File:The Javan Settlement.jpg

English: THE JAVAN SETTLEMENT. By far the most instructive ethnological exhibit on Midway Plaisance was that made by the Javan Company, and when, in the latter days of

the Exposition, the management closed its gates because of the exactions of the directors of the Fair, there was a cry of dismay from friends and enemies of the Fair alike. It is very truly alleged that the Javan Settlement should not have been exiled in Midway. It was essentially an anthropological display. The voice of the recommender was never heard in these quiet places. The little people were the antipodes of the noisy and sordid Turks and vicious-looking Egyptians who crowded the street. The engraving before us gives a picture of the northern end of the village near the large theatre. The cottages were built on stilts to discourage the visits of serpents and other creeping things, and to avoid the dampness of a tropic soil. At night the little Javans sat on their door-steps and played their low instruments, while the sonorous notes of their

orchestra, within the theatre, deepened the sadness of the night. The great Wheel beyond might glitter with its five hundred lights, the Midway masses might go by in joy under the white are lamps, but the scene where the onglongs played was always far off-continents and seas away, with but a step to go. To sit on the veranda of the Javan coffee-house, and let the hour grow late-it was the only truly poetic thing offered by the World's Columbian Exposition.