6g TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN AHCHTPELAGO. 



those sluggish animals to take you up to the crest of 

 the elevatioiL 



Our road that morning led over a low conntiy, 

 which was devoted wholly to rice and sugar-cane. 

 Some of these rice-fields stretched away on either 

 hand as far as the eye could see, and appeared aa 

 boundless as the ocean. Numbers of natives were 

 scattered through these wide fields, selecting out the 

 ripened blades, which their religion requires them to 

 cut off om hy am. It appears an endless task thus 

 to gather in all the blades over a ^vide plain. These 

 are clipped off near the top, and the rice in this state^ 

 with the hull still on, is called paddy." The re- 

 maining part of the stalks is left in the fields to enrich 

 the soiL After each crop the ground is spaded or 

 dug up with a large hoe, or ploughed with a buffalo, 

 and afterward han*owed with a huge rake ; and to aid 

 in breaking up the clods, water to the depth of four 

 or five inches is let iiL This is retaiaed by dikes 

 which cross the fields at right angles, dividing them 

 up into little beds from fifty to one hundred feet 

 square. The seed is sown thickly in small plats at 

 the beginning of the rainy monsoon. When the 

 plants are four or five inches high they ai'e transferi'ed 

 to the larger beds, which are still kept overflowed for 

 some time. They come to maturity about this time 

 (June 14th), the first part of the eastern monsoon, or 

 dry season. Such low lands that can be thus flooded 

 are called sawas. Although the Javanese have built 

 mt^ificent temples, they have never iavented or 

 adopted any appai'atus that has come into common 

 use for raising water for their rice^fields, not even the 



