Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/190

170 Sir Stamford Raffles's work and all that Von Humboldt and Lassen deduced from it concerning Javanese religion and mythology. They entirely put aside all native histories and traditions, searching and accepting only Chinese and Arabic works, and making a close study of ancient inscriptions, upon the rendering of which few of the Dutch savants agree.

We had applied for new toelatings-kaarten, or admission tickets, to the interior of the island; and as they had not arrived by the afternoon before we intended leaving Buitenzorg, we drove to the assistant resident's to inquire. "You shall have them this evening," said that gracious and courtly official, standing beside the huge carriage; "but as it is only the merest matter of form, go right along in the morning, ladies, anyhow, and I shall send the papers after you by post. To Tissak Malaya? No? Well, then, to Djokjakarta."

Upon that advice we proceeded on our journey, crossed the Preangers, saw the plain of Leles, and made our brief visit to Tissak Malaya. We rode for a long, hot day across the swamps and low-lying jungles of the terra ingrata of Middle Java, and just before sunset we reached Djokjakarta, a provincial capital, where the native sultan resides in great state, but poor imitation of independent rulership. We had tea served us under the great portico of the Hotel Toegoe, our every movement followed by the uncivilized piazza stare of some Dutch residents—that gaze of the summer hotel that has no geographic or racial limit, which even occurs on the American littoral, and in Java has a fixedness born of stolid Dutch ancestry, and an intensity due to the tropical fervor