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[Illustration: MOHAMMEDAN ARMOUR.]

CHAPTER I.

HISTORICAL ACCOUNT UP TO THE PRESENT DAY.

Hindus--Mohammedans--Portuguese--English--Dutch--
Legal basis of Dutch possession--British occupation--
Return of Dutch--Culture system--Eruption of Mount
Krakatoa.

In the centre of that region of countless islands termed not inaptly the
"Summer of the World," midmost of the Sunda group of which Sumatra lies
to the west, and Flores to the east, with the fury of the tropical sun
tempered by a physical formation which especially exposes it to the
cooling influence of the ocean, lies the island of Java. Rich in
historic remains of a bygone Hindu supremacy, when the mild countenance
of Buddha gazed upon obedient multitudes, in memorials of Mohammedan,
Portuguese, and Dutch seafaring enterprises, it is a country singularly
alluring to the student and antiquarian. Nor is its present life less
interesting. Densely populated by a simple and refined native race, who
live for the most part in the midst of mountain glories and tropical
verdure, itself the best example of a rival and successful system of
colonization, modern Java is no mere tourist's country, but one which
possesses, and always has possessed, special attractions for the man of
science and the political student.

From an immense mass of native tradition the main outlines of the
history of the island can be disentangled with sufficient certainty.

Javanese tradition universally speaks of a personage called Saka,
variously termed warrior, priest, and god, to whom is attributed the
introduction of the arts of civilization, and whose advent marks the
opening year of the native chronology. The first year of Saka
corresponds to the seventy-eighth of the Christian era. There can be no
doubt as to the region from which this extraneous civilization came.
Native tradition and the vast religious monuments of the eastern and
central districts alike point to an Indian colonization and supremacy;
for the temples of Java bear the stamp of a culture and of an artistic
and architectural genius superior to that possessed by a race, the sole
record of whose national existence is contained in the meagre tradition
of an immigration from the western lands about the Red Sea.

Sir Stamford Raffles, in his exhaustive history of Java, gives the names
and dates of the Hindu monarchs, with an account of their conquests and
administrations. But the na