the glories of heaven's portal, to delight the eyes of men and to beckon them to immortality. Among the Americans as among the Greeks there were stories of adventurous men who had voluntarily descended into Hades to rescue the souls of their friends. Charlevoix found one of these stories, which he compares to that of Orpheus and Eurydice, and Schoolcraft has preserved two of them, which, as products of imagination, are not unworthy of a place beside classical stories of this type, themselves probably older than the times of Greek civilisation.

The belief in future happiness beyond the grave was not a shadowy imagination, but a firm and practical conviction. The early Jesuit missionaries record with wonder the stoicism and stern joy with which the savage met death, and his certain assurance of a blessed hereafter. If the dying man was the head of a family, he chanted in advance his funeral song or oration, giving parting advice to his children and sorrowing friends, as in that wonderful death-song of Jacob preserved to us in Genesis. It may be well to remark here that the gifts of

the joys at its termination, and with the assurance that his children would sustain the reputation of his name. Among one northern tribe, according to Charlevoix, it was believed that when old persons survived until their dotage, they would have to begin their new life in the other world as mere infants. To avoid this, so strong was the conviction of eternal life, old persons verging on decrepitude were in the habit of beseeching their relatives to strangle them, that they might enter the future life in the full possession of their powers.

The faith of the survivors in the immortality of their deceased friends was exhibited in the care of the body, and in the simple rites and offerings by which they hoped to promote the welfare of the disembodied spirit. First among these may be mentioned the securing of companions and assistants to the departed shade. The terrible expedient of immolating prisoners, slaves, and wives on the tomb, so prevalent in the Old World, was not unknown in the New. Among the northern tribes, their only domestic animal, the dog, was obliged to accompany his

master into the land of death, just as among the ancient Scythians and some modern Americans the warrior's horse was slain to bear him on his long journey. The dogs, killed immediately after death, usually formed a part of the funeral feast, but this did not conflict with the idea that the spirits of these sagacious animals might guide the shade to its final abode. Cranz, a Greenland missionary, relates that it is a practice with the people of that forlorn region to place the head of a dog in the tomb of a child, "in order that the soul of the dog, which can always find its way home, may show the helpless infant the way to the country of souls." Some of the arctic navigators who have opened Esquimaux graves confirm the statement of the missionary. Nilsson quotes this touching instance of care for the soul of the deceased child in illustration of the fact that skulls of dogs occur in ancient burial-mounds of the Stone Age in Sweden, which in many other respects resemble the burial-places of the Greenlanders. A similar association of remains of the dog with those of man has been found in a prehistoric Irish tumulus, and in Peru the skeleton of the same faithful friend of man is sometimes found in the family sepulchre.

To return to the funeral ceremonies. Among the Canadian tribes the corpse immediately after death was placed in a sitting posture at the door of the hut, its face painted, dressed in the best robe of the deceased, and with his weapons beside it. Thus seated in state it was visited by friends. It was then taken to the place of burial, and laid in a grave carefully lined with the richest furs, as if the last resting-place were to be a bed of peaceful sleep. The grave was covered with a rough roof of split wood or bark; a post was set up, on which were carved the emblems of the dead, and some rude marks to indicate his actions. (Fig. 6.) And on this, oron the grave,

сер

Fig. 6.-ADJEDATIG, OR GRAVE-POST OF WABOJEEG THE "WHITE

FISHER," a Chippewa Chief, who died in 1793, from Schoolcraft. The reindeer at the top is the totem of his family; it is inverted to indicate death. The horizontal marks denote the number of his war parties and other military achievements. The three perpendicular lines indicate three wounds received in battle. The head of a moose commeinorates a combat with one of these animals. The other emblems are supposed to indicate his influence as a ruler, and the animal below is perhaps his dog, represented as dying with

his master.

were placed offerings to the spirit, as weapons or useful utensils; while for the time when the spirit was

* Knock Maraidho, Dublin.

supposed to haunt the grave, daily offerings of food were supplied. In the case of infants, mothers have been seen to shed the milk from their breasts on their little graves; and I have been informed that among some tribes there is more mourning for the death of a child than for an adult, on the ground of their greater helplessness in the lone land of spirits. The woodeut (Fig. 7) of Chippewa mourners is from a photograph, and shows the roofed grave with objects suspended on it as offerings, and an opening to introduce supplies of food, and the grave-post whereon to hang other offerings or emblems. After the funeral, presents were given to the relatives of the dead by their friends or by the tribe collectively, and a funeral feast was held by the family. This was accompanied by games, ending, says Charlevoix, who records these rites, with songs and cries of victory.

Last of all came the great octennial or decennial feast of the dead, most important of all the national ceremonies of the St. Lawrence tribes. Arrangements were made as to the time and place, and a master of the ceremonies was appointed, and friends were invited from neighbouring villages. When all was ready, they proceeded in procession to the cemetery, disinterred and cleansed the bones, amidst the lamentations of the women, wrapped them in new furs, and then, with many ceremonies, feasts, dances, and games, conveyed them to the great national pit or ossuary, where they were finally interred with the richest funeral gifts, and covered with the heapedup soil.

The arrangements of burial differed among different tribes. In ancient Micmac graves, in Prince Edward Island, the bones have been found wrapped in birch bark, and with a little parcel of arrow or spear-heads interred with them. Some of the western tribes leave the corpse and its property in its lodge, which thus becomes its tomb. Some raise the bodies of the dead aloft on stages, a custom which prevails as far off as Papua, where the people have also long, communistic houses, inhabited by many families, like the Iroquois and Hurons. Some tribes buried their dead in caverns, and the old Alleghans, and other agricultural tribes of the west and south, erected great mounds over the dead, some of which, as the Grave-Creek Mound, in Virginia, seventy feet in height and a thousand feet in circumference are among the greatest burial tumuli in the world. The elaborate subterranean sepulchral chambers of the old Peruvians are well known, and are, like the graves of the Greenlanders and the "gallery graves" of the ancient Scandinavians, miniature houses, furnished with the utensils or weapons of the dead.

Such differences in manner of burial might depend merely on difference of circumstances, and various modes might prevail among the same race. It is probable that the extinct Bocotics, or Red Indians of Newfoundland, were not an Algonquin people, but an eastern extension of the great Chippewyan or Tinné race, intermediate between the Algonquins and the Esquimaux, and entering America from the north-west. These people were destroyed partly by European settlers and partly by their hereditary enemies, the Micmacs of Nova Scotia. In 1827 an expedition was fitted out under the auspices of the Newfoundland Government by the explorer, McCormick, with the view of ascertaining if any remnant Lake, their former head-quarters, but there found of them existed. He penetrated to the Red Indian nothing but the ruins of their huts and their graves.

The interments had been of various kinds; some were in carefully-built huts of bark, others on stages of poles, others under heaps of stones. The body of an unfortunate young woman, taken prisoner by the whites, among whom she died, and after death left to be recovered by her tribe, was recognised by the remains of European clothing which these poor savages had scrupulously buried with her. If we ask the reason of this variety, the climate affords a ready answer. In Lower Canada at this day, the bodies of those who die in winter are preserved in vaults until spring, when they can be properly buried; so among the Red Indians, any one dying in winter could not be interred in the frozen ground or buried under stones, but must be placed in a bark cabin or on a stage. In like manner it is quite conceivable that under different circumstances the same tribe might bury their dead, or dispose of them by cremation, as the Kutchin of North and West America, a branch of the same stock with the Boêotics, now do.

But however different in details, all these modes of burial rested on the belief in immortality, and on the idea that the care of the body and the provision of suitable offerings had a connection with the soul's welfare in a future life. A further illustration of this, and also probably of some dim notion of a resurrection of the body, is afforded by the desire of the American Indian to be in death gathered to his fathers." A touching instance of this feeling is afforded by the story of the aged Micmac Sachem, or Sagamo, Mambertou, a man of high character and influence among his people, and evidently of great personal qualities. He became an early convert of the missionaries, and when attacked with his last illness was carried to Port Royal for medical assistance; but finding this of no avail, and his end approaching, he asked the Governor, Beincourt, to promise that his body should be taken to his native village and buried with those of his ancestors. The promise was given, but no sooner was it known to the Jesuit missionaries, than they were filled with horror; their noble convert could not be buried with infidels, his bones must lie in consecrated ground. Beincourt suggested that they might consecrate his grave in the Micmac burial-place, but this was out of the question, unless all the old infidels in the cemetery could first be disinterred and removed. The quarrel threatened to be serious, and the angry monks withdrew, and declared that if Mambertou persisted in his unreasonable wish, they would have nothing to do with his death or burial, and would withhold the rites of the Church. No modern Ultramontanes could display more faithful ritualism or more genuine antagonism to all that is holy and spiritual in religion and in man; and the Jesuit narrative records with satisfaction that their firmness triumphed; for the dying chief, unable to struggle against their fanaticism, quietly gave way, and his bones lie in the old French cemetery of Port Royal.

A TRIP TO JAVA.

I.

FTER a residence of some time at Singapore, A and when the sense of novelty which at first attaches one to a strange country had worn off, I felt a strong desire to shift the scene and proceed to some

fresh place. Whilst in this state of mind, the Dutch mail steamer arrived at Singapore, whither she had been despatched from Java to await the arrival of the European mail, and to bring over the Dutch portion of it to Batavia. I at once decided to avail myself of so good an opportunity for visiting an island whose picturesque scenery and productive powers I had always heard spoken of in terms of the highest praise.

The passage between the two islands rarely occupies more than three days, and being in smooth water throughout, land being kept in sight the whole way, there were none of the horrors usually attendant on sea-voyaging to be encountered. Besides the very pretty scenery which continually presented itself to the eye as we threaded our way through the numerous little islands which lay upon our route, there was not in the little world itself in which we moved any lack of subject calculated to interest or amuse. It was, indeed, a strange and motley crowd that was gathered together on board that old Dutch steamer, embracing, as it did, persons of almost every creed and colour, each speaking his native tongue, English, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Chinese, Malay, or Hindostanee.

Leaving the little island of Rhio, we threaded our way by the light of the moon through the narrow yet beautiful strait of the same name, and passing thence into the Straits of Banca, anchored the following day at Mintok, a barren and miserable-looking place, whose only value consists in its extensive tin mines, which are a rich source of revenue to the Dutch government, yielding annually, it is said, about fifty thousand pickuls of that metal. The mines are worked entirely by Chinese, who receive nine rupees for each pickul they deliver at the government stores. Quitting the Straits of Banca, we emerged on the fourth and last day of our voyage upon the Java Sea, and after a few hours' steaming came in sight of the city of Batavia, the capital of Java.

The approach to Batavia is cheerless in the extreme, the town being situated in the centre of a low marshy jungle, the very hotbed of malaria; but, in spite of its well-known unhealthiness, the settlement, which was founded nearly three centuries ago, gradually rose into such importance as to acquire for itself the designation of the "Queen of the East." It is reached by a canal which flows through the heart of the town, and for several miles beyond into the interior of the island.

The climate of Batavia has always proved especially fatal to Europeans, and even at the present day it is only the native portion of the community that can remain in the town after nightfall. The European population reside entirely in the country, and the merchants and others who have business to transact in Batavia go up to their offices daily at an early hour of the morning, and by three o'clock in the afternoon all business has ceased, and every office in the town is closed. The hotels, which are all situated out of town, are comfortable enough, being in their construction and internal arrangements specially adapted to the requirements of a tropical climate. The charge at these establishments, which is fixed by law, is the same all over the island, and is very moderate, being at the time I visited it only five rupees per diem for each person.

See "Leisure Hour" for 1876, page 401.

Carriages and horses are kept at all the hotels, and form by no means an unimportant part of the establishment. The carriages are all of a uniform description, being a small phaeton, drawn by a pair of ponies, and the coachman and the grooms wear the livery of the hotel to which they belong. These vehicles look very neat, but they are fully as rough as & Calcutta kranchie. They are precisely the kind of carriage into which one would put a man who had been bitten by a snake, or taken an overdose of laudanum, for if anything human could keep him. awake, it would be a Java pony-phaeton. Very few of the carriages in Java are provided with lamps, the custom being for the groom to stand at night upon the hind part of the vehicle, carrying a large torch as long as himself, which does the duty of a pair of lamps. The objection, however, to this plan is, that on a windy night the inside of the carriage receives quite as much of the smoke of the flambeau as the outside.

Travelling in Java is very expensive. The roads, however, are excellent, as are the horses also, the usual travelling pace of the latter being fully ten miles an hour. Post-horses are only obtainable by application to the government, whose sanction is also necessary before the visitor will be permitted to quit the capital. This is given as a matter of course, unless some special cause should exist for its refusal. The visitor then receives a passport, which holds good for twelve months, and for which he has to pay a fee of two-and-a-half rupees.

Horses are maintained upon only two lines of road, viz., Marshal Daendel's famous coast road, which traverses the entire length of the island from Aujer on the west coast to Banjoewangie at the eastern end of it, a distance of more than eight hundred miles, and upon the post road, which connects the northern and southern coasts, and traverses the native states of Djojokerta and Solokerta. Upon the other lines— and there are several that intersect the interior in every direction-horses are only obtainable by favour, or through the official influence of the district authorities. Before the formation of Marshal Daendel's great road, the communication between the capital and the eastern districts was necessarily very uncertain, being chiefly maintained by small coasters. The construction of this splendid highway, therefore, though it is said to have cost the lives of some twenty thousand persons, has proved of inestimable advantage to the island by enabling the government to communicate at all times of the year with its most distant provinces in the short space of three or four days.

If desirous of seeing the interior of the country, the visitor will find no difficulty in suiting himself with a travelling carriage, every description of vehicle being procurable in Batavia, from the well-stuffed britzka down to the island-built charabanc. As I contemplated an absence of several weeks from the capital, I found it would be the most economical plan to purchase a carriage, and I was fortunate enough to meet with a first-rate britzka, formerly the property of the Duke of Devonshire, and fitted with every possible convenience for travelling, and for which I paid the very moderate sum of £53 only.

My arrangements completed, I lost not a day in exchanging the suffocating heat of Batavia for the cooler and purer atmosphere of the country. There was something so exhilarating in the rapid pace at

which the Java ponies flew along with our heavily. laden carriage, and the mountain air felt so fresh and invigorating, that, under these life-restoring influences, I alressly felt better than I had done for months. The Bengal ayah alone, who sat crouching in a remote corner of the roomy coach-box, seemed unable to participate in these feelings. Though she was riding for the first time in her life upon a duke's carriage, though the scenery was highly picturesque, and the weather delightful, and though strange scenes and objects were presented constantly to her view, still they failed, one and all, to awaken in her the slightest emotion.

The forty-mile journey to Buitenzorg was performed in four hours-the usual time allotted for reaching that place by post. Here we remained some days, during which we received much kindness and hospitality from his Excellency the GovernorGeneral and his amiable lady, to whom we had brought letters of introduction from our friends at Singapore.

The climate of Buitenzorg is much healthier than that of Batavia, and from being more than a thousand feet above the sea, it is necessarily much cooler; at the same time we found it rather damp. The mornings and evenings, however, were delightful, and with the thermometer no higher than 75°, we were enabled to ride or walk with real enjoyment. A stranger, however, would soon tire of Buitenzorg, for there is literally nothing to be seen there except the Botanical Gardens, and with these he would probably be disappointed, as, though they contain a rich and rare collection of tropical plants, the gardens are not laid out with any artistic skill, nor are there enough men employed to keep them in any kind of order. There is a stiffness, too, about the long, straight walks, which is the reverse of pleasing; and these, again, instead of being laid with gravel, are covered over with loose pebbles, which make walking upon them very fatiguing.

It was a clear, fresh morning when we stepped into our ducal carriage in order to continue our progress up the country. The scene before us was beautiful in the extreme. Immediately in front of us was the richly-wooded Megameddon, over which, some four hours later, our carriage would have to pass at an elevation of more than four thousand feet above the sea. A little to the right, and already enveloped in mist, rose the lofty Simoet. On the extreme left, and occasionally exhibiting its crest through the white fleecy clouds that were sporting around its summit, stood the noble Salok, at an elevation of seven thousand feet. Beneath us, and now gradually receding from view, were the many picturesque, though low hills, which almost encircle the town of Buitenzorg. And far, far away, and for many a mile, stretched the verdant plains which lie betwixt the districts of Buitenzorg and Batavia.

The road begins to ascend almost immediately on leaving Buitenzorg, and the surrounding hills gradually closing in upon it, disclose to view an occasional native village or planter's villa, nestling in an orchard of fruit trees. But the most striking features in the landscape are the terraces cut in the hill-sides, and which in some instances are carried nearly half-way up the hill. These terraces are highly cultivated, and produce an effect that is as singular as it is pleasing. The view of the Priangen districts, from the summit of the Megameddon, when the weather is clear, is magnificent. We had had a shower of

rain before reaching the top, but it cleared just in time to give us a splendid prospect of the plains below us. A descent of about a thousand feet brings the traveller to Tjipanas; here there is a private bungalow, belonging to the Governor-General, a small botanical garden, and a hot spring. A further descent of two thousand feet and the traveller reaches Tjanjore, the head-quarters of the Resident of the Priangen.

In the administration of the government of their Eastern possessions, to which of late attention has been specially directed by the war in Sumatra, the Dutch have always proceeded on the principle of giving their native subjects a share in the management of the country. The same policy has recently been recognised and acted upon in India, where for the last fifty years the natives have been gradually admitted to fill posts of trust and responsibility in every branch of the public service. Pursuing this system in Java, the Dutch allow the native chiefs of every degree of rank to take a part, more or less, in the conduct of public affairs. To the princes of the land, under the title of "Regent," is delegated the control over the different districts of the island. But associated with the Regent there is a European officer, styled a Resident, who is practically, indeed, the real ruler in the district, for though he does not interfere directly in the management of the province to which he is attached, he is expected and enjoined to suggest for the Regent's consideration and adoption any measures or changes in the administration which he might deem necessary for the good of the district over which he is set. And, as a rule, any such suggestions, when made by the European Resident are at once acted upon by the Regent.

The revenue system in Java is a very peculiar one. The gross produce of each district is annually estimated by the local officers at the commencement of the year. The government then puts an arbitrary valuation upon the produce of each, two-fifths of which form the demand of the State in lieu of a landtax. The average rate at which this demand falls upon the cultivated area of the whole island is, I understood, about eight rupees the bao.* In the districts of the Priangen a different system of assessment exists. In those districts the agriculturist is allowed to retain the entire rice produce of his land, but, in lieu thereof, he is bound to furnish annually to the government a certain quantity of uncleaned coffee, the amount being fixed by the district officer at the beginning of the year. The price the cultivator receives for his coffee is absurdly small, being only three rupees per pickul, or about one halfpenny per pound. In the other districts every family is bound to grow a certain quantity of trees, varying in number from five hundred to a thousand, and for every pickul of uncleaned coffee the cultivator may take to the government storehouse he is entitled to receive ten rupees.

The Java coffee has never enjoyed a very high reputation, but there seems no reason why it should not be produced of a quality equal to the finest specimens grown in Bourbon or Mocha. In Java, however, little or no attention is bestowed on the cultivation of the plant, and after the trees are once planted they are left to take care of themselves, and suffered to grow as they will. An interval only of

The bao is somewhat larger than the English acre.

from six to eight feet is allowed between them; the sun and air, therefore, can never reach the plants, and a Java coffee garden accordingly has all the appearance of an unreclaimed jungle. The Dadap, or silk-cotton tree, which is invariably planted along with the coffee shrubs in order to screen the latter from the sun and wind, is admirably suited for this purpose, being a large but not too thickly-leafed tree, and attaining a height of from twenty to twenty-five feet.

Leaving Tjanjore after breakfast, we reached Bandong the same afternoon. This place well deserves the character it bears of being the Montpelier of Java. During the fortnight we spent there the weather resembled that of an English summer, the thermometer never rising above 75° at the hottest time of the day, and frequently falling as low as 68° before sunrise. The town stands at an elevation of two thousand two hundred and forty feet above the sea, and in its immediate vicinity are several lofty mountains, amongst the number, the Goonangago and the Goonangrang-rang, which rise respectively to the height of seven thousand five hundred and six thousand eight hundred feet.

Though not so large as Tjanjore, Bandong is still a place of considerable size, and its inhabitants wear about them an air of comfort and contentment which affords the surest evidence of its thriving condition. The town is very neatly laid out, the several streets intersecting each other at right angles. The houses are mostly tiled, and being constructed upon a uniform plan, present an appearance which is very pleasing. The roads are wide and well kept, and the different shops, with their varied contents, offer to the unaccustomed eye of the stranger a sight that is as interesting as it is novel. On one side you may see a choice collection of Javanese hats of all colours and sizes, varying in diameter from one foot and a-half to three feet, but all having the usual characteristic shape of an inverted washhand basin. These curiouslyshaped hats are made of bamboo, the outer side being covered with a thick coating of varnish, which renders them impervious to rain. The wearer of the Javanese hat, therefore, needs no umbrella. The drapers' shops are not less attractive, with their endless variety of chintzes and dyed cottons, amongst which the most prominent and favourite colours are blue and scarlet. But perhaps, to the eye of a stranger, the most curious and interesting of all are the eating-booths. Here, amid the varied display of savoury viands which assail the senses, the most fastidious taste might chance to be suited-here, for a few pice, the traveller may dine on Kabobed meats and curry, roasted Indian corn, and risolles of coloured rice, with vegetables, fruits, pickles, and sweetmeats; if he would desire fish besides, he could have it, but he must eat it in a putrid state, as the Javanese will not touch it in any other condition.

The environs of the town are almost exclusively occupied by coffee gardens, each plantation being fenced in with a closely-cut hedge of the scarlet hy biscus, which here grows in the greatest luxuriance; but in order to obtain a good view of Bandong and the country around it, the visitor must ascend one or other of the heights above the town, and then, if the weather be clear, he would be rewarded with a fine panoramic view of the surrounding hills and the valley below him, in the centre of which lies the little town embosomed in its numerous coffee gardens, and luxuriant with a perpetual verdure.