1832.] 
ISLAND OF JATA. 
281 
expectation of being restored to their former magnificence aiid 
power. They are, however, very little given to adventure Or 
foreign enterprise, not easily roused to violence or bloodshed, and 
little disposed to irregularities of any kind. The character of , 
treachery and revenge, so justly applicable to the Malays, by no 
means applies to the Javans. 
The character of Javanese females has been represented in a 
highly favourable light, as daughters, wives,, and mothers— alike 
amiable and exemplary in all their domestic and social relations. 
Raffles assures us that it is part of their domestic economy, that the 
women of every family should spin and weave all the cloth neces- 
sary for the apparel of the men ; and that this rule prevails, from 
the first consort of the sovereign to the wife of the humblest. 
" Royal Penelopes each day resume 
The curious labours of the mystic loom." 
In every cottage there is a spinning-wheel and a loom, and in 
all ranks a man is accounted to pride himself on the beauty of a 
cloth woven either by his wife, mistress, or daughter. These 
occupations of the women are performed on an elevated veranda, 
or kind of open portico, in front of their dwellings, where they 
are protected from the rays of a vertical sun by an extended pro- 
jection of the pitch of the roof, like many of the Dutch houses 
in the United States. 
The females of Java soon arrive at maturity, and entfer early 
into the married state. They are considered marriageable at the 
age of ten or twelve, and the , other sex at sixteen. There are 
no pecuniary obstacles to these early conjugal connexions. The 
conveniences which the young married couple require are few and. 
easily procured. Subsistence is easily obtained, and even com- 
forts are not wanting. If they be blessed with children, and we 
have never heard of any exception, the latter are not long a 
burden, but soon become the means of assistance, and uhimately 
the source of wealth. Their food, clothing, and education, cost 
them comparatively nothing. The women of all classes nurse 
their own offspring, if we except the wives of the regents or the 
sovereign. So that each fair Javanese matron, even in a pecuniary 
point of view, may point to her children, and say with the mother 
of the Gracchi — " Behold my jewels !" 
