Their prejudices are neither very numerous nor unyielding, and seem generally to have originated in some laudable feeling or amiable weakness. Their nationality, which is very strong, although it delights in the traditionary narratives of ancient Javan exploits, and supports a hope of future independence, which they are not backward to express, does not lead them to despise the character, or to undervalue the acts of strangers. They have a contempt for trade, and those of higher rank esteem it disgraceful to be engaged in it; but the common people are ever ready to engage in the labours of agriculture, and the chiefs to honour and encourage agricultural industry. Those of the highest rank and greatest authority, generally attend at the opening of new _sáwah_ fields, performing part of the work with their own hands, and leading their inferiors or dependents, as they express it, to pay respect to the earth, in whose honour they also observe annually the _sedéka búmi_, or feast to the earth. It is in the same spirit that the buffalo, as the chief assistant of the husbandman, is viewed with such peculiar regard, that in some of the interior districts, new-born infants are sometimes carried to be breathed upon by them, from a superstitious belief that such a ceremony will render them fortunate. Notwithstanding the despotic nature of their government, and the feudal principles on which it rests, the Javan must be considered as a patriarchial people, still retaining many of the virtues, and all the simplicity, which distinguish that state of society. Their village settlements constitute detached societies, under their local chief and priest, and the same internal concord prevails in these little associations which characterises patriarchial tribes. Vicinity and daily intercourse afford opportunities of conferring real assistance and acts of kindness: injustice and even violence may sometimes be committed against the inhabitants of other villages, but very seldom by the inhabitants of the same village against each other. The patriarchial spirit of the Javans may be further traced, in the veneration which they pay to age, the respect and acquiescence with which they receive the maxims or the counsels of experience, the ready contented submission which they shew to the commands of their immediate superiors, the warmth of their domestic attachments, and the affectionate reverence with which they regard and protect the tombs and the ashes of their fathers. To the same description of feelings may be referred that consideration for ancestry, that attention to the line of descent, and that regard to the history and merits of distant kindred, which in the meanest people appears often to assume the character of family pride.