Though not much addicted to excess, and of rather a slow temperament, they are in general liberal and expensive, according to their means, seldom hoarding their wealth, or betraying a penurious disposition. Fond of show and pomp, they lay out all their money, as soon as it is acquired, in the purchase of articles of dress, horses, splendid trappings, &c.: but they possess a quality which is not always joined with a love of splendour, either in nations or individuals; they are cleanly in their persons, and pay the greatest attention to neatness, as well as to glare and finery. Hospitality is universal among them; it is enjoined by their most ancient institutions, and practised with readiness and zeal. The Javans are exceedingly sensible to praise or shame[74], and ambitious of power and distinction; but their national oppressions or agricultural habits have rendered them somewhat indifferent to military glory, and deprived them of a great portion of their ancient warlike energy. They are more remarkable for passive fortitude than active courage, and endure privations with patience, rather than make exertions with spirit and enterprize. Though living under a government where justice was seldom administered with purity or impartiality, and where, of course, we might expect to see the hand of private violence stretched out to punish private wrong, or a general spirit of retaliation and insidious cruelty prevailing, the Javans are, in a great degree, strangers to unrelenting hatred and blood-thirsty revenge. Almost the only passion that can urge them to deeds of vengeance or assassination, is jealousy. The wound given to a husband's honour by seducing his wife, is seldom healed, the crime seldom forgiven; and what is remarkable, the very people who break the marriage tie on the slightest caprice, or the most vague pretence, are yet uncommonly watchful over it while it remains entire. They are little liable to those fits and starts of anger, or those sudden explosions of fury, which appear among northern nations. To this remark have been brought forward as exceptions, those acts of vengeance, proceeding from an irresistible phrenzy, called _mucks_, where the unhappy sufferer aims at indiscriminate destruction, till he himself is killed like a wild beast, whom it is impossible to take alive. It is a mistake, however, to attribute these acts of desperation to the Javans.