s for supremacy in
Eastern waters, present many future complications concerning Java, even
if not weakened by the assimilation of her European colonists to an
inferior race.

Neither landlord nor secretary of the Hotel Nederlanden spare time or
trouble in arranging the programme of sight-seeing, and but for their
kindly help, only a partial success would be possible, owing to the
difficulties presented by the two unknown tongues of Dutch and Malay.
Ignorance of the former involves separation from the world as revealed
by newspapers, and though a smattering of "coolie Malay" is picked up
with the aid of a handbook, and the "hundred words" mastered,
sanguinely asserted to suffice for colloquial needs, there are many
occasions when even the practice of this elementary language requires a
more extensive vocabulary. At a New Year's fete given by the proprietor
of the hotel to his numerous Malay employes, we make our first
acquaintance with native music. Dancing girls, in mask and tinsel,
gyrate to the weird strains of the _Gamelon_, an orchestra of tiny
gongs, bamboo tubes, and metal pipes. Actors perform old-world dramas
in dumb show, and conjurors in gaudy attire attract people of all ages
to those time-honoured feats of legerdemain which once represented the
sorcery of the mystic East. The simple Malay has not yet adopted the
critical and unbelieving attitude which rubs the gilt off the
gingerbread or the bloom off the plum, and his fervid faith in mythical
heroes and necromantic exploits gives him the key to that kingdom of
fancy often closed to a sadder if wiser world. The electric tram
provides an excellent method of gaining a general idea of Batavia and
Weltevreden; the winding route skirting canals and palm groves,
_campongs_ of basket-work huts, and gay _passers_, the native markets,
with their wealth of many-coloured fruit. Stacks of golden bananas,
olive-tinted dukus, rambutans like green chestnut-shells with scarlet
prickles, amber star-fruit, brown salak, the "forbidden apple,"
bread-fruit, and durian offer an embarassing choice. Pineapples touch
perfection on Java soil; cherimoya and mango, papaya and the various
custard-fruits, the lovely but tasteless rose-apple, and the dark green
equatorial orange of delicious flavour, afford a host of unfamiliar
experiences. The winter months are the season of the peerless
mangosteen, in beauty as well as in savour the queen of tropical
fruits. The rose-lined purple globe