babads. He cannot away with them, and goes near to
denying their claims for credence altogether. But surely a distinction
should be made between the family babad, which is altered to suit the
whims of a single prince, and those babads which relate events affecting
the interests of several competing princes, or in which no single prince
is especially interested. The Homeric poems, we are told, were kept
reasonably free from interpolations by the jealousy of the various
Hellenic communities. May not an influence of the same kind have
operated in Java, and have preserved some of these chronicles from
corruption?

That the babad is capable of being approached from two different points
of view is apparent from the following extracts, in which I have
compared M. Brumund's treatment of a babad of only fifty years ago with
Mr. Nieman's account of an earlier babad in the possession of the Royal
Asiatic Society.

M. Brumund says--

"Let us take, for example, Dhipa Negoro, the chief of the revolt
in Java, which lasted until 1830; well, the babad represents him
to us as enveloped in the clouds of the supernatural. There he
is, surrounded by hundreds of enemies; he is about to be
captured, but he calls to his aid the miraculous power which is
at his disposal, and this power causes him to pass freely, safe
and sound, through the threatening host, who suffer him to pass
in their amazement, and who dare not even lift a finger against
him. Another day he gives orders to have some cocoa-nut trees
felled, and to have them covered with a white flag; he sets
himself to pray, the flag is removed, and behold, the cocoa-nut
trees are changed into pieces of artillery of the finest
casting. He needs counsel; forthwith he is carried through the
air to the southern shore and to the great spirit of the south,
only to return forthwith after the conference. He wishes to pray
at Mecca; scarcely has he formed the wish before his person is
found upon the borders of the city, and, as a proof that he has
really been there, he carries off a cake from the sacred city,
all smoking hot."

Mangku Nagara, who is the subject of the babad discussed by Mr. Nieman,
was a Javan prince who played a leading part, first in the Chinese war
of 1745, and afterwards in the revolt of the Javan princes against the
Dutch and the reigning susunan, known as "the Java war," which lasted
from the c