths (instead of one-fifth) of the 
 produce ; but he took this land-revenue from 
 the first crop only, and allowed the second crop 
 to be cut clear of any tax whatever. Fruit trees 
 and gardens were left free. The cultivator 
 henceforward was to know exactly what would 
 be demanded of him, and would be called 
 upon to make no other contributions either in 
 kind, in money, or in labour. 
 
 Raffles then proceeded to reform the land- 
 tenures by excluding, as much as possible, the 
 higher class of natives from any connection with 
 the soil, by leasing the lands direct to the cul- 
 
54 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 tivator. During the Dutch rule the native re- 
 gents would farm out the land-revenues to de- 
 mangs, and the demangs would sub-let to bukals. 
 Raffles forbad such leases, and reduced the 
 regents and their subordinates to mere collec- 
 tors of revenue. Village rent-rolls were pre- 
 pared, and the native collectors had to collect 
 and account in accordance with these. The 
 cultivators were given leases for three years, 
 and it was clearly the intention [of Raffles to 
 introduce the ryotwari system of India, and to 
 make the cultivators practically proprietors of 
 their lands. To compensate native officials for 
 their loss of income under these changes, Raffles 
 provided them with handsome salaries and 
 maintained their rank. He also, while he 
 checked their interference in revenue matters, 
 increased their dignity and usefulness by mak- 
 ing them act as his police, giving them small 
 correctional powers within their districts : and 
 this is one of the few reforms carried out by 
 Raffles, which were maintained by the Dutch 
 when they resumed possession of the country 
 in 1815 A.D. Torture and mutilation were 
 abolished, and compounding for crime was dis- 
 allowed ; courts of law were established, and 
 an endeavour was made to secure the benefit 
 of their own laws to the Javans, even in crir 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 55 
 
 minal cases, save incases of murder. The 
 revenue and judicial instructions issued by 
 Sir Stamford to his officers read very like 
 those that might have been issued forty or 
 fifty years ago to the commission of a newly- 
 acquired province in India. That the reforms 
 contemplated and mostly carried out were con- 
 ceived in a nobly generous spirit and elaborat- 
 ed in a very masterly manner, must be admit- 
 ted even by the Dutch ; but viewing them by 
 the light of our subsequent experience in India, 
 we must hesitate to pronounce some of them 
 to have been either good for the people whom 
 it was Raffles's earnest desire to benefit, or ad- 
 vantageous for the Government. 
 
 It was Raffles's intention, as soon as his 
 temporary settlement had expired, to confer on 
 the cultivators the full proprietary right in their 
 holdings, involving the terribly doubtful privi- 
 lege of alienating their fields and the disastrous 
 liability to be sold up, either by their civil cre- 
 ditors or by the revenue authorities, for default. 
 By the return of the island to Dutch rule the 
 Javans have escaped that fatal gift of absolute 
 proprietary right which has been the ruin of 
 so many tens of thousands of our peasantry 
 in India, and with which, while striving to 
 bless, we have so efiectually cursed the soil of 
 
56 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 India. It is not too much to say that the loss 
 of all the many benefits which undoubtedly 
 would have been conferred on Java by the 
 substitution of English for Dutch rule, is not 
 too high a price to have paid for escape from 
 the many evils of unrestrained power to ali- 
 enate landed property. Under their present 
 Government the Javans, according to our Eng- 
 lish ideas, ought to be the most miserable peo- 
 ple. That they are not so, but that, on the 
 contrary, they are the most prosperous of Ori- 
 ental peasantry, is mainly due to one cause — 
 the inability of the Javan to raise one single 
 florin on the security of his fields, and the pro- 
 tection thus enjoyed by him against the money- 
 lender and against himself. Nature is bounti- 
 ful in Java, and undoubtedly the abundant 
 fertility of the soil enables the Javan to stand 
 up under many ills to which he is subject ; but 
 were her fecundity doubled, were she to pour 
 her gifts as from a cornucopia into his lap, no- 
 thing would ultimately save him from the 
 money-lender and from consequent evicti9n 
 from his fields and his home if he were able to 
 pledge the one or the other as security for an 
 advance. 
 
 Herr Mummtingle, one of the Dutch Commis- 
 sioners whom Raffles consulted in considering 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA, 57 
 
 the question whether such radical reforms 
 could, politically viewed, be safely carried out 
 in such a conservative country as Java, remark- 
 ed that the maintenance of the nobles' rank and 
 titles, the attention to their dignity in confer- 
 ring upon them police jurisdiction and petty 
 magisterial power, the grant of high salaries, 
 and the relief from produce deliveries and 
 money contributions, ought and probably would 
 be considered a sufficient compensation for 
 their loss of profits, but he prophetically added 
 that " the breath of opinion might dissolve even 
 the British power in India," and he counselled 
 caution and a gradual introduction of the sys- 
 tem. He also displayed his shrewdness in 
 saying that no order of abolition would suffice' 
 to abolish the custom of feudal services being 
 rendered to those to whom they had hitherto 
 been given. The force of " adat " would be too 
 strong even for the British Government. Herr 
 Mummtingle doubtless hit the blot in Raffles' 
 reforms — a blot which has disfigured only too 
 many a page of English administration of 
 Oriental countries. A want of true apprecia- 
 tion of native ideas and incorrect valuation of 
 Oriental methods has always betrayed us into 
 imposing on our fellow-subjects in the East, 
 without tact and without preparation, princi- 
 
58 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 pies and measures which, however good in 
 themselves, are unintelligible and therefore 
 unwelcome to those whom we wish to benefit. 
 We are so eager to fight abuses and set wrong 
 right that we cannot wait to see whether even 
 in the abuse there may not be latent some 
 principle which, if rightly applied, will enable 
 us to reform instead of eradicate, shape instead 
 of destroy. The Dutch before the time of 
 Raffles, and almost equally so up to the pre- 
 sent day, went much too far in the opposite 
 direction. As Sir Stamford says of them : — 
 " They had little other connection with their 
 best subjects — the cultivators of the soil — than 
 in calling upon them from time to time for 
 arbitrary and oppressive contributions and ser- 
 vices; and, for the rest, they gave them up to be 
 vassals to the various intermediate authorities, 
 the regents, demangs and other native officers " — 
 a selfish, narrow, iniquitous and withal a suicidal 
 policy. But it at least escaped the evils atten- 
 dant on the sudden introduction of methods of 
 government necessarily distasteful to the for- 
 mer holders of power and at the same time 
 uncongenial to the people and opposed to their 
 traditional notions of right. Could Sir Stamford 
 Raffles have stopped short of the introduction 
 of the new principle of proprietary right, with 
 
SOME NO TES ON JAVA. 5 q 
 
 its corollaries of power of transfer and mort- 
 gage, had he seen his way clear to utilising 
 the labour rent by regulating, instead of abo- 
 lishing, that much-abused system, and had he 
 thus been able to avoid increasing the share 
 of the produce demandable by the Government, 
 his reforms would have had a better chance of 
 furthering the true interests of the Javan. 
 
 The three years of the British administration 
 of the island, however, were not wasted. When 
 the Dutch re-occupied their old possession and 
 found it swept and garnished, they did not pro- 
 ceed to call in the proverbial seven spirits 
 worse than themselves. On the contrary, they 
 began by announcing that they would abolish 
 monopolies of production and allow freedom of 
 cultivation. Further, finding that Singapore, 
 a free port at their very gates, was taking away 
 even such little trade as they already enjoyed, 
 they made a virtue of necessity and largely 
 modified their diff'erent duties. But the great- 
 est permanent gains which the Javans obtained 
 from RafQes' rule were the admirable police 
 system and the establishment of courts of justice, 
 both of which reforms were maintained by the 
 Dutch, the former in its entirety and the latter 
 with some modifications. They, however, 
 swept away with decision the ryotwari system, 
 
6o SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 together with the right to sell and be sold up, 
 and reverted, to the great relief of all concern- 
 ed, to the old village system under which each 
 cottier was allotted at the beginning of the year 
 his parcel of rice-fields, subject to the payment 
 of the grain-revenue. It is asserted by the 
 Dutch (and all who know the manner in which 
 unfamiliar measures are received in India can 
 well believe it) that, in spite of Raffles' endeavour 
 to bestow separate holdings on the cultivators, 
 the Javans continued under the English to 
 manage their affairs in their own way and to 
 cultivate under the annual allotment system as 
 heretofore. The Dutch, however, kept a grip 
 on the land-revenue, which Raises had for 
 the first time, since Java was occupied by Euro- 
 peans, brought into the Government treasury. 
 They reduced it from two-fifths to one-fifth of 
 the produce, and, to compensate themselves 
 for the surrender of the extra one-fifth taken 
 by the English, they re-imposed the old labour 
 rent, reducing it from one-fifth of the cultivation 
 labour to one day in seven. 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA, 6l 
 
 V. 
 
 The financial result of Raffles' schemes had 
 been most marked, the revenue rising from 3J 
 millions of florins in 1810 to 7 J millions in 1814, 
 and the Dutch maintaining the same system 
 were able to continually increase this sum 
 until it reached 24 millions of florins in 1830 
 A. D. This revenue was, however, only ob- 
 tained by very severe taxation, and the country 
 could not have gone on yielding this amount* 
 The Government had been engaged for some 
 years in a war with the two native principali- 
 ties— Surakarta and Jokyokarta — and, in spite of 
 the increasing revenue, deficits were year by 
 year becoming more and more alarming, and 
 Java bid fair to again land Holland in heavy 
 debt. From these difficulties the Dutch were 
 delivered by General Vander Bosch, in 1832 
 A. D., who initiated what is known as the 
 "culture system." Under this scheme the rev- 
 enue rose in twenty-five years from 2 millions 
 sterling to 9J millions sterling annually. The 
 Government with this fine revenue was able 
 during the same twenty-five years to pay oft 
 the old Java debt, to raise its unproductive ex- 
 penditure to 3 millions sterling and its reproduc- 
 
62 SOME NOTES ON JAVA, 
 
 tive expenditure more than 2 millions, while 
 the trade statistics showed that imports had 
 jumped from 2 millions to 5 millions and exports 
 from 2 millions to 8J millions. Population rose 
 during the same period from 6 millions to 12 
 millions, and it is calculated that at the present 
 time the population touches 20 millions. 
 
 Under the culture system the Government 
 may be said to have become farmers on a 
 gigantic scale. Recognising the fact that the 
 soil of Java was eminently suitable to the 
 growth of certain valuable products, such as 
 sugar, tea, tobacco, coffee, cinnamon, pepper, 
 indigo and cochineal, while the native, left to 
 himself, would never exert himself to raise 
 these crops, the Government determined in its 
 capacity of owner of the land to declare that in 
 the villages selected as suitable at least one- 
 fifth of the area should be sown with the crop 
 prescribed. If the crop was one such as sugar, 
 requiring manufacture on the spot, a contractor 
 was placed in the village or group of villages 
 to whom the villagers were bound to deliver 
 all the raw produce as cut, receiving a fixed 
 price for the same. The contractor, who had 
 received large advances from the Government 
 to enable him to set up the necessary machi- 
 nery, on his part was bound to deliver a certain 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 63 
 
 quantity of the manufactured article to the 
 Government, again, at a fixed price. The re- 
 sult has been enormous profit to the Govern- 
 ment, very considerable gain to the contractor, 
 and, the advocates of the system say, great 
 pecuniary advantages to the villagers. Now, 
 when it is considered that not only has the 
 Government, the contractor and the grower 
 to get their profit (and it is asserted large 
 profit) out of the article, but the officials — 
 European and native — also receive a handsome 
 percentage on the result in order to interest 
 them in the success of the factory, a sceptic 
 may be led to inquire at what point in the 
 process is the marvel worked which gives such 
 a satisfactory result. It is admitted that pri- 
 vate planters, renting land from Government 
 and paying for their labour, are unable to 
 achieve such startling success. The advocates 
 of the culture system say that this arises from 
 the want ** of official support among a native 
 population who require authoritative explana- 
 tion and persuasion to secure continued appli- 
 cation of new ideas even for their own good." 
 
 Those who are acquainted with Oriental 
 populations will admit that there is some truth 
 in this remark, but the explanation would 
 probably be more correct if for " official sup- 
 
64 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 port" were substituted "official pressure/' 
 There can be but little doubt that the factor 
 which determines the profits of the contractor 
 and of the Government is the price which is 
 paid for the raw produce to the cultivator. If 
 that is high the profits of the other parties to 
 the bargain will be low : if it is low the supe- 
 rior partners will reap the advantage. Where 
 the cultivator grows a crop by order and 
 receives a price for his produce fixed by him 
 who makes him sow, there is, it need not be 
 said, a terrible temptation to the latter to make 
 the most of his opportunity. In India we are 
 familiar with this problem in the indigo culture. 
 When indigo commanded a very high price in 
 the market, the planter could afford to give the 
 cultivator compelled by him to sow the plant a 
 fair price ; now that indigo has fallen in value, 
 the only way to secure good pecuniary results 
 is to give such a reduced price for the raw 
 material as barely enables the cultivator to 
 subsist. Doubtless a Government, strong to 
 resist temptation, and vigilant in seeing that its 
 paper orders are obeyed, could, when high 
 prices rule, secure to the cultivator a fair price 
 for his produce, and at the same time reap 
 large profits ; but in these days, when such 
 products as sugar and indigo are at such low. 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA, 65 
 
 quotations, it is impossible that under the Javan 
 system large Government profits can be com- 
 patible with fair treatment of the cultivator. 
 
 This is what Max Havelaar says on this 
 subject, and it is worth quoting at length, 
 as it is the evidence of a Dutchman who had 
 seventeen years of experience of official life in 
 Java : — " The Javan is by nature a husbandman ; 
 the ground whereon he is born, which gives 
 much for little labour, allures him to agricul- 
 tural work, and, above all things, he devotes his 
 whole heart to the cultivating of his rice-fields. 
 The cultivation of rice is, in Java, what the 
 vintage is in the Rhine provinces and in the 
 south of France. But there came foreigners 
 from the West who made themselves masters 
 of the country. They wished to profit by the 
 fertility of the soil, and ordered the native 
 to devote a part of his time and labour to 
 the cultivation of other things, which should 
 produce higher profits in the markets of 
 Europe. To persuade the lower orders to 
 do so, they only had to follow a very simple 
 policy. The Javan obeys his chief: to win 
 the chiefs it was only necessary to give 
 them a part of the gains, and success was com- 
 plete. To be convinced of the success of that 
 policy, we need only consider the immense 
 
66 SOME NO TES ON J A VA. 
 
 quantity of Javanese products sold in Holland : 
 and we shall also be convinced of its injustice, 
 for if anybody should ask if the husbandman 
 gets a reward in proportion to that quantity, 
 then I must give a negative answer. The Gov- 
 ernment compels him to cultivate certain pro- 
 ducts on his ground : it punishes him if he sells 
 what he has produced to any purchaser but 
 itself, and it fixes the price actually paid. The 
 expenses of transport to Europe through a pri- 
 vileged trading company are high : the money 
 paid to the chiefs for encouragement increases 
 the prime cost ; and because the entire trade 
 must produce profit, that profit cannot be got 
 in any other way than by paying the Javan 
 just enough to keep him from starving." 
 
 This criticism of the culture system was writ- 
 ten in 1868 A. D., and no answer to it has 
 been given officially or unofficially. The Dutch 
 Government gets a clean profit of five millions 
 sterling, and this is a very solid reason for 
 silence. The average annual produce of the 
 Government coffee plantations for the ten 
 years ending in 1878 A. D. was 52,000 tons, 
 while the sugar plantations yielded 207,000 
 tons. The Government of India is not inex- 
 perienced in the culture system. It raises its 
 opium revenue by a system identical with that 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 67 
 
 of Java, save in the all-important point that the 
 opium cultivators compete with one another for 
 permission to sow the poppy, while in Java 
 they are compelled to sow the crop named by 
 the contractor-controller. In India also there 
 is no contractor in the business. The factories 
 are managed direct by the Opium Department. 
 Should the demand for opium in China cease, 
 as seems not improbable, it might perhaps be 
 possible for the Indian Government to declare 
 tobacco a monopoly, and work its cultivation on 
 the culture system. Indian tobacco is fast find- 
 ing a European market. 
 
 An ingenious device for increasing the Gov- 
 ernment profit was devised by General Van- 
 der Bosch at the same time as he initiated the 
 culture system. An enormous amount of cop- 
 per coinage was manufactured in Holland, the 
 intrinsic value being rather less than half the 
 nominal value. This coinage was made a legal 
 tender, and the cultivator was paid for his pro- 
 duce in this copper coin. Thus, as Mr. Money 
 in his work Java ; or. How to Manage a Colony , 
 naively remarks : — " The loans, raised in Hol- 
 land to start the system, produced an eftect in 
 Java equal to double their amount." 
 
 But when all is said against the culture sys- 
 te m, it must still be admitted that the cultivat- 
 
68 SOME NOTES ON JAVA, 
 
 ing class in Java is distinctly well-to-do. The 
 evidence to be drawn from a personal view of 
 the rural population in their prosperous villages 
 is decisive on this point; and the only conclusion 
 to which we can come is that the extraordi- 
 nary fertility of the soil and the entire absence 
 of the landlord and middleman, enable the Javan 
 peasant to bear up and even thrive under a sys- 
 tem which violates in many ways our Western 
 principles of justice and fair dealing, and which, 
 unless it is most vigilantly supervised and 
 directed, is capable of working ruin to the one 
 who is unable to raise his voice on the sub- 
 ject. Crawfurd, speaking of the period when 
 the English had just occupied the country, gives 
 similar testimony to the condition of the people 
 and comes to a like conclusion. He says "that 
 the habitation of the Javanese peasant is neater, 
 his clothing and food better, and his modes of 
 husbandry more perfect is admitted by all who 
 have had an opportunity of instituting a fair 
 comparison between the Hindus and the Ja- 
 vanese;" while, speaking of the exactions levied 
 upon the Javanese, he asks '' what but the 
 extraordinary productiveness of the soil and the 
 benignity of the climate, with the peculiar re- 
 lation of the land to the people, could render 
 such enormous imposts tolerable and present 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 69 
 
 to us, notwithstanding such disadvantages, the 
 extraordinary spectacle of a rich husbandry 
 under such privations as those of the Javanese 
 cultivator." 
 
 There is a limit, however, even to the yield 
 of a country such as Java, and when we reflect 
 that the population has quadrupled itself in the 
 island within the past seventy years, and now. 
 presses with an incidence of 400 to the square 
 mile, we feel tha:t it will not be long before 
 the Dutch will be face to face with agricultural 
 difficulties similar to those met with in the 
 most congested parts of India, and that it will 
 then perhaps be impracticable to extend, even 
 if it be not found imperative to contract, the 
 cultivation of crops other than cereals. Defi- 
 ciency in the food-supply has not been unknown 
 even in Java, and Holland had once to issue an 
 order that *' the extension of the so-called Euro- 
 pean market should no longer be pushed to the 
 extremity of famine." 
 
 Again, the Dutch Government must most jeal- 
 ously exclude the landlord and the middleman. 
 If, as it seems is not unlikely to be the case, 
 the independent planter steps into the place of 
 the Government, armed with all its power, but 
 untrammelled by its respect for public opinion, 
 or its desire to do its duty by the native, the 
 
70 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 great safeguards which at present exist will be 
 removed. It is clear that considerable pres- 
 sure has been for some time brought to bear 
 upon the Java Government by the unofficial 
 Dutch in the island to withdraw from the cul- 
 ture system in favour of the private speculators, 
 and in 1870 a new law permitted the cession 
 of uncultivated land to Europeans on lease for 
 85 years. In Batavia, and the other large 
 towns where the European merchants have 
 their houses of business, not unfrequently 
 opinions are expressed adverse to the present 
 administration under which the profits from 
 the culture system are absorbed by the mother- 
 country instead of being spent in Java; and 
 sometimes these opinions are sufficiently un- 
 patriotic- to take the form of a wish that the 
 English may, at some time or other, again be 
 masters in Java, in which event, it is predicted, 
 the colony will get fair play. But it is 
 not difficult for those who pursue the subject 
 with such discontented Dutchmen to see that 
 it is not on behalf of the country or of the 
 Javans that they are indignant at the present 
 state of things, but on behalf of themselves. 
 They are pretty well assured that the English, 
 if they ever did re-occupy the country, would 
 abandon at once their position as producers, as 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. yi 
 
 militating against the free trade principle, and 
 that the plantations would be handed over to 
 private venture. Then would come the time 
 of the speculator — Dutch, English and Chinese : 
 and from that day forward woe to the unfortu- 
 nate Javan, who would look back with longin g 
 regret to the days when his only master was a 
 Government, selfish doubtless in its aims, but 
 still discreet in the exercise of its power. 
 
72 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 VI. 
 Java and Madura are now divided into twen- 
 ty-five residencies, which comprise seventy- 
 eight regencies, each of which latter divisions 
 is ruled by a native regent, ♦* assisted" by an 
 assistant resident, who has as his lieutenant 
 in his work a "controller." At the head-quar- 
 ters of each residency is the resident, with 
 powers of supervision over the officers in 
 charge of the regencies. The work of admi- 
 nistration is supposed to be done by the native 
 regent, and all orders to the people are issued 
 through him. The actual rulers are of course 
 the Dutch ; but it is their settled policy to carry, 
 if possible, the native upper classes with them 
 in their administration, and they endeavour 
 to secure this object, even at the risk of much 
 inconvenience and ineffectual government, 
 which but too often results from this dual rule. 
 The regency is again divided into small dis- 
 tricts, each under the immediate orders of a 
 " Wedana," who is, like the regent, a native 
 of high family, with ** mantries " under him. 
 These "mantries," who are officials correspond- 
 ing to the petty officers of police and the irre- 
 pressible chuprassies of India, are the relations 
 
SOME NO TES ON J A VA. 7 3 
 
 generally of the regent and the Wedanas. A 
 regency thus is usually packed full of the re- 
 gent's own people. How difficult therefore 
 Max Havelaar found it to convict a regent of 
 oppression and abuses may easily be under- 
 stood. This impunity for native wrong-doers 
 in high places is a necessary consequence of the 
 Dutch policy. In each village there is a head- 
 man, who is elected by the villagers. This man 
 collects the land tax, allots the rice-fields, keeps 
 the roster of men to work on the plantation or 
 the roads, sees to the supply of gratuitous pro- 
 visions for the mantries and others, and tells 
 off the villagers as watchmen in their turn. 
 He settles small disputes, and being chosen by 
 the people he is trusted by them and is really 
 a protection to them. 
 
 The work of governing this patien t people is 
 done smoothly — too smoothly. Where the sur- 
 face is so unrippled, one may suspect strong 
 currents underneath, and it is one of Max Have- 
 laar's charges that it is well understood in Java 
 all round that reports are usually to have cou- 
 leur de rose. The Government of Dutch " India," 
 he says, " likes to write home to its masters in 
 the mother-country that all goes on satisfac- 
 torily. The residents like to announce this 
 to the Government. The assistant residents. 
 
74 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 who receive themselves from their controllers 
 nothing but favourable accounts, send again, 
 in their turn, no disagreeable tidings to the 
 residents. From all this there arises in the 
 official written accounts of these matters an 
 artificial optimism, contradictory not only to the 
 truth, but also to the real opinion of these op- 
 timists themselves." How great the under- 
 currents may be sometimes may be judged from 
 the fact that in April, 1889, no less than a hun- 
 dred natives of Bantam (Max Havelaar's district) 
 were lying under sentence of death for insur- 
 rection. 
 
 The principle upon which the courts of jus- 
 tice are based is the conferment of very limited 
 powers indeed on both European and native 
 officers sitting alone, even the resident himself 
 being unable to inflict a severer punishment 
 than ten days' imprisonment, while the Joint 
 Court, called the " Landraad," in which the 
 resident and regent with one other native of 
 high rank sit together, can inflict the penalty of 
 death subject to confirmation of the Supreme 
 Government at Batavia. No Europeans, how- 
 ever, are subject to any other than purely 
 Dutch courts. The Landraad is the principal 
 civil as well as criminal court for natives, the 
 resident, regent and Wedana exercising petty 
 
SOME NOTES ON JA VA. 75 
 
 civil jurisdiction when sitting alone. Great 
 consideration is shown for the sensibilities of 
 natives of high rank, even when charged 
 with serious offences, and arrests of such per- 
 sons are not made except under high authority. 
 The Dutch have avoided one of our difficulties 
 in absolutely declining to sanction anything in 
 the shape of a native bar. The vakil is not, 
 and no one is allowed to plead for another 
 who is not his personal friend. For this mercy 
 the Javan may be thankful that the English 
 rule did not continue. Litigation receives there- 
 fore no unhealthy stimulus. Perhaps some 
 might be inclined to think that the criminal 
 courts are unduly idle, for the Landraads are 
 said to sit not oftener than thirty days in the 
 year. Probably a large amount of crime never 
 comes to light at all. 
 
 The dual system, which pervades all the 
 Dutch institutions in Java, holds good in the 
 army also. Each regiment is composed both 
 of Europeans and natives, the former taking 
 the flank companies, the latter the centre, and 
 the plan is said to work extremely well. There 
 are also a number of negroes in the ranks, and 
 the Government takes Europeans of all kinds 
 as recruits for its white army. After the 
 Crimean War the Foreign Legion largely found 
 
^6 ^OME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 service in Java. All Dutchmen in the island 
 are liable to military service ; but in ordinary 
 times their obligations only extend to putting 
 in a certain number of drills every year. These 
 are rigorously exacted, and there is therefore, 
 besides the 35,000 regular troops, a large body 
 of this militia on which to fall back upon in 
 time of need. As there is no landed aristo- 
 cracy and the natives of position mostly hold 
 lucrative appointments under Government, and 
 as an Arms Act is strictly enforced among the 
 lower orders, the Dutch are not likely to be 
 annoyed with insurrections. Their only trou- 
 blesome neighbours are the two Sultans of Sura- 
 karta and Jokyokarta; but these potentates 
 are only allowed to keep a small body of troops, 
 and they are watched by a force at Magellang, 
 on the northern border of these Principalities. 
 The Sultans receive large money allowances 
 from the Dutch and also have private domains ; 
 but they are, it seems, well nigh powerless for 
 mischief. In the Indian Netherlands the 
 Dutch have, of course, a standing trouble in 
 Achin, at the N.-W. of Sumatra. For the 
 past fifteen years the Achinese have kept the 
 Dutch at bay, and the latter's rule in this part 
 of Sumatra is limited to the range of their guns 
 from the fort. The whole of Java's fine sur- 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. ^7 
 
 plus revenue is swallowed up in this weary strug- 
 gle, and Holland no longer credits the Home 
 treasury, as she was wont, with three or four 
 millions annually. She would gladly hand 
 over to England Sumatra, and thus get honour- 
 ably quit of her unprofitable possession. 
 
 From the slight sketch of Java and its institu- 
 tions which has been given it will have been seen 
 how difterent are the methods of government 
 adopted by Holland and England in their ad- 
 ministration of their Oriental possessions. We 
 strive our very best to rule India in the interest 
 of the native population. The Dutch do not 
 profess to study the well-being of their Javan 
 subjects, save as an object secondary to their 
 own advantage. England expends the whole 
 of her enormous revenue in India and sends 
 not a rupee westwards, save for goods purchased, 
 while Holland receives ordinarily from Java, 
 as pure tribute, more than one-third of her 
 colony's income. We lay ourselves out to give 
 every Indian who cares to come forward for it 
 what is practically a free education right up to 
 the Universities which we have established, 
 and still continue to establish, all over India : 
 Holland of set purpose keeps its Eastern sub- 
 jects as stupid and ignorant as is possible. We 
 are scrupulously exact in all our dealings with 
 
78 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 the natives, insisting on a full wage being paid 
 for all work done, and checking, by all the 
 means in our power, the tendency on the part 
 of all natives in authority to compel labour, 
 while the Dutch have no hesitation in utilising 
 to the full this tendency and practically draw 
 from this source a large portion of their revenue. 
 The English protect all rights in land, however 
 shadowy they may be, and confer others : the 
 Dutch admit no such rights and studiously 
 avoid the introduction of the proprietary prin- 
 ciple. We persist in impressing on the native 
 mind that the Western and the Oriental, the 
 heir of Europe's civilisation and successor to 
 Eastern conservatism, are all equal and equally 
 fitted for, and capable of, understanding and of 
 profiting by those social institutions and forms 
 of government to which we ourselves are so 
 attached : the Dutch frankly deny the equality 
 and ridicule the notion that all the world should 
 t>e ruled on the same principle. 
 
 To the Anglo-Indian visiting Java and view- 
 ing these great difterences it is somewhat humi- 
 liating to feel that the Dutch have most unques- 
 tionably, in one point at any rate, succeeded 
 where we have partially failed. Conscious of 
 the absolutely upright intentions of his own 
 Government, and convinced that it is the first 
 
SOME NOTES ON /AVA. 79 
 
 wish of every English official connected with 
 the administration that all classes should share 
 in the blessings which should flow from its 
 benevolent measures, he is startled to find the 
 great mass of agriculturists in Java manifestly 
 in a far better material condition than our 
 own ryots. This is unquestionably the case, 
 and the fact undoubtedly proves that our treat- 
 ment of the great questions relating to land- 
 tenures, which a hundred years ago were partly 
 similar to those which have from time to time 
 arisen in Java, have not been dealt with in the 
 manner best calculated to secure the happiness 
 of the people. The denationalisation of the 
 land, which from the time of Lord Cornwallis 
 till the present day has been more and more 
 completely effected, has resulted in the ag- 
 grandisement of a class of wealthy landlords 
 and middlemen at the expense of the cultiva- 
 tor of the soil, and we have surrendered that 
 splendid position as owners of the land which 
 enables the Dutch to appropriate for State pur- 
 poses the whole rental of the country and to 
 ensure that that rental shall always be so mo- 
 derate in amount as to enable the peasant to 
 pass his days in comfort and without care. 
 Doubtless Holland would do well to treat her 
 rich dependency in a more generous, more un- 
 
So SOME NOTES ON JAVA, 
 
 selfish spirit, and in many points she could un- 
 doubtediy take lessons from England : but the 
 impartial student of the economics of the Eas- 
 tern possessions of the two countries will cer- 
 tainly come also to the conclusion that India 
 has much to learn from Java. 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA, 8l 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 THE STUPA OF BORO BODHO. 
 
 The devout Buddhist who erected the Great 
 Stupa of Boro Bodho in Java in honour of the 
 Teacher must have been as keenly appreciative 
 of the loveliness of nature as of the beauty of holi- 
 ness. Few more Ipvely spots in the beautiful isle 
 of Java can exist than that plateau which lies to 
 the south of the Sendoro range, a range which, 
 near Boro Bodho, might fitly be called a sierra, 
 so rugged and sharp in outline are the jagged 
 peaks which rise up into the sky from the main 
 ridge of hills. On this plateau, from which rise 
 the giant volcanoes Merbabu and Merapi and 
 other minor cones right and left as the travel- 
 ler journeys from Jokyokarta to Magellang, 
 is the residency of Kedu, one of the most in- 
 teresting, most beautiful and most fertile tracts 
 in the whole island. The river Progo traverses 
 the plateau from north to south and approaches 
 within a couple of miles the range of rocky hills 
 under which has been built the Great Stupa. 
 
 The Stupa itself is built on a small natural 
 hill about two hundred feet high, and, as the 
 traveller ascends this, he recognises what an 
 
B2 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 admirable site was chosen for such an edifice. 
 At his feet lies a plain of unexampled richness, 
 broken here and there by small hamlets em- 
 bowered in foliage and by other smaller hills 
 such as that on which he stands. Behind him 
 at a little distance flows the Progo, sometimes 
 symbolising in its violence the uncontrolled 
 passions of him who has not found the Path, 
 but now flowing with the peacefulness of a soul 
 at rest ; while in front rise the eternal hills, 
 dead silent in their quietness and strength, a 
 fit panorama for the devout one whose method 
 is self-control and annihilation of desire, and 
 whose aim is freedom from all delusion and de- 
 filement, freedom from all sense of his sur- 
 roundings, freedom from all sin and sorrow 
 and the attainment of " Nirvana," that Rest 
 which cannot be shaken, that Peace which can 
 never be lost. 
 
 The Stupa occupies the upper part of the 
 hill, the base of the structure being carried 
 along the sides of the mound about half-way 
 up the ascent, while the topmost cupola rests on 
 the summit of the natural hill. The building, 
 which is pyramidal in form, has thus the hill 
 itself for its support throughout, the massive 
 galleries and terraces, which rise from the base 
 to the summit, having been built on correspond- 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. ^t^ 
 
 ing stages cut in the sides of the slopes. The 
 whole is built of the volcanic stone which lies 
 in great profusion all over this part of the 
 plateau, and which is evidently the result of 
 some mighty eruption of Mount Merapi in ages 
 past. It is a stone which lends itself to sculp- 
 ture and which enables the smallest details to 
 be worked out, while its power of resistance to 
 sun and rain, even though these be tropical in 
 their destructive strength, is evidenced by the 
 wonderful state of preservation in which most 
 of the work still exists. 
 
 The whole is put together without any mor- 
 tar or cement of any kind, the stones, which are 
 very large, being exceedingly cleanly chiselled 
 and accurately fitted one into the other. The edi- 
 fice thus gains an elasticity which, combined 
 with the pyramidal form of construction, has 
 doubtless secured it against destruction or ex- 
 cessive damage by earthquakes which are both 
 frequent and severe in Java. 
 
 At its base the building, as it now exists, is a 
 square, each side being 370 feet in length. At 
 a distance, however, of 40 feet from each corner 
 the line is admirably broken by the structure 
 being projected forward about eight feet, and 
 after another run of frontage for 60 feet from 
 each corner of this projection the building again 
 
84 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 advances eight feet. This variation, in what 
 would otherwise have been a somewhat mono- 
 tonous frontage, is a most artistic device and 
 proclaims the architect a master. The first 
 terrace to which we ascend is about eight feet 
 above the ground and is quite plain, without 
 any ornamentation, except some lions posted 
 on its edge. A discovery has quite lately been 
 made, since the publication of M. Leeman's 
 splendid monograph, that this first terrace never 
 formed part of the original building, but was 
 undoubtedly added by some one who thought to 
 mend, but very nearly succeeded in marring, 
 the beauty of the pile. This plinth has actually 
 been piled up against what was originally the 
 outermost wall of the Stupa, thus completely 
 hiding from view the beautiful bas-reliefs 
 which adorned that wall and which now lie 
 buried beneath the mass of masonry which 
 forms this superfluous terrace. It is the inten- 
 tion of the Dutch to remove this addition to the 
 Stupa as designed by the Buddhist architect, 
 obtain drawings of the sculptured walls now 
 buried and then replace it, stone by stone, so 
 that the building many remain just as found 
 by them. They would be fully justified in re- 
 moving it permanently. When it is gone, the 
 length of each side of the building will be re- 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA. g^ 
 
 duced to 330 feet, the false terrace being 20 feet 
 in width. 
 
 The total height from the base of the original 
 structure to the top of the central cupola is 
 about 130 feet. The grand pile rises by a series 
 of galleries and terraces (four of the former and 
 three of the latter) which run round the entire 
 building, the whole leading up to a massively 
 built dagaba in which sits the principal Buddha, 
 in whose honour the Stupa was erected. 
 
 Four staircases, one in the centre of each face 
 of the building, give access from below to this 
 shrine, and at the same time enable the pilgrim 
 to reach the galleries which, as he ascends the 
 steps, he finds to the right and left. Each of 
 these galleries is sunk between the parapet 
 (about seven feet high) on the outer side and the 
 wall of the gallery next above, so that, though 
 the whole building were crowded with people, all 
 would appear quiet and solitary from outside. 
 
 To the pilgrim passing through these galleries 
 is displayed a superb series of sculptured 
 stories, all in bas-relief, carved in panels on th^ 
 walls on either side. These beautiful entabla- 
 tures originally numbered no less than 1,554, 
 of which about 1,350 still exist — all in excellent 
 preservation. The lowest gallery alone contains 
 346 bas-reliefs, measuring each 10 by 3, besides 
 
86 SOME NOTES ON JAVA, 
 
 496 others, each measuring 3 by 3 or 3 by 2, 
 The second gallery contains 332 such sculptures, 
 the third gallery 162 and the fourth 212. The 
 whole show by their style that they must have 
 been executed by artists who had not long left 
 India, so clearly Indian in character are both 
 the design and execution. The tale told in the 
 lowest gallery, where the greatest number of 
 panels are crowded on to the walls, is, it would 
 seem, the life of the great Teacher, from the 
 time when his father King Saddhodana received 
 the congratulations of the neighbouring princes 
 on the expected birth of his son until the 
 enlightened one passed away, impressing on 
 the members of his order the efficacy of the 
 Law. The upper galleries appear to be allego- 
 rical, illustrating the doctrine of Buddha, points 
 of the Law and the power of faith. But much 
 which has been written by Wilson on this sub- 
 ject in Leeman's description of the sculptures 
 appears to be conjectural, and it is not at all 
 certain that we have yet got the clue to this 
 marvellous series of bas-reliefs. 
 
 On the parapets of the walls which enclose 
 these galleries there are ranged a large number 
 of life-size Buddhas, each seated under a 
 canopy. They number no less than 2)Z^ i^ ^\ 
 88 occupying the lowest rampart, 72 the next, 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA, 87 
 
 64 the third, 64 the fourth, and 48 the fifth. The 
 figures are admirably carved, the face having 
 that serene expression of perfect rest and con- 
 tent which is the unvarying characteristic of the 
 Buddha. 
 
 Above these again, ranged on three circular 
 terraces around the central cupola, are 72 more 
 Buddhas, also of life-size, seated within chaityas 
 constructed in the form of a bell, the side of the 
 bell being made of open stone-work, the per- 
 forations admitting light and allowing the faith- 
 ful to view the seated saint. 
 
 The presence of these Buddhas is a con- 
 clusive proof that it was the Northern Bud- 
 dhist Church the doctrine and ritual of which 
 were observed in Java. That church recog- 
 nised five principal Manushi or human Bud- 
 dhas : (i) Krakuchanda, (2) Ranakamund, (3) 
 Kasyapa, (4) Gautama, (5) Maitreya. The 
 three first are supposed to have entered the 
 world in the ages before Gautama (he of the 
 Sakya family), who is the only historical Bud- 
 dha and the founder of the Buddhist religion. 
 The fifth, Maitreya, the Buddha of loving kind- 
 ness, has not yet appeared, but is looked for 
 5,000 years after Gautama. 
 
 The heavenly counterparts of these five Bud- 
 dhas, called the Dhyani Buddhas, are : (i) Vairo- 
 
88 SOME NOTES ON JAVA. 
 
 chana, (2) Akshobhya, (3) Ratna-sambhava, (4) 
 Amitabha, (5) Amogasiddha. These inhabit 
 the ethereal mansions, free from the debasing 
 conditions of this material life, while the earthly 
 and mortal (Manushi) Buddhas appear incarnate 
 on the earth. They are the five Dhyani or heaven- 
 ly Buddhas whose statues to the number of 408 
 have their places, as mentioned above, on the 
 galleries and terraces of the Great Stupa of 
 Boro 3odho. 
 
 Vairochana occupies the three highest circu-s 
 lar terraces. He is always represented with 
 the fingers in the attitude of laying down the 
 heads of the '* Four Truths" and of the "Noble 
 Eight-fold Path," in the fourth stage of which 
 the seeker after holiness becomes free from all 
 sin and only experiences pure desires for him- 
 self, tender pity, and exalted spiritual love for 
 others. This stage in the Path reached, he has 
 attained Nirvana. 
 
 Akshobhya, who is always represented with 
 his hand resting palm downwards on his knee, 
 occupies the four lower galleries, looking to the 
 east, where is his own special Paradise. In 
 this attitude is also found the Buddha in the 
 central cupola which crowns the Stupa. 
 
 Ratna-sambhava, whose hand is always on 
 his knee with the palm upwards, as if asking 
 
SOME NOTES ON JAVA, 89 
 
 for alms, holds his place on the four lower gal- 
 leries looking south, the direction of his celes- 
 tial home. 
 
 Amitabha, the heavenly counterpart of Gau- 
 tama, has his hands crossed on his lap, the 
 palms upward, in the attitude of meditation. 
 He is found on the four galleries looking west, 
 the Paradise which he quitted to appear on 
 earth as the " Light of Asia." 
 
 Amogasiddha, whose hand is raised in the 
 attitude of blessing, occupies the four lower 
 galleries looking north, the Paradise where he is 
 awaiting his turn to come on earth and bless 
 the world. This Buddha also is found on all 
 four faces of the topmost gallery, just below the 
 terraces occupied by Vairochana, there be- 
 ing a slight difference in the position of the 
 fingers in this representation of him. 
 
 The doctrines of the Northern Church were 
 a late development of the Buddhist religion and 
 were, it seems, certainly introduced after the 
 time of Fa Hian, who makes no mention of any 
 such phase. Fa Hian's note therefore that he 
 found no Buddhists in Ye-pho-ti (Java) is corro- 
 borated by the fact that Buddhism, whenever 
 it was introduced, was that of the northern 
 branch, not of the southern. Another much 
 later development was the dea of the Sakti or 
 
go SOME NOTES ON /A FA. 
 
 female Buddha, the consort of Buddha in heaven. 
 This degenerate idea did not arise until the 
 simple and pure morality of Gautama's systerii 
 had been invaded by all kinds of metaphysical 
 refinements, the original teaching of the master 
 being lost in a Babel of fanciful discussions 
 tending towards a degraded mysticism. Bud- 
 dhism adopted this last idea of the Sakti about 
 the twelfth century of our era, and if it is true 
 that on the outside wall of the original lowest 
 gallery we have, in a female figure which con- 
 tinually recurs, the representation of the Sakti, 
 we have the evidence that the Stupa could not 
 have been built earlier than that period. That 
 the figure alluded to is that of the Sakti is, 
 however, exceedingly doubtful, and the male 
 figure with which the female is associated is 
 not of the same simple and severe type as the 
 Buddhas within the galleries. It is possible 
 that these figures on the outside wall represent 
 the prince and princess who erected the Stupa. 
 Setting aside the supposition that this figure is 
 that of the Sakti, there is nothing in any one 
 of the other sculptures to lead us to infer that 
 the building was erected at any time other 
 than when the Buddhist religion was compara- 
 tively pure and simple. One fact seems clear, 
 namely, that Boro Bodho was built when Bud- 
 
SOME NO TES ON J A VA, g i 
 
 dhisni had completely prevailed over Brahman- 
 ism, for there is in this building no vestige of 
 the latter religion. In most of the sacred 
 buildings of Java we find traces of the two re- 
 ligions side by side, and even in Mendoet, a 
 temple not three miles from Boro Bodho, while 
 the interior is occupied by Buddha and two 
 Bodhi-satwas, the outside of the building is 
 adorned with bas-reliefs undoubtedly Brahma- 
 nical. So frequently do we find this admixture 
 of the two faiths that we should have expected 
 to meet with it in Boro Bodho, but this is not 
 the case : the Stupa is purely Buddhistic 
 throughout. 
 
 In the present stage of antiquarian research 
 in Java it is not possible to assign a certain 
 date to the construction of this magnificent 
 Stupa. No certain data have yet been obtained 
 from the buildings themselves. The " Babads," 
 or chronicles of Java, which are all compara- 
 tively recent, speak of Boro Bodho as of very 
 ancient date, but they do not assign it to any 
 particular age or particular kingdom. Their 
 evidence is so far valuable that it is shown 
 from them that the Stupa was in existence 
 when they were written : but these Babads 
 themselves are so contradictory, one of the 
 other, that it is impossible to assign certain 
 
92 SOME NO TES ON J A VA, 
 
 dates even to them. We must wait patiently 
 for satisfactory testimony as to the age in 
 which, and the circumstances under which, this 
 grand building was conceived and executed, 
 and in the meanwhile we may gaze and ad- 
 mire the devotion which could inspire such a 
 poem. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aji Saka, 3, 4> 5« 
 Augka Wijaya, 10. 
 
 Bali, Island of, ii ; 5, 10, 16, 19, 39- 
 Banjuwangi, 17. 
 Bantam, ii, 13, 74- 
 Batavia, ii ; 2, 19, 74- 
 Boro Bodho, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9. 
 Boro Bodho, Stupa of, 81. 
 Bram-Banam, 2, 6. 
 Bram-Banam, Boundary of, 5. 
 Burma, 8. 
 
 Ceylon, 8. 
 
 Dress of the Javans, 25. 
 Dutch East India Company, 15. 
 Dutch in Java, First, 13. 
 Dutch wars in Java, 13, 14. 
 
 English occupation of Java, 16. 
 
 Fa Hian, 4. 
 Floras, 17. 
 
 Galung-gung, 17. 
 Government of Java, 72. 
 Grobogan, 17, 
 Gujerat, 3. 
 
 Hong-Kong, i. 
 
 Takatra, 13. ., 
 
 Java, i, ii, iii, iv; i, 5. «. 7, 8, 9, I0» "• ^3, M, 16, 
 18, 20, 21, 24, 27, 34, 36, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 4», 50» 
 56, 60, 61, 62, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72, 76, 78, 79, so. 
 8i, 83. 
 
 Java, Area of, 16. 
 
 Java, Dutch wars in, 13, 14* 
 
11 INDEX 
 
 Java, English occupation of, i6. 
 
 Java, First appearance of tlie Dutch in, 13. 
 
 Java, Government of, 72. 
 
 Java, Indian Art in, 3. 
 
 Java, Land System in, 42. ' 
 
 Java, Marriage Customs in, 3j. 
 
 ava, Portuguese in, 
 
 / 
 
 Java, Products of, 20, 21. 
 
 Java, Soil of, 18. 
 
 Java, Temperature of, 19. 
 
 Java, Volcanoes in, 17. 
 
 Java era. Commencement of, 3. 
 
 Jokyokarta, 14, 17, 76, Si. 
 
 Kedu, 81. 
 Krakatoa, 17. 
 Kuda Lalean, 9. 
 
 Land System in Java, 42. 
 Land-tax in Java, 53. 
 Leemans, C, 8. 
 Literature of Java, 40. 
 Lombok, ii ; 17. 
 
 Madura, Island of, 5, 13, 39, 72, 
 
 Magellang, 76, 81. 
 
 Majapahit, 13. 
 
 Majapahit, Kingdom of, 10. 
 
 Malay, Archipelago, I, 
 
 Manhu Buni, 14. 
 
 Marriage Customs in Java, 35. 
 
 Matarem, 5, 14, 
 
 Mendang Kamulan, 5, 6, 
 
 Merapi, 17, 81. 
 
 Merbabu, 81. 
 
 Nepal, 9. 
 
 Pandu Devanatta, 3, 
 Panji, 9. 
 
 Portuguese in Java, 11. 
 Prabhu Jaya Bhaya, 3, 5. 
 Products of Java, 20, 21. 
 
INDEX 111 
 
 Progo, 8 1, 82. 
 
 Raden Wijaya, 10. 
 
 Raffles, Stamford, 2, 16, 52, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60. 
 
 Rasaksas, 3. 
 
 Religion of Java, 3. 
 
 Saddhodana, 86. 
 
 Samarang, 19. 
 
 Sawela Chala, 5. 
 
 Semeru, 17. 
 
 Singapore, ii ; 59. 
 
 Soerabia, 19. 
 
 Soil of Java, 18. 
 
 Sombawa, 17. 
 
 Stupa of Boro Bodho, 81. 
 
 Sumatra, 5, 10, 15. 17, 76, 77. 
 
 Surakarta, 14, 45, 61, 76. 
 
 Susuhnan, 14, 
 
 Sydney, i. 
 
 Teak Forests, 18. 
 Temperature of Java, 19. 
 Tibet, 9. 
 Timur, 17. 
 Tritesta, 4. 
 
 Volcanoes in Java, 17, 
 
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