Java, Facts and Fancies

It was as if the inspiriting hour, that changed the face of land and sea, made itself felt also in the little brown huts under the trees, stirring up the folk into briskness and...

The houses of some rich Chinamen in the Kampong Bahru neighbourhood are truly splendid; the most modest ones still have an air of comfort. According to the ideas of the inhabita...

The social life of Batavia has a physiognomy of its own; curious enough in some of its features. But it is not this which strikes the new-comer most forcibly. In certain Byzanti...

Each of these itinerant cooks has his own place on the pavement or in the avenue, recognised as such by the tacit consent of the others. Hither he comes trudging, in the early m...

In this he does but as Jews and Greeks did before him. But there is a distinguishing detail about Javanese sacrificial rites,--a feature, which one is never quite sure whether t...

The effects of this living on short notice, if I may so call it, are perceptible in everything pertaining to colonial customs, ideas, and society. I entered, the other day, one...

But the "dalang's" reward is proportionate to those exertions. He and his art are alike held in almost superstitious respect. No one dreams of criticizing his performances. If h...

From Batavia, the way thither leads through some of the loveliest scenery in Java--past Buitenzorg and Bandong, straight across the Preanger. Rantja-ekkek, a village in the vast...

But to return to that first "rice-table." After the rice, curries, etc. had been disposed of, beef and salad appeared, and, to my infinite astonishment, were disposed of in thei...

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original 160 illustrations. See 43665-h.htm or 43665-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epu...

I asked my way of an old woman who sat by the roadside, complacently smoking a cigarette, and soon found myself within the gates of the Botanical Garden, and in the celebrated w...

A din of laughter and buzzing voices pursued us as we descended the hill-path to our bungalow. And all that night, long after the last cricket had ceased his song we heard the t...