their own, greatly to the advantage of their Dutch
masters. The colossal incomes assigned to scions of the royal stock
only serve the double purpose of political expediency and personal
extravagance, for the luxury of a licentious Court remains unchecked,
and the idea of educating or reforming tributary princes is unknown in
Java. Territorial rights were relinquished for pecuniary gains, and the
entire Court of the Susunhan is in the pay of the Dutch, the wealth
amassed from the richest island in the world affording ample
compensation for the pensions lavishly bestowed on the former owners of
the tropical Paradise. The Dutch Resident, in his capacity of "Elder
Brother" to the indigenous race, claims the full privileges of his
assumed position, but the advancing tide of social reform has even
touched these distant shores, and the alien authority tends on the
whole to the welfare of the community. Hygienic regulations are
compulsory, and even here the traditions of Holland enjoin an amount of
whitewashing and cleaning up unique in tropical colonies. The green and
vermilion panelled _sarongs_ of Solo are renowned for their elaborate
designs, and the painting of _battek_, or cotton cloth, remains a
flourishing industry of the ancient capital. The intricate beauty of
the hand-made patterns far surpasses that of the woven fabrics
wherewith new mills and factories begin to supply the market. Centuries
of hereditary training, from the days when royal Solo was a
self-supporting city, contribute to the amazing skill of the _battek_
girls, but the elaboration of native Art is doomed to decay, for Time,
hitherto a negligeable quantity in this "summer isle of Eden," begins
to reveal a value unknown to the Javanese past, and as the poetry of
illumination vanished before the prose of the printing press, so the
painting of _battek_ must inevitably give way to the wholesale methods
of Manchester in the near future of Java, just awakening from her
spellbound sleep to the changed conditions of life and labour. An
exquisite plain, described by de Charnay as unrivalled even in Java,
surrounds Sourakarta with belts of palm, avenues of waringen, and
picturesque rice-fields of flaming green and vivid gold. Azure peaks
frame the enchanting picture. The storied heights are rich in
traditions of gods and heroes, with innumerable myths haunting the
ruined temples which cluster round the base of the mountain range, and
suggest themselves as relics