selling their children to be eaten by the purchasers, and himself as quitting the
island in haste for fear of being made a meal of. Not so Barbosa, although he had
not visited it, for he describes its productions, its trade, its manufacture of arms,
and the persons, dress, and manners of its inhabitants with much accuracy. Pigafetta
also calls the island by the same name as the two last named travellers, and although
his information respecting it was derived, as he tells us himself, from the old pilot
who accompanied him from the Moluccas, it is even more correct than that of
Barbosa. Thus he describes the concremation of women as still practised in Bali,
and as it no doubt once was in Java. He states that it contained large towns, and
he names several of them, such as the ancient capital of Majapait, Japara, Sidayu,
Tuban, Gressik, and Surabaya. I t is true that these names are fearfully mis-spelt,
but this arises in a good measure, probably, from errors of transcription. Thus, in the
edition published at Milan in 1800 from the original manuscript, the conterminous
districts of Japara and Sidayu are run into one word and written Cipaparasidain,
and those of Tuban and Garsik as Tubancressi, while Majapait is written Magepaher.
The neighbouring islands of Madura and Bali are correctly written, just as they are
at present, and they are described as being only half a league distant from Java.
How very little, however, was really known of Java by the early Portuguese of
India, is to be seen from what De Barros, master of all the Indian archives, says of it
in his third Decade, published in 1663, no less than 52 years after the conquest of
Malacca, and several years after his countrymen had visited China, discovered Java,
and traded with both. He makes it to consist of two islands, Java and Sunda, and his
work contains a rude map, in which a great river, or rather a strait of the sea, is
represented as dividing them. This he calls the river Chiamo, which may possibly
be the Chitando of the Sundas, a considerable stream at the eastern boundary of
their country, and which, in their language, signifies, “ boundary water or river.”
His description is taken, apparently, from the report of Henrique Lemd, sent to
Bantam in 1522, by George Alboquerque, Governor of Malacca.
This is his account of Java : “ The land of Jauha is an island, which lies to the
east of Qamatra, or so near to it that the strait between them does not exceed the
breadth of 15 leagues. Its direction is from east to west, and its northern end is in
6° of south latitude; its eastern in 7° 30'. The length of the island is 190 leagues,
but of its breadth we have no certain knowledge ; for our people have not yet navigated
its southern coast. According to the information of the natives, the whole of
the southern side, on account of the great gulf of the ocean, has few harbours; and
those who inhabit the northern side of the island hold no intercourse with the
Gentiles who inhabit the southern. Through the middle of the island, by its length,
there runs a chain of mountains which interrupts all communication. The natives
constantly assert that the breadth of Jauha is equal to one-third its length. Generally,
the people are idolaters. They are called Jaos, from the name of the land, and
are the most civilised people (gente de mais policia) of these parts.”—Decade second,
book ix. chapters 3 and 4.
The account given in the third Decade of the supposed joint islands varies considerably
from that just quoted, and is as follows ;—" We make of the land of Jauha
two islands, the one facing the other. The direction of both is from west to east, and
in the same parallels of from 7° to 8° of south latitude. As the mariners of the east
have laid these islands down in their charts, they are in their length, more or less, 180
leagues; but they are not so much, as we shall show in our Universal Geography.
The Javanese themselves do not make two islands of Java, but consider the whole as
one. As to the western end, where Java approaches Sumatra, there is a channel
between them from ten to twelve leagues in breadth, through which the intercourse
of the western world with the east was conducted before Malacca was founded, as we
have already written. Java, through its whole length, has in the middle a chain of
mountains of great height, distant from the northern shore about 25 leagues; but as
to their distance from the southern shores, the inhabitants have no recent knowledge,
although they think it is the same. For about a third part of the length of
Java, counting from its western end, is Sunda of which we have now to treat. Its
inhabitants hold it to be an island, divided from Java by a river, little known to our
navigators, and which they call Chiamo or Chenano. This intersects the whole of
this part of the country as far as the sea, in such a manner that when the people of
Java describe their own country, they say that it is bounded to the west by the
island of Sunda, parted from it by the aforesaid river Chiamo; on the east by the
island of Bali; to the north, by Madura; and to the south, by an undiscovered ocean.
They hold that whoever passes by this strait (the river Chiamo) into the South Sea, is
carried away by a violent current, and cannot return For this reason they <do not
navigate the South Sea, in like manner as the Moors, fromCaff!:«m to
■nass the Cane for fear of the great current that prevails there pass the Dape tor iear 6 and boastmg of its superiority Tovheer iJnahvaab, istaayn ttsh aotr
God establihed the aforesaid river Chiamo as a partition between them.”-Decade
third, book vui ohapter i ^ ^ and 1U° 4' east longiiude, and 5» 52' and
Th? i.danaofJava old world of native civllisation
it is long and narrow, its length being m a
direction nearly east and west, with a slight inclination to the south- Its ®
leneth is 575 geographical miles, while its breadth varies from 48 to 117. Its area
h a s been computed at 37,029 geographical square miles, which w-ould make it about
one-third part larger than Ireland. To the north, Java is separated fiom Borneo by
the broad, but comparatively shallow, Java Sea; to the south,
Ocean without a foot of land intervening between it and the Antarctic Bole, save
towarás lis eastern extremity, a corner of the Australian continent Torthe northwest,
it is parted from Sumatra by a strait, at its narrowest part only 14 miles wide,
and with islands between; and to the east from Bali, by a strait of no more than tw
miles broad. On its low, and in some measure, sheltered northern coast, Java has a
good many islands, by far the largest and most important .eáwhmh m
connected with it as to form almost a portion of itself; for althoughthestimtwhi
divides them is generally 30 miles broad, at the western end of Madura it is hardly
one rnde On fte bold precipitous southern coast there are very few islands, and two
only of very considerable size, those of Baron and Kambangan. ,
The coast line of Java, which is about 1400 English miles m extent, has many bays
on its northern coast, but it is not deeply penetrated by any one of them ; so ¿hat it has
properly no harbour but one, that of Surabaya, formed between the mam island and
Madura, where the strait that divides them is still narrow. The southern coast is
still less indented. Here there are two harbours only, Pachitan—inconvenient an
unsafe, and Chalachap, formed between the main island and Kambangan, or floating
island” out of the way of intercourse, and little, if at all frequented. On the coast
of the deep and bold southern side there is no safe anchorage, while a heavy and
dangerous surge rolls in on the shore in every season.
With the single exception named, the ports of the northern coast are but open
roadsteads, with good anchoring ground; but the inconvenience of wanting landlocked
harbours is not felt so near the equator, where hurricanes are never experienced,
and where the weather is only tempestuous occasionally at the change ol the
m The physical outline of Java may be divided into five different sections of various
breadth. Beginning from the western end, and following the line of the northern
coast, the first section ends with the eastern side of the bay of Batavia. This is about
75 miles in average breadth. The second extends east as far as Chenbon, in longitude
108° 36', and is about 95 miles broad. Both these divisions are mountainous, the mountains
being of less elevation than in the other parts of the island, but more crowded,
and with narrower valleys. They constitute the proper country of the bundas, who
speak a distinct language, and are less advanced in civilisation than the Javanese, the
nation which occupies all the rest of the island. The Sunda portion may be said to
stand in the same relation to Java proper that Wales does to England, Dower
Brittany to France, and the Basque Provinces to Spain. The third section extends
from Cheribon to the western side of the" promontory of Japara, in about longitude
110° 30', and its breadth does not exceed 50 miles, the island being greatly narrowed
by the bay which extends for 140 miles from the point of Indramaya to that of
Japara. The fourth section extends from the promontory of Japara to that portion
of the island which is opposite to the western end of Madura, and this has an average
breadth of about 100 miles. The fifth section embraces the remainder of the island,
and is no more than 50 miles in breadth. In the three last sections, the mountains
are of greater elevation, the plains more spacious, and along their northern coasts
there runs generally a belt of alluvial land, varying from five to fifteen miles in depth.
These sections constitute the proper country of the Javanese nation, although in
its fifth section, which is parallel throughout with the island of Madura, the Madurese,
from recent settlemeut, constitute the maj ority of its inhabitants.
The geological formation of Java is eminently volcanic; for it forms, perhaps, the
most material portion of that great volcanic band, which, beginning in Sumatra near
the equator, extends for 30° of longitude to the Banda Islands, and then taking a