File:THE HOMES OF THE JAVANESE.jpg

English: HOMES OF THE JAVANESE.-Above all the Malay tribes the Javanese are the most ingenious and painstaking. Their village on the Midway Plaisance has been a constant centre of interest, and

visitors never cease admiring the cozy habitations, bazaars and theatre which have been contrived from such simple materials as palm leaves, grasses and split bamboo poles. The decorative effects produced by the weaving of different colors, striped and fringed mats, and other devices, are also quite attractive, and it is no longer matter for surprise that a Javanese considers himself rich who owns "a piece of land, a bamboo hut and a buffalo and cart." In their island home this people are distributed over the country in villages called dessas. Every dessa, however small, forms an independent community; and no sooner does it attain to any considerable size than it sends off a score of families or so to form another dessa. Each lies in the midst of its own area of cultivation. The enclosure is made of an impervious hedge of bamboos forty to seventy feet high. Within this lie the houses, each with its own bamboo fence, and in the centre of all, or forum, is usually a giant Waringen tree. The mosque stands at the west side. Besides the toil of the rice and coffee plantations the natives have many other useful industries. Cotton spinning, weaving and dyeing are

carried on as domestic operations by the women. The men include metal workers, carpenters, potters and armorers. There are but very few drones in the homes of the Javanese.