Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/376

 S32 HISTORY OF JAVA CONTINUED. ample, the troops renewed the attack, captured the temple and mausoleum of Giri, and took the Su» sanan and his family prisoners. The daughters of Javanese princes, when married to subjects, assume a tone, and insist on privileges, unknown to their sex in the east. The husband, in such a case, fre- quently terms the wife mistress, addresses her in the language appropriated to ceremony, and cannot marry a second wife or keep a concubine. The Ratu Wandan claimed and maintained this ascen- dancy over her husband. The following natural calamities are recorded .by the Javanese writers to have happened during this reign. In the year 1536, (A. D. 1614*,) the island was enveloped in a cloud of ashes, which oc- casioned a total darkness. This had its origin in one of the volcanos of the neighbouring islands. In the year 1563, (A. D. l6il,) a vast number of lives were lost by the falling of a portion of the mountain of Adiksa. In the year of Salivana 1566, (A. D. 1644,) the country was afflicted with a dreadful epidemic, which swept off a great number of people. The Sultan Tagal-arum succeeded his father in the year of Salivana 1568, (A. D. 1646,) and reigned three and thirty years. The records of Asiatic despotism, so fruitful in crime and villany, hardly afford a superior to this Javanese prince. He was, in short, a cruel and ferocious madman, without the shadow of a virtue