Note 1 — Chapter XVI · [COMPOSED BY STERN.]

Saïdjah’s father had a buffalo, with which he ploughed his field. When this buffalo was taken away from him by the district chief at Parang-Koodjang he was very dejected, and did not speak a word for many a day. For the time for ploughing was come, and he had to fear that if the sawah1 was not worked in time, the opportunity to sow would be lost, and lastly, that there would be no paddy to cut, none to keep in the lombong (store-room) of the house. I have here to tell readers who know Java, but not Bantam, that in that Residency there is personal landed property, which is not the case elsewhere. Saïdjah’s father, then, was very uneasy. He feared that his wife would have no rice, nor Saïdjah himself, who was still a child, nor his little brothers and sisters. And the district chief too would accuse him to the Assistant Resident if he was behind-hand in the payment of his land-taxes, for this is punished by the law. Saïdjah’s father then took a kris,2 which was poosaka3 from his father. The kris was not very handsome, but there were silver bands round the sheath, and at the end there was a silver plate. He sold this kris to a Chinaman who dwelt in the capital, and came home with twenty-four guilders, for which money he bought another buffalo.