rporated into the
two-fold language comprising _Krama_, the ceremonial speech, and
_Ngoko_, the speech of "thee and thou," or colloquial form of address.
The island of Bali, and the slopes of the Tengger range, retain a
modification of Hinduism, and Bali treasures a Kawi version of the
Ramayan and Mahabharata epics. Many inspiring thoughts and noble
sentiments, expressed in story and song, have become well-known maxims
identified with Javanese life. "Rob no man of due credit, for the sun,
by depriving the moon of her light, adds no lustre to his own." "As
the lotus floats in water, the heart rests in a pure body." "Ye cannot
take riches to the grave, but he who succoureth the poor in this world
shall find a better wealth hereafter." A _babad_ or rhythmical ballad
of semi-religious character belongs to every province, but though many
details of temple worship--Buddhist, Hindu, and Mohammedan--may be
gathered from the lengthy scroll, heroic and princely exploits, myths
and traditions, encumber the sacred text, which Eastern imagination
transforms into a fairy tale. Creeds lose their chiselled outline, and
crumble away in the disintegrating medium of Javanese thought, which
blends them into each other with changing colour and borrowed light.
The inconstant soul of the Malay knows nothing of that rigid adherence
to some centralising truth which often forms the heart of a living
faith, and his religious history is an age-long record of failure,
change, desertion, and oblivion, repeated in varying cadences, and
inscribed in unmistakeable characters on the ruined sanctuaries of old
Mataram.

SOURAKARTA.

The imperial city of Sourakarta, commonly abbreviated into "Solo," was
the hereditary capital of the Mohammedan emperors, now mere
puppet-princes held in the iron grasp of Holland. The present Susunhan,
descended from both Hindu and Arab ancestry, maintains a brilliant
simulacrum of royal state, and his huge Kraton, far surpassing that of
Djokjacarta, contains 10,000 inhabitants. The pronounced Hindu type,
though debased and degraded, remains noticeable even amid the
all-pervading environment of squalor and disorder, which dims the
gorgeous colour and brilliant ceremonial, producing the effect of
jewels flung in the dust. A dense throng of brown humanity, clad and
unclad, walks to and fro beneath the dusky avenues of feathery
tamarinds which shield Solo from the ardour of the tropical sun. Old
crones, with unkempt l