Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/338

 S94» ANCIENT HISTORY OF JAVA. surdity, and of puerile incongruity, almost unequal- led in the accounts of any other people. From the period of the acquaintance of the Ja- vanese with Mahomedans, forming an exact paral- lel case with the Hindus of India, the dawning of the historical truth, and some common sense and moderation may be discovered, brightening slowly as w^e descend, and, for the last two centuries, im- proving into records of some consistency and mo- deration. Still, however, the professed object of his- torical writing among the Javanese is amusement, and not utility ; in their most recent productions we see a constant effort made to give the most natural and obvious transactions an air of romance, and even to convert the most ordinary affairs of human life into tales to amuse the fancy. Every transaction which wears an air of mystery is eagerly seized, and con- verted into a miracle, or ascribed to supernatural agency, while the most important movements of society are either taken no notice of at all, or treated with provoking apathy and neglect. The unskilfulness and awkwardness even of these at- tempts, as efforts of fancy, are such as to excite no other feelings than pity for the weakness of the hu- man mind in the infancy of civilization, in regions of the world w^here the strength and fertility of the imagination have never compensated, as in Europe, for the feebleness of reason. What we are soon struck with in Javanese story