cket of the Dutchwoman is now compulsory on the
native. Every variety of _battek_, basket-work, mats, and quaint silver
or brass ware, is brought by native peddlers to the broad verandahs of
the hotel, the patient and gentle people content to spend long hours on
the marble steps, dozing between their scanty bargains, or crimsoning
their months with the stimulating morsel of betel-nut, said to allay
the hunger, thirst, and exhaustion of the steaming tropics. The
conquered race, cowed by ages of tyranny under native princes,
possesses those mild and effeminate characteristics fostered by a
languid and enervating climate. That the salient angles of the sturdy
Dutch character, which accomplished so many feats of endurance in the
earlier days of the colony, should undergo rapid disintegration by
intermarriage with the native stock, must arouse regret in all who
realise the claims to respect possessed by the fighting forefathers of
Holland's tropical dependencies.

Educational matters were for centuries in abeyance, and until 1864 the
Malays were forbidden to learn the language of their European rulers.
Many dialects are found in Java's wide territory, but Low Malay has
been declared the official tongue, and with the advance of public
opinion, wider views prevail concerning the rights of the subject race.
A good Roman Catholic priest, one of the most enlightened and liberal
Dutchmen encountered in Java, asserts that in the schools of the
Colonial Government, the Malay boy possesses a mathematical facility
superior to that of the Dutch scholar, in spite of the advantage
accruing from hereditary education.

At the sunset hour, Batavian life awakens from the long slumbers of the
tropical afternoon, and as the golden light filters through the waving
palms, the long Schul-Weg, beside the central canal, fills with
saunterers, enjoying the delights of that brief spell, when peace and
coolness fall on the world before the sudden twilight drops veil after
veil of deepening gloom, merging into the "darkness which may be felt,"
for the twelve hours of the tropical night. Gathering clouds reveal but
scanty glimpses of the moon in these January weeks, but through rifts
in the sombre canopy, the Southern stars hang low in the dome of
heaven, and shine like burning lamps, appearing almost within reach of
an outstretched hand.

BUITENZORG.

The first destination of the up-country traveller in Java is
Buitenzorg, the Dutch "Sans