passion of tropical rain
dies away, leaving an atmosphere of unearthly transparency. Gedeh,
carved in amethyst, leans against a primrose sky, streaked by the puff
of white smoke from the crater. Villagers returning from work brighten
the road with patches of scarlet and yellow; children, clad only in
necklaces of red seeds and silver bangles, running about amid groups of
women in painted _battek_, with brown babies carried in the orange or
crimson folds of the _slandang_, pause before the doorways of woven
basket-work huts, or carry crates of yellow bananas and strings of
purple mangosteens, to supplement the "evening rice" of their frugal
meal. The Malay races have been called "the flower of the East," noted
for their soft voices and courteous manners in the days of old, but
European intercourse obliterates native characteristics, and the
inhabitant of the sea-coast, or of the larger towns, unpleasantly
imitates the brusquerie of his Dutch masters, and even exaggerates it.
The Soendanese of the Preanger hills, less in contact with the external
world, retains traces of life's ancient simplicity, and though a keen
intelligence forms no part of his mental equipment, his desire to
please and satisfy his employer is of pathetic intensity.

The Governor-General of Java, whose stipend is of double the amount
received by the American President, owns a country palace at
Sindanglaya, in addition to the splendid official residences at Batavia
and Buitenzorg. A lovely walk leads from this flower-girt mansion to a
pavilion on the Kasoer hill, commanding a prospect of four mountain
ranges, outlined in tender hues of lavender and turquoise against the
cobalt sky. In the foreground stretches a fertile plain, with bamboo
and sugar-cane varying the eternal rice in brilliant shades of green
and gold, always decorative, from the first emerald blade to the
amber-tinted straw, for the sacred grain possesses a beauty far
exceeding that of wheat, barley, or rye.

Undulating lines and ascending terraces break the uniformity of the
lovely plains with the fascination of weird contour and fanciful
design, intricate as the pattern traced on the native _sarong_. The
rice-culture of these fields and valleys is a perfect survival of the
primeval system, unchanged since the days when "the gift of the gods"
was first bestowed on primitive man in this land of plenty. The
peasant, toiling in the flooded _sawas_, and occupied from seedtime to
harvest in