1832.] 
ISLAND OF JAVA. 
279 
days, and regulate the time of an enterprise or a journey accord- 
ingly. Eclipses, earthquakes, and other phenomena of nature, 
fill them continually with superstitious fears and unnecessary 
alarms. 
The Javans are conspicuous for the amiable qualities of social 
order, politeness, hospitality, and temperance. They are a sort 
of patriarchal people, still retaining many of the virtues, and all 
the simplicity, which distinguish that state of society. Their 
village settlements constitute detached societies, in which the 
greatest internal concord prevails, all its members paying due 
respect and deference to their local chief and priest. This patri- 
archal spirit is further manifested in the almost instinctive venera- 
tion which they pay to age, experience, rank, and superior attain- 
ments. In manners they are easy and courteous, and respectful 
even to timidity ; but they have a great sense of propriety, and 
are never rude or abrupt. In their deportment they are pliant and 
graceful, the higher ranks carrying with them a considerable air 
of fashion and elegance. . 
Hospitality has always been celebrated as an oriental virtue, 
some affecting instances of which are recorded in sacred as well 
as profane history. But in no country are its rites and duties 
more strictly enjoined by institutions, or more conscientiously and 
religiously observed by custom and practice, than by the Javans. 
By the custom of the country, good food and lodging are ordered 
to be provided for all strangers and travellers arriving at a village. 
But the Javan institutions go still further. " It is not sufficient," 
say they, " that a man should place good food before his guest; 
he is bound to do more : he should render the meal palatable by 
kind words and treatment, to sooth him after his journey, and to 
make his heart glad while he partakes of the refreshment." This 
is the refinement of hospitality. 
The Javans are remarkably temperate in their diet, which forms 
a great contrast with that of their oppressors, the indolent and 
luxurious Dutch. A principal part of their food consists of rice, 
sometimes fried in oil, and sometimes boiled in plain water, with 
which are used a few capsules or heads of capsicum or cayenne 
pepper, . and some salt, to render it a little more palatable. 
With animal food the Javans are generally unacquainted, and of 
milk they are very sparing, except the vegetable milk of the cocoa- 
