122 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
peninsula of Java lying directly to the south of it, and 
are increasing rapidly round Surabaya. They exceed the 
Sundanese in number. 
All these people are of Malay race, and are physically 
not easily distinguishable from the Malays of the other 
great islands and the Malacca peninsula, except for the 
fact of their being somewhat taller. Like all Malays 
they are of slight build, and Yon Scherzer has recently 
called attention to the extreme fineness of the bones in 
female skeletons. As regards character, Crawfurd, who 
had long and intimate experience of them in the earlier 
part of this century, pronounced them to be peaceable, 
docile, sober and industrious, and the most truthful and 
straightforward Asiatic people he ever met with—an opinion 
that will probably be® shared by most of the modern 
travellers who have known them. They have, without 
doubt, improved under a settled government, which has 
given them peace and security; for an old writer, Bar¬ 
bosa, describes them, in the beginning of the sixteenth 
century, as being “ very malicious, great deceivers, seldom 
speaking the truth, and prepared to do all manner of 
wickedness; ” and this was no doubt true, as the same 
terms will apply to many of the Malay people at the 
present day under the rule of despotic native princes, 
who govern by favouritism and intrigue, spend their lives 
in amusements and debauchery, and hold the property, 
the families, and even the lives of all their subjects at 
their disposal. 
Java was a populous and wealthy island long before 
it was known to Europeans, for the Portuguese found 
there a comparatively civilised people, carrying on a great 
trade with surrounding countries, which they supplied 
with rice and native manufactures. The Javanese are 
good agriculturists, and are especially skilful in irrigation. 
