SIR THOMAS STAMFORD RAFFLES. 67 



tend this sketch far heyond its due limits ; nor is it 

 necessary to our purpose. We shall therefore con- 

 fine our observations to such parts of the work as 

 are connected with the physical, rather than with 

 the civil or political history of the country. 



Of Java, little is known until the establishment 

 of Mohammedanism about the end of the 13th 

 century of the Javan era (1475), when, according 

 to the native annalists, Mulana Ibrahim, a cele- 

 brated Pandita from Arabia, learning that the 

 inhabitants of that large and populous island were 

 heathens, resolved to undertake an expedition for 

 their conversion to the faith of the Prophet. In 

 course of time the Moslem creed prevailed, after a 

 iong and bloody war. About two hundred years 

 later, Java was first visited by the English and 

 Dutch ; the latter, as is well known, succeeded in 

 establishing their power at Bantam (1595), avail- 

 ing themselves of the divisions and convulsions by 

 which the country had been previously distracted. 



Passing over the long train of military and mer- 

 cantile transactions which followed, we need only 

 mention that by the final settlement of 1 758, at the 

 end of twelve years' war, in which the finest pro- 

 vinces of the island were laid waste, thousands slain 

 on both sides, and the independence of the ancient 

 empire totally annihilated, the Dutch divided the 

 government between themselves and the native 

 princes, to whom the inland and southern districts 



