The animal productions, especially the birds and insects, are beautiful and varied, and present many peculiar forms found nowhere else upon the globe.
The soil throughout the island is exceedingly fertile, and all the productions of the tropics, together with many of the temperate zones, can be easily cultivated.

Java too possesses a civilization, a history and antiquities of its own, of great interest.

The Brahminical religion flourished in it from an epoch of unknown antiquity until about the year 1478, when that of Mahomet superseded it.

The former religion was accompanied by a civilization which has not been equalled by the conquerors; for, scattered through the country, especially in the eastern part of it, are found buried in lofty forests, temples, tombs, and statues of great beauty and grandeur; and the remains of extensive cities, where the tiger, the rhinoceros, and the wild bull now roam undisturbed.

A modern civilization of another type is now spreading over the land.