At last, through the heavy tropic darkness, our train came gasping into JOGJA. That was how the name of our destination was spelt on the outside of the carriage, and that was what it was always called, through the correct form was Jogjakarta, or Djokjakarta, or even, in the full Javanese version, Ngajogjakarta, while Raffles in the History of Java (1817) spelt it Yug'ya Kerta. The popular abbreviation, informal and universal, was a sign of the place it held in the affections of the people - Jogja, the stubborn city of the Sultans, the sanctuary of Java's ancient traditions, the cradle of Indonesia's freedom.