In the 19th Century, Europe took up the fashion of empire building with a vengeance. Tiny Holland, once Europe's most prosperous trading nation, was not to be left behind, and spent much of the century subduing native rulers throughout the archipelago - a vast region that was to become the Netherlands East Indies, later Indonesia.
A steady stream of European Traders, scholars and mercenaries visited Bali in this period. The most successful of the traders was a Dane by the name of Mads Lange, one of the last of the great "country traders" whose local knowledge and contacts permitted them to operate on the interstices of the European colonial powers and the traditional kingdoms of the region.
