B ATA VIA. 223 
resistance which the Dutch have experienced frorji this people 
has, at all times, been trifling. Their spirit, if ever they had 
an}^, seems to have been completely subdued by their Ma- 
homedan conquerors, some centuries before tlieir island was 
discovered by Europeans. What tliey might have been in 
early ages history does not inform us ; but, at the present 
day, their state and condition are by no means enviable. 
Sunk into the lo^vest stage of apathy, they seem to be utterly 
incapable of any great exertions. Their Princes are prisoners 
to a handful of Dutchmen, and the landholders are slaves to 
the Princes. We endeavoured to pay a visit to the King of 
Bantam, but Avere prevented by a Dutch officer, who com- 
manded the fort in which he resided, and who, as in Trin- 
culo's government, appeared to be Viceroy over the King. 
But a state of imprisonment can scarcely be considered as 
any hardship to one who has no care for the welfare of his 
subjects, who consults only bodily ease, and who lives in the, 
firm persuasion of the profound wisdom in which the old 
riental maxim is founded, " that it is better to stand than 
to walk, to lie down than to sit, to sleep than to be awake, 
'* and that death is the best of all." Agreeably to such sen- 
timents, the life of a Javanese of condition is an invariable 
round of indefatigable and persevering indolence. To him the 
supreme blessings of life consist in stretching himself at fall 
length, or sitting cross-legged on a carpet, the whole day long 
surrounded by women ; or, in his more lively hours, attended 
by musicians v/ith drums and squalling flutes, by dancing 
men and dancing women, whilst, with placid indifference 
and unshaken tranquillity, he draws the smoke through the 
