IN JAVA. 59 



A stream which ran near my house was crossed by one of 

 those native-made bamboo bridges, which spaciously housed 

 and thatched over, have such a neat and attractive look about 

 them. Every Sunday morning the district market was held 

 under it, which from an early hour presented quite a gay and 

 busy scene. I never missed, if I could, an opportunity of 

 visiting these Fassars, as 1 found them delightful resorts for 

 studying the native in his gayer moods ; for market-day was 

 always their holiday, and the market-place the rendezvous for 

 the youths and maidens of the district, as well as the news- 

 exchange of the old men. The vendors, to be early at the 

 market-place, generally spent Saturday evening and night 

 under the shade of the bridge, or collected in the neighbouring 

 village, whence the tinkle of the gamelang, their characteristic 

 musical instrument, would be heard throughout the livelong 

 night in company, if not concord, with the higher notes of their 

 curiously drawling voices, repeating tjeritas or semi-historical 

 tales, and adaptations from the Koran, varied by pantuns or 

 love songs. 



The collection of wares exposed for barter was always a 

 curious one : sarongs from their own looms — whose incessant 

 click-clack is one of the most pleasant and characteristic of the 

 industrial sounds in their villages — calicoes and silk kerchiefs 

 from Blanchester and Liverpool ; Clark's Paisley thread of 

 "extra quality"; native-made horn combs, gay ornaments of 

 spangles and beads, and the elaborate inlaid silver breast-pins 

 for which the district is famous, worn by every female to fasten 

 her loose upper robes ; and bamboo hats in great variety. The 

 Bantamese are specially noted for the manufacture of these last, 

 and some of them are really exquisite specimens of plaiting. 

 In the finest quality, made of carefully prepared narrow strips 

 of the wood, a quiet but lucrative trade is done with European 

 markets by unobtrusive go-betweens who collect them through 

 the district. In Bantam they cost a mere trifle, but in Paris, 

 I am informed, they are retailed at a profit of nearly one thou- 

 sand per cent., as true Panama hats, from which it is difficult 

 to distinguish them. One of these hats, that I treated to the 

 roughest jungle AAork of three years, was scarcely impaired 

 when we parted company. 



Other than these the chief articles were household utensils, 



