the arduous labour demanded by the rice-field, combines with
his agricultural work the idea of a sacred duty to the divinities who
gave him the staple commodity whereon his life mainly depends. Cocoanut
and sugar-cane, maize and tapioca, banana and cassava, supplement the
rice, but it ranks above all other products of the teeming soil, for
sacramental efficacy and supernatural origin have hallowed the "grain
of heaven" from the very dawn of history, and the hereditary belief in
the efficacy of the sacred crop still remains mystically rooted in the
sub-consciousness of the Malay race.

GAROET AND HER VOLCANO.

The occasional drawback of weeping skies is counterbalanced by the
gorgeous vegetation only seen to perfection in the rainy season, and
that clouds should sometimes veil the burning blue to mitigate
Equatorial sunshine proves a source of satisfaction to those who fail
to appreciate the Rip Van Winkle life of womankind in Java. The journey
to Garoet supplies a succession of vivid pictures, illustrating the
individuality of the insular scenery. The weird outlines of volcanic
ranges, shading from palest azure to deepest plum-colour, the dreamlike
beauty of Elysian plains, and the stately palm-forests extending league
upon league, with mighty vans clashing in the mountain breeze, assume
magical charm as we penetrate into the heart of the alluring land. Two
pyramidal peaks, Haroeman and Kaleidon, rise sheer from the fair plain
of Leles in colossal stairways of green rice-terraces. Knots of palm
shelter innumerable villages which dot the mountain flanks, the woven
huts fragile as houses of cards, but built up on identical sites
through countless ages, recorded in perennial characters of living
green on these twin trophies of primitive agriculture. Many travellers
have commented on the strange undertone of music, echoing from a
thousand silvery rills and tiny cascades, which follow the verdant
lines of terrace or parapet, and make the shimmering air vocal with
melody, like the distant song of surf on a coral reef. Variety of form
belongs to all Javanese agriculture as the result of handicraft, for
the peasant unconsciously puts his own personality into his toil. The
exquisite tints of the rice in different stages of growth display a
translucence indescribable except in terms of light and fire. The amber
gleam of young shoots, the green flames of the springing crop, the
pulsating emerald of later growth, and the