Java, Facts and Fancies

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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.