of man, he will receive rare instruction; and if a _lustige Person_ as well, joy will accrue to him from the sempiternal relevancy of Javanese allegorical humour, at times almost prophetic: the sculptor of the pigheaded but self-satisfied peasant who cultivates his land with a plow drawn by crabs,[99] must have had a vision of the Dutch Government endeavouring, after periodical visitations of worse than customary want, misery and famine, to secure progress and prosperity in the island by appointing long commissions with long names, toiling long years over long reports that leave matters exactly where they were. The skies in the scenery of the bas-reliefs on the lowest terrace of the _chandi_ Panataran have something very peculiar, termed cloud-faces by Dr. Brandes, who recognised in the fantastic forms of the floating vapour as reproduced in the hard stone, demons and animals to which he drew special attention: a _kala_-head, a furious elephant threatening to charge, etc. The figures of all bas-reliefs, mostly perhaps those of the second tier from below, are notable for their departure from the smooth treatment generally accorded to Javanese sculpture of the period and best defined perhaps in the phrase of one of Canova’s critics when he derided that artist’s “peeled-radish” style. Angular and flat, they remind one of the _wayang_-puppets, and the obvious correspondence between the manner in which the _chandi_ Panataran illustrates some of the chief productions of Javanese literature and the performances of the Javanese national theatre, has been cleverly insisted upon by Rouffaer. The _wayang_, _i.e._ the dramatic art of the island, sprang probably from religious observances of pre-Hindu origin. Dr. G. A. J. Hazeu[100] is of opinion that it formed part of the ritual of the ancient faith, and even now the _hadat_ requires a sacrifice, the burning of incense, etc., before the play commences. The Javanese word _lakon_, a derivation from _laku_, which signifies both “to run” and “to act”, applied to stage composition, is the exact etymological equivalent of our “drama”; the _lakon yèyèr_ (_layer_ or _lugu_) confines itself to tradition, the _lakon karangan_ to subjects taken from tradition but freely handled, the _lakon sempalan_ to episodes from works otherwise unsuitable because of their length. The _wayang_ appears, according to means of interpretation, as _wayang poorwa_ or _kulit_,[101] _gedog_, _kelitik_ or _karucil_, _golek_, _topeng_, _wong_ and _bèbèr_, of which the _wayang poorwa_ holds the oldest title to direct descent from the ancestral habit of invocation of the spirits of the dead. The epithet _poorwa_ has been derived from the _parwas_ of the _Mahabharata_ which, together with the _Ramayana_ and similar sources, offered an abundant supply of dramatic material; it is from the _wayang poorwa_ that the Javanese people derive their notions of past events, as the inhabitants of another island did theirs from their poet and playwright