Page:Life in Java Volume 2.djvu/38

 22 LIFE IN JAVA.

The purchaser was next desired to sign his name to a document, in which he faithfully promised to pay the Government one hundred and eighty thou- sand rupees, or florins, in the ensuing year, by monthly instalments of fifteen thousand. The signatures of his two securities followed that of the purchaser. The same process was gone through with the licences assigned to other places, prices lessening as the localities declined in importance.

I was informed, on good authority, that the Government on that day made as much as a million of rupees.

.On our way back we stopped to see a couple of fine tigers in two separate cages or inclosures made of palisades fixed close together. One of these formidable animals was what they call the machan itain, or black tiger, which has a very dark, silky coat, the black streaks of which are less distinct than those of the common kind. Both of these ^^ ild beasts had been entrapped in one of

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