mud Magazine, of the Ceylon Agricultural Society. 



599 



Thousand Temples. 



The large inner temple with fine bas-reliefs 

 in the corridors suffered greatly in the earth- 

 quake of 1867. In the row of side temples there 

 are still 25 Buddha images, showing how much 

 the two religions got mixed in Java, and, 

 indeed, two miles from Parambanan there 

 is a specially beautiful Buddhist temple but 

 without any image. Our visit had to be a 

 hurried one, in order to enable us to catch 

 the evening train back to Maos, from thence 

 nest day traversing the same country upwards to 

 Bandoeng and then taking a new route back 

 to Batavia. We had occasion to remark 

 on the goodness of the cart-roads, so far as 

 we could see, the abundance of poultry (and 

 especially of ducks in the lowerlying districts) 

 and the general look of comfort about the people. 



On our return to Batavia, a great 

 Industrial Exhibition 

 afforded much interest— not the least important 

 stand being that of a Sinhalese, with his 

 Assistants (the only representatives we saw in 

 Java), whose Dutch card is worth reproducing: — 



E. P. Punchesingho. Juwelier, Tevens Handelaar iu 

 Edelgesteenten, uit da hand vervaardigde Ceylon-che Kant, 

 enz. enz Houdt zicli beleefd aanbeyqlen vocr all9 shorten 

 van Keparaties Van Bijouterien togen billijken prijs, 

 Kroekoet Huiano, 43, Telephoon No. Batavia. 



The well-stocked Museum afforded much of 

 interest and instruction, and we had further 

 opportunities of remarking on some of the 

 splendid parks, buildings, villas and grounds 

 which distinguish the attractive Veltevreden 

 division of Java's capital. Our voyage back 

 to Singapore in a smaller German steamer 

 was uneventful, save for accosting as a solid 

 Dutchman, an indignant Scot all the way from 

 Ayrshire to do business in Netherlands India 

 and then finding we made four at our table: 

 the head of the biggest Australian Steam 

 Shipping Company, hailing originally from 

 1 Auld Reekie, 3 the son of an Aberdeenshire 

 Peer., and a Highlander from the neighbour- 

 hood of what Carnegie calls " the Venice of 

 Scotland." In Singapore, we owed much to 

 the attention and hospitality of our old friend 

 the Director of Public Works, who will be re- 

 tiring on pension next year probably. The 



Hon. Mr. Alex. Murray 

 left his mark in Ceylon as one of our most 

 capable officers, his invention of cement sluices 

 for village tanks alone saving Government an 

 enormous outlay from first to last, while his 

 faithtnl exposure of the scandalous casp of P. W. 

 mismanagement (and worse], in Dva, merited 

 special recognition. A great inconvenience we 

 found in Singapore was the distance between the 

 G.P.O. and the Telegraph Office, and very soon 

 a similar separation of two branches that ought 

 always to be worked close together will be felt 

 in Colombo. Government House, the Colonial 

 Secretary's residence and the Botanic Gardens 

 occupy splendid sites in Singapore, which again 

 is favoured in its 



Raffles Library 

 co' joined with the Museum. — Our voyage from 

 Singapore with a pleasant call at Penang, 

 meeting old friends was a pleasant one in a good 

 N.D.L. boat all the way to Colombo. It only 

 remains to be said that ' livu weeks ,: sufficed 



for the round trip to the Malay Slates, Singapore 

 and Java and back (against "six weeks" for the 

 round of India in 1901). Of literature regard- 

 ing Java, there is no lack : the Dutch Royal 

 Mail Steamer Company besides having well 

 found, comfortable new vessels are providing 

 a series of convenient pamphlets for visitors : — 

 Seven days in Java; and 10, 14 or 21 ; besides 

 a well-illustrated Guide for all Netherlands 

 India. A little book published in its English 

 translation in 1897 also purports to be a com- 

 plete guide and there are guides to Batavia, 

 Bmtenzorg, the Ruins, &c, — all in English 

 with fairly good maps. "Across the Equator: 

 a holiday Trip in Java " is the title of a 96 

 page pamphlet with illustrations by Mr. T H 

 Roid of the Straits Times just out (July, 1908) ; 

 but by far the brightest cleverest bit of writing 

 on that part of the world, giving " Notes and 

 Impressions of a brief Holiday Tour through 

 Java, the Eastern Archipelago and Siam was 

 by the llev. Geo. M Reith, m.a., Scotch Chap- 

 lain, contributed in letters to the Singapore 

 Free Press and to which the Editor, our friend 

 Mr. W Gi seme St. Clair (now getting on to be 

 one of the veteran Editors in the East), in re- 

 publishing in pamphlet form, gave the happy 

 title of 



•' A Padre iw Partibu§." 

 This booklet deserves to be revised, brought up 

 to date, and reprinted ere long, with suitable 

 illustrations. 



*■* LANTANA "—A BLESSING OR THE 

 REVERSE. 



We have been surprised that no one took 

 up the challenge recently offered by a corre- 

 spondent in our columns (November, 1908, p. 494) 

 as to the spread of lantana being an unmitigated 

 evil, more especially as in the few editorial remarks 

 on the subject, the same view was taken. Of 

 course, this is quite contrary to the old — and 

 what had for many years become the " ortho- 

 dox "--view of the uses of lantana. Old coffee 

 p'auters of the school of Tytler, Rudd, Wall and 

 many more always declared that lantana was 

 an undoubted blessing to the country, because 

 ic "rushed" in wherever abandoned cultiva- 

 tion offered scope and the result of a certain 

 number of seasons of lantana seeding and dying 

 down was, in a very great measure, to renovate 

 tht soil and after a time to make it fit for cultiva- 

 tion again. The correspondent, who bemoaned its 

 invasion of gardens or clearings where it was not 

 at all wanted, must have to look at this other 

 view of the matter ; for, on the Kandy side 

 and in many old districts, not a few object- 

 lessons of good resulting from the spread 

 of lantana, can be pointed out. We are 

 led to make these remarks by the receipt 

 of the following very pointed and true re- 

 marks from a proprietary planter of much 

 experience North of Kandy. He is good 

 enough to write : — 



" I saw somebody in your columns a short time 

 back advocating a law for eradicating lantana 

 because ' it grows over poor villagers' gardens 

 grass land, roads, &c* Real reason is they are 



