JAVA. 149 



Java and Madura. 



In the Indonesian tropical world Java ranks only fourth for size ; but it 

 contains over two-thirds of the whole population, while the relative value of its 

 productions is still more considerable. For a period of at least twenty centuries it 

 has surpassed all the other regions of the archipelago in population, abundance of 

 resources, and the progress of civilisation. First visited and colonised by the 

 Hindus, it soon became the centre of their influence in Indonesia, and from that 

 period the Javanese have enjoyed a material and social pre-eminence in this region. 

 Their tribes, to whom the Buddhist missionaries had brought the words of peace 

 and universal brotherhood, became fused in a united nationality, thus entering on 

 a new historic era unattainable by the barbarous and savage inhabitants of the 

 adjacent islands. Under the subsequent Arab and Dutch sway the impulse given 

 by the first Indian civilisers made itself still felt by the Javanese populations. 



According to some authorities the very name by which the island is still 

 designated is of Hindu origin. The term Jahadiu, known to Ptolemy, is merely 

 the vulgar form Javd-jipa, the " Island of Barley," apparently so named by the 

 Hindu immigrants from a cereal which looked like the barley of India, but which 

 was probably millet [panicum ita/iciim). Nevertheless other etymologists sought 

 an explanation of the word Jairi or Jan' in the native languages. The Sundanese 

 of the western districts called themselves Jelma Bumi, that is, " Men of the Soil," 

 designating their neighbours of the central and eastern provinces as Tyang Javi, 

 or " Foreigners," and the region itself as Tanah Javi, that is, " Foreign " or 

 " Outer Land." This hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that other outer 

 regions, notably Sumatra and Bali, also bore the name of Java, and at the dawn of 

 modern history, the Australian continent itself is vaguely indicated under the 

 appellation of " Great Java." 



But at the close of the sixteenth century, when the first Dutch traders founded 

 their factories in the present Java, it was already known by this name throughout 

 its whole extent. It is the Zabej of the Arabs, and to it the term Nusa Kendang, 

 or " Island of Great Mountains," seems also at one time to have been commonly 

 applied. 



At present this marvellous region is almost as well known as the lands of West 

 Europe. The works relating to it are already numbered by the thousand, it has 

 been studied from every point of view, and explored in all directions by eminent 

 geologists, geographers, naturalists, anthropologists, historians, and engineers. Its 

 triangulation has been completed since 1882, and its relief in all its details is figured 

 on carefully prepared topographical charts. Each volcano has even been specially 

 described in section, plan, and elevation, so that all changes of form may hence- 

 forth be recorded with as much precision as those of Vesuvius and Etna. 



Java was formerly supposed to consist exclusively of eruptive rocks upheaved 

 from the bed of the Indian Ocean. But we now know that about three-fifths of 

 the surface is composed of sedimentary rocks, plains, and uplands, and that the 

 whole island is continued northwards in the direction of Billiton and Borneo, and 



