The women, in general, are not so good-looking as the men: and to Europeans many of them, particularly when advanced in years, appear hideously ugly. But among the lower orders, much of this deficiency of personal comeliness is doubtless to be attributed to the severe duties which they have to perform in the field, to the hardships they have to undergo in carrying oppressive burdens, and to exposure in a sultry climate. On the neighbouring island of _Báli_, where the condition of the women among the peasantry does not appear by any means so oppressed and degraded, they exhibit considerable personal beauty; and even on Java, the higher orders of them being kept within-doors, have a very decided superiority in this respect.
In manners the Javans are easy and courteous, and respectful even to timidity; they have a great sense of propriety, and are never rude or abrupt. In their deportment they are pliant and graceful, the people of condition carrying with them a considerable air of fashion, and receiving the gaze of the curious without being at all disconcerted. In their delivery they are in general very circumspect and even slow, though not deficient in animation when necessary.
Here, as on Sumatra, there are certain mountainous districts, in which the people are subject to those large wens in the throat, termed in Europe _goitres_. The cause is generally ascribed by the natives to the quality of the water; but there seems good ground for concluding, that it is rather to be traced to the atmosphere. In proof of this it may be mentioned, that there is a village near the foot of the _Teng'gar_ mountains, in the eastern part of the island, where every family is afflicted by this malady, while in another village, situated at a greater elevation, and through which the stream descends which serves for the use of both, there exists no such deformity. These wens are considered hereditary in some families, and seem thus independent of situation. A branch of the family of the present _Adipáti_ of _Bándung_ is subject to them, and it is remarkable that they prevail chiefly among the women in that family. They neither produce positive suffering nor occasion early death, and may be considered rather as deformities than diseases. It is never attempted to remove them.