Page:Life in Java Volume 1.djvu/29

Rh leaf—laden with flowers, gliding down the stream. These were votive offerings, probably placed on the water by some Javanese maiden, and doubtless watched with no little anxiety until they were lost sight of. This pleasing custom, which I should fancy to be a relic of Buddhism, reminds one of the Hindoo girl who, placing lights in boats of a similar description, allows them to float on the surface of some river, till distance hides them from her view.

We used to meet the Dutch fashionables walking about, quite in a state of deshabillé, apparently bent on taking life easy. No hat covered their heads, which are generally so closely cropped that, at a distance, they look as if they were completely shorn. The white baju, a kind of loose jacket, is generally worn, while the loose pejamas, or night-drawers, flap about their legs like sails courting the breeze, which swells them out. Sometimes, when a long walk is premeditated, a sort of