The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

VII. 1 JAVA. 75rule in India, and that there ha\'e been several changes ofgovernment, and in the mode of raising revenue. The inhabitantshave been so recently under the rule of their nativeprinces, that it is not easy at once to destroy the excessivereverence tliey feel for their old masters, or to diminish theoppressive exactions which the latter have always been accustomedto make. There is, however, one grand test of theprosperitj^, and even of the happiness, of a community, whichwe can apply liere—tlie rate of increase of the population.It is univei'sally admitted, that when a country increasesrapidly in population, tlie people cannot be very greatlyoppressed or very badly governed. The present system ofraising a revenue by the cultivation of coftee and sugar, sold toGovernment at a fixed price, began in 1832. Just before this,in 1826, the population by census was 5,500,000, while at thebeginning of the century it was estimated at 3,500,000. In 1850,when the cultivation system had been in opei'ation eighteenyears, the population by census was over 9,500,000, or an increaseof seventy-three per cent, in twenty-four years. At the lastcensus, in 1865, it amounted to 14,168,416, an increase of verynearly fifty per cent, in fifteen years—a rate which would doublethe population in about twenty-six years. As Java (withMadura) contains about 38,500 geograi^hical square miles, thiswill give an average of 368 persons to the square mile, justdouble that of the populous and fertile Bengal Presidency asgiven in Thornton's Gazetteer of India, and fully one-third morethan that of Great Britain and Ireland at the last census. If,as I belieA'e, this vast population is on tlie whole contented andhappy, the Dutch Government should consider well beforeabruptly changing a system which has led to such greatresults.^Taking it as a whole, and surveying it from every point ofview, Java is i^robably the very finest and most interestingtropical island in the world. It is not first in size, but it ismore than 600 miles long, and from sixty to 120 miles wide, andin area is nearly equal to England ; and it is undoubtedly themost fertile, the most productive, and the most populous islandwithin the trollies. Its whole surface is magnificently variedwith mountain and forest scenery. It possesses thirty-eightvolcanic mountains, several of which rise to ten or twelvethousand feet high. Some of these are in constant activitj'-, andone or other of them displays almost every phenomenon producedby the action of subterranean fires, except regular lavastreams, which never occur in Java. The abundant moistureand tropical heat of the climate causes these mountains to beclothed with luxuriant vegetation, often to their very summits,while forests and plantations cover their lower slopes. Theanimal productions, especially the birds and insects, are1 In 1879 the population had still fiirtlier increased to over nineteen niillion.s.