A Visit to Java by W. Basil Worsfold

Page 1 of 84

[Illustration: MOUNT SALAK, FROM THE HOTEL BELLE VUE, AT BUITENZORG.

_Frontispiece._

(_See page_ 134.)]

A VISIT TO JAVA

WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE FOUNDING OF SINGAPORE

W. BASIL WORSFOLD.

[Illustration]

LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, Publishers in Ordinary to her Majesty the Queen. 1893. (_All rights reserved._)

PREFACE.

In writing these pages I have had before me a double purpose. First, to present to the general reader an account of what seemed to me to be a singularly interesting country, and one which, while being comparatively little known, has yet certain direct claims upon the attention of Englishmen. Secondly, to provide a book which, without being a guide book, would at the same time give information practically useful to the English and Australian traveller.

In sending this book to the press I have to acknowledge the courtesy of the editors of the _Field_ and of _Land and Water_. To the former I am indebted for permission to make use of an unusually interesting quotation from Mr. Charles Ledger's letter to the _Field_ on the subject of cinchona introduction, and also to include a short article of my own on "Horse-racing in Java" in Chapter XII. The latter has kindly allowed me to reproduce an account of my visit to the Buitenzorg Gardens, published in _Land and Water_.

My general indebtedness to standard works, such as Raffles' "Java," and Mr. Wallace's "Malay Archipelago," and also to those gentlemen who, like Dr. Treub, most kindly placed their information at my disposal in Java, is, I hope, sufficiently expressed in the text.

Professor Rhys Davids has very kindly read over the proof sheets of the chapter on the Hindu Temples; and I take this opportunity of acknowledging my sense of his courtesy in so doing, and my indebtedness to him for several valuable suggestions.

The spelling of the Javanese names and words has been a matter of some difficulty. The principle I have finally adopted is this. While adopting the Dutch spelling for the names of places and in descriptions of the natives, and thus preserving the forms which the traveller will find in railway time tables and in the Dutch accounts of the island, I have returned to the English spelling in narrative passages, and in those chapters where the reader is brought into contact with previous English works. But I have found it impossible to avoid occasional inconsistencies. In my account of the literature of the island I have kept to the Dutch titles of Javanese works as closely as possible; but I have modified the transliteration in accordance with the usages of English oriental scholars.

W. B. W.

1, Pump Court, Temple, E.C., November, 1892.

[Illustration: A JAVANESE ACTRESS.]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. PAGE HISTORICAL ACCOUNT UP TO THE PRESENT DAY.

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