EARLY HISTORY OF JAVA. 21 



to be cliarmed by the nice blending of vowels and 

 consonants whenever a word is pronounced in his 

 presence. The only difficult thing in this language 

 is, that words of "svidely different meaning sometimes 

 are so similar that, at first, one may be mistaken for 

 another. Every European in all the Netherlands 

 India speaks Malay. It is the only language used in 

 addressing servants ; and all the Euro2:)ean children 

 born on these islands learn it from their Malay 

 nui'ses long before they are able to speak the lan- 

 guage of their parents. Such children generally find 

 it difficult to make the harsh, guttural sounds of the 

 Dutch language, and the Malays themselves are 

 never able to speak it well ; and, for the same 

 reason, Dutchmen seldom speak Malay as correctly as 

 Englishmen and Frenchmen. 



We are now off the ancient city of Bantam, and 

 we naturally here re\'iew the voyages of the earliest 

 European navigators in these seas, and the principal 

 events in the ancient history of this rich island of 

 Java. 



The word Java, or, more correctly, "Jawa," is 

 the name of the people who originally lived only in 

 the eastern part of the island, but, in more modern 

 times, they have spread over the whole island, and 

 given it theii* name. The Chinese claim to have 

 known it in ancient times, and call it Chi-po or 

 Cha-po, which is as near Jawa as their pronuncia- 

 tion of most foreign names at the present day. 



It was first made kno\vn to the Western world by 

 that great traveller, Marco Polo, in his description 

 of the lands he saw or passed while on his voyage 



