Page:Life in Java Volume 2.djvu/306

 290 LIFE IN JAVA.

against the sky, which was tinted with the mingling hues of evening. The other, called the Inunda- tion, represented a touching scene in the melancholy catastrophe in Banjoemas which I have before related. On a small mound or hillock, decreasing in size at each roll of the water, we see a Wodono, or village chief, waving his handkerchief as though for help, his eyes evidently fixed on some object in the distance, and his face expressive of the deepest anxiety. Near him are boys with terror-stricken countenances. An old Avoman clings to the neck of her son, who having swum with his precious burden to this place of temporary safety, now ap- peal's almost exhausted with his efforts. A young mother has apparently lost all sense of the sur- rounding danger in the contemplation of her babe, which she presses fondly to her bosom, as though in hope that warmth might rekindle the life she fancies is only partially extinct. A few are seen swimming towards the mound, hoping to

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