I find the benign influences of the Southern Cross-not a very brilliant constellation by the way-utterly undone by the fiery fury of the noonday-sun and have learnt to appreciate the fine irony of the inherited style and title, as compared with the present habitat, of the said Birds of Paradise. I know-to my cost-that, if the surrounding seas be different from any other body of water, they are chiefly so in being more subject to tempest, turmoil, and sudden squalls. Where is it now, the glory and the dream? The soil of Java is hot under my feet. And higher than elsewhere, surely, the skies, blessed with the sign of the Southern Cross, must rise above the woods where the birds of paradise nestle. And it seemed to me that the very seas which girt those magic shores-still keeping their golden sands undefiled from the gross clay of the outer world-must be unlike all other water-tranquil ever, crystalline, with a seven-tinted glow of strange sea-flowers, and the flashing of jewel-like fishes gleaming from unsounded deeps. I would have none of such vain exactitude but still chose to think of Java as situate in the same region as the Island of Avalon the Land of the Lotos-Eaters, palm-shaded Bohemia by the sea, and the Forest of Broceliand, Merlin's melodious grave. How could there be latitude and longitude to such a thing of dreams and fancies? An attempt at determining the acreage of the rainbow, or the geological strata of a Fata Morgana, would hardly have seemed less absurd. But Java? What far forlorn shore may it be that owns the strange-sounding name and in what sailless seas may this other Ultima Thule be fancied to float? Time was when I never saw a globe-all spun about with the net of parallels and degrees, as with some vast spider's web-without a little shock of surprise at finding Java hanging in the meshes.
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And, indeed, every schoolboy points the finger of unceremonious acquaintance at Jupiter and Japan lies transparent on the egg-shell porcelain of many an elegant tea-table. When the Lady Dolly van der Decken, in answer to questions about her legendary husband's whereabouts, murmured something vague about Java, Japan, or Jupiter, she had Java in her mind as the most impossible of those impossible places. Walt Farrell, Marc-André Seekamp, David Garcia, Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe,Īnd the Online Distributed Proofreading Teamįrom page images generously made available by ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JAVA, FACTS AND FANCIES***
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BRIAN BRUSHWOOD BOOK TEST SHINING LICENSE
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