Page:Life in Java Volume 1.djvu/289

Rh the princes. In no town or village of Java are the natives allowed to walk after seven in the evening without a light. Some make their nocturnal rambles with torches of small thin split bamboo, made up into bundles, and lit at one end. Others carry about a tumbler filled half-way or two-thirds with water, and the rest with oil, upon the surface of which floats a wick made of pith, and pierced with a couple of sticks having corks at the end. I saw many carrying these tumblers in white pocket handkerchiefs, through which the light shone. How they kept them from igniting was always a mystery to me, unless it be that the handkerchief has been previously dipped in some incombustible solution. Some natives carry torches of damar or rosin, the extract of some indigenous plant, or sticks of wood tied in a bundle and rubbed over with ignitable compounds, which generally give the most glaring but the least durable lights.