SAMARANG AND SURABAYA.
On the 7th of June, as the twilight was brightening in the eastern sky, I
left my new Batavia home, and was hurriedly driven to the “boom.” A small
steamer was waiting to take passengers off to the mail-boat that goes to
Celebes, Timor, and Amboina, the capital of the Spice Islands.
My baggage all on board, I had time to rest, and realize that once more I
was a wanderer; but lonesome thoughts were quickly banished when I began
to observe who were to be my companions, there on the eastern side of the
world, so far from the centre of civilization and fashion; and just then
a real exquisite stepped on board. He was tall, but appeared much taller
from wearing a high fur hat, the most uncomfortable covering for the head
imaginable in that hot climate. Then his neckcloth! It was spotlessly
white, and evidently tied with the greatest care; but what especially
attracted my attention were his long, thin hands, carefully protected by
white kid gloves. However, we had not been a long time on the steamer,
where every place was covered with a thick layer of coal-dust, before
Mr. Exquisite changed his elegant apparel for a matter-of-fact suit,
and made his second appearance as a _littérateur_, with a copy of the
_Cornhill Magazine_. As he evidently did not intend to read, I borrowed
it, and found it was already three years old, and the leaves still uncut.
It contained a graphic description of the grounds about Isaac Walton’s
retired home—probably the most like the garden of Eden of any place seen
on our earth since man’s fall.
The other passengers were mostly officials and merchants going to
Samarang, Surabaya, or Macassar, and I found that I was the only one
travelling to Amboina. The general commanding the Dutch army in the
East was on board. He was a very polite, unassuming gentleman, and
manifested much interest in a Sharpe’s breech-loader I had brought from
America, and regarded it the most effective army rifle of any he had
seen up to that time. He was going to the headquarters of the army,
which is a strongly-fortified place back of Samarang. It was described
to me as located on a mountain or high plateau with steep sides—a
perfect Gibraltar, which they boasted a small army could maintain for
an indefinite length of time against any force that might be brought
against it. About five months later, however, it was nearly destroyed by
a violent earthquake, but has since been completely rebuilt.
One genial acquaintance I soon found in a young man who had just come
from Sumatra. He had travelled far among the high mountains and deep
gorges in the interior of that almost unexplored island, and his vivid
descriptions gave me an indescribable longing to behold such magnificent
scenery—a pleasure I did not fancy at that time it would be my good
fortune to enjoy before I left the archipelago.
All day the sky was very hazy, but we obtained several grand views of
high volcanoes, especially two steep cones that can be seen in the west
from the road at Batavia. A light, but steady breeze came from the east,
for it was as yet only the early part of the eastern monsoon. When the
sun sank in the west, the full moon rose in the east, and spread out a
broad band of silver over the sea. The air was so soft and balmy, and the
whole sky and sea so enchanting, that to recall it this day seems like
fancying anew a part of some fascinating dream.
This word monsoon is only a corruption of the Arabic word _musim_,
“season,” which the Portuguese learned from the Arabians and their
descendants, who were then navigating these seas. It first occurs in
the writings of De Barros, where he speaks of a famine that occurred at
Malacca, because the usual quantity of rice had not been brought from
Java; and “the mução” being adverse, it was not possible to obtain a
sufficient supply. The Malays have a peculiar manner of always speaking
of any region to the west as being “above the wind,” and any region to
the east as being “below the wind.”
_June 8th._—Went on deck early this morning to look at the mountains
which we might be passing; and, while I was absorbed in viewing a
fine headland, the captain asked me if I had seen that gigantic peak,
pointing upward, as he spoke, to a mountain-top, rising out of such high
clouds that I had not noticed it. It was Mount Slamat, which attains
an elevation of eleven thousand three hundred and thirty English feet
above the sea—the highest peak but one among the many lofty mountains
on Java, and, like most of them, an active volcano. The upper limit of
vegetation on it is three thousand feet below its crest. The northern
coast of Java is so low here that this mountain, instead of appearing to
rise up, as it does, from the interior of the island, seemed close by
the shore—an effect which occurs in viewing nearly all these lofty peaks
while the observer is sailing on the Java Sea. M. Zollinger, a Swiss,
says that at sunrise the tops of these loftiest peaks are brightened
with the same rose-red glow that is seen on Monte Rosa and Mont Blanc
when the sun is setting, and once or twice I thought I observed the same
charming phenomenon. The lowlands and the lower declivities of all the
mountains seen to-day are under the highest state of cultivation. Indeed,
this part of Java may be correctly described as one magnificent garden,
divided into small lots by lines of thick evergreens, and tall, feathery
palm-trees. This afternoon we steamed into the open roadstead of Samarang
during a heavy rain-squall; for though the “western monsoon,” or “rainy
season,” is past, yet nearly every afternoon we have a heavy shower,
and every one is speaking of the great damage it is likely to do to the
rice and sugar crops which are just now ripening. The heavy rain-squall
cleared away the thick haze that filled the sky, and the next morning
I went on shore to see the city. A few miles directly back of it rises
the sharp peak of Ungarung to a height of some five thousand feet, its
flanks highly cultivated in fields, and its upper region devoted to
coffee-trees. Somewhat west of this, near the shore, I noticed a small
naked cone, apparently of brown, volcanic ashes, and of so recent an
origin that the vigorous vegetation of these tropical lands had not had
time to spread over its surface. Back of Ungarung rise three lofty peaks
in a line northwest and southeast. The northernmost and nearest is Mount
Prau; the central, Mount Sumbing; and the southern one, Mount Sindoro.
Mount Prau receives its name from its shape, which has been fancied to
be like that of a “prau,” or native boat, turned upside down. It was the
supposed residence of the gods and demigods of the Javanese in ancient
times, and now it abounds in the ruins of many temples; some partially
covered with lava, showing that earthquakes and eruptions have done their
share in causing this destruction. Many images of these ancient gods
in metal have been found on this mountain. Ruins of enormous temples
of those olden times are yet to be seen at Boro Bodo, in the province
of Kedu, and at Brambanan, in the province of Matarem. At Boro Bodo a
hill-top has been changed into a low pyramid, one hundred feet high, and
having a base of six hundred and twenty feet on a side. Its sides are
formed into five terraces, and the perpendicular faces of these terraces
contain many niches, in each of which was once an image of Buddha. On the
level area at the summit of the pyramid is a large dome-shaped building,
surrounded by seventy-two smaller ones of the same general form.
According to the chronology of the Javanese, it was built in A. D. 1344.
At Brambanan are seen extensive ruins of several groups of temples, built
of huge blocks of trachyte, carefully hewn and put together without
any kind of cement. The most wonderful of those groups is that of “The
Thousand Temples.” They actually number two hundred and ninety-six, and
are situated on a low, rectangular terrace, measuring five hundred and
forty by five hundred and ten feet, in five rows, one within another; a
large central building, on a second terrace, overlooks the whole. This
was elaborately ornamented, and, before it began to decay, probably
formed, with those around it, one of the most imposing temples ever
reared in all the East. According to the traditions of the Javanese,
these buildings were erected between A. D. 1266 and 1296.
These structures were doubtless planned and superintended by natives of
India. They were dedicated to Hindu worship, and here the Brahmins and
Buddhists appear to have forgotten their bitter hostility, and in some
cases to have even worshipped in the same temple. The Indian origin of
these works is further proved by images of the zebu, or humped ox, which
have been found here and elsewhere in Java, but it does not now exist,
and probably never did, in any part of the archipelago.
As two Malays rowed me rapidly along in a narrow, canoe-like boat, I
watched the clouds gather and embrace the high head of Mount Prau. Only
thin and fibrous cumuli covered the other lofty peaks, but a thick cloud
wrapped itself around the crest of this mountain and many small ones
gathered on its dark sides, which occasionally could be seen through the
partings in its white fleecy shroud. The form of the whole was just that
of the mountain, except at its top, where for a time the clouds rose like
a gigantic, circular castle, the square openings in their dense mass
exactly resembling the windows in such thick walls.
Eastward of Ungarung are seen the lofty summits of Merbabu and Mérapi,
and east from the anchorage rises Mount Japara, forming, with the low
lands at its feet, almost an island, on Java’s north coast.
Like Batavia, Samarang is situated on both sides of a small river, in a
low morass. The river was much swollen by late rains, and in the short
time I passed along it, I saw dead horses, cats, dogs, and monkeys borne
on its muddy waters out to the bay, there perhaps to sink and be covered
with layers of mud, and, if after long ages those strata should be
elevated above the level of the sea and fall under a geologist’s eye, to
become the subject of some prolix disquisition. This is, in fact, exactly
the way that most of the land animals in the marine deposits of former
times have come down to us—an extremely fragmentary history at best, yet
sufficient to give us some idea of the strange denizens of the earth when
few or none of the highest mountains had yet been formed.
[Illustration: WATERING THE STREETS, BATAVIA.]
[Illustration: A TANDU.]
Through this low morass they are now digging a canal out to the roads,
so that the city may be approached from the anchorage by the canal and
the river. This canal is firmly walled in, as at Batavia. From the
landing-place to the city proper the road was a stream of mud, and the
houses are small and occupied only by Malays and the poorer classes of
Chinese. In such streets two coolies are occasionally seen carrying one
of the native belles in a _tandu_. The city itself is more compact than
Batavia, and the shops are remarkably fine. It was pleasant to look again
on some of the same engravings exposed for sale in our own shops. The
finest building in the city, and the best of the kind that I have seen
in the East, is a large one containing the custom and other bureaus.
It is two stories high, and occupies three sides of a rectangle. I was
told that they were fifteen years in building it, though in our country
a private firm would have put it up in half as many months. There are
several very fine hotels, and I saw one most richly furnished. Near the
river stands a high watch-tower, where a constant lookout is kept for
all ships approaching the road. From its top a wide view is obtained
over the anchorage, the lowlands, and the city. Toward the interior rich
fields are seen stretching away to the province of Kedu, “the garden of
Java.” A railroad has been begun here, which will extend to Surakarta and
Jokyokarta, on the east side of Mount Mérapi, and will open this rich
region more fully to the world.[2]
The church of the city, which is chiefly sustained here as elsewhere by
the Dutch Government, is a large cathedral-like building, finished in
the interior in an octagonal form. One side is occupied by the pulpit,
another by the organ, and the others are for the congregation. At the
time I entered, the pastor was lecturing in a conversational but earnest
manner to some twenty Malays and Chinese, gathered around him. At the
close of his exhortation he shook hands with each in the most cordial
manner.
From this church I went to the Mohammedan mosque, a square pagoda-like
structure, with three roofs, one above the other, and each being a
little smaller than the one beneath it. It was Friday, the Mohammedan
Sabbath, and large numbers were coming to pay their devotions to the
false prophet, for his is the prevailing religion in this land. By the
gate in the wall enclosing the mosque were a well and a huge stone tank,
where all the faithful performed the most scrupulous ablutions before
proceeding to repeat the required parts of the Koran. It was pleasant to
see that at least they believed and practised the maxim that “cleanliness
is next to godliness.” From the gate I walked up an inclined terrace
to the large doorway, and at once saw, from the troubled expression on
the faces of those who were kneeling on their straw mats outside the
building, that I had committed some impropriety; and one answered my look
of inquiry by pointing to my feet. I had forgotten that I was treading
on “holy ground,” and had therefore neglected “to put off my shoes.”
Opposite the entrance is usually a niche, and on one side of this a kind
of throne, but what was the origin or signification of either I never
could learn, and believe the common people are as ignorant as myself
in this respect. Their whole ceremony is to kneel, facing this niche,
and repeat in a low, mumbling, nasal tone some parts of the writings
of their prophet. Their priests are always Arabs, or their mestizo
descendants, the same class of people as those who introduced this faith.
Any one who has been to Mecca is regarded as next to a saint, and many
go to Singapore or Penang, where they remain a year or two, and then
return and declare they have seen the holy city. The first conversions
to Mohammedanism in any part of the archipelago occurred at Achin, the
western end of Sumatra, in 1204. It was not taught by pure Arabs, but by
those descendants of Arabs and Persians who came from the Persian Gulf
to Achin to trade. Thence it spread slowly eastward to Java, Celebes,
and the Moluccas, and northward to the Philippines, where it was just
gaining a foothold when the Spanish arrived. Under their rule it was
soon eradicated, and supplanted by Catholic Christianity. Bali is
almost the only island where the people can read and write their native
tongue, and have not partially adopted this religion. On the continent
it spread so rapidly that, within one hundred years after the Hegira,
it was established from Persia to Spain; but, as its promulgators were
not a maritime people, it did not reach Achin until five hundred and
seventy-two years after the Hegira, and then its followers had so little
of the fanaticism and energy of the Arabs, that it was more than three
hundred years in reaching Celebes, and fully establishing itself on that
island. The Malay name for this religion is always “Islam.”
On our way back to the mail-boat we passed quite a fleet of
fishing-boats, at the mouth of the river. They are generally made alike
at both ends, and look like huge canoes. Some have high lantern-shaped
houses perched on the stern, as if to make them more unsightly. Here they
all have decks, but those at Batavia are merely open boats.
The next day we continued on our course to the eastward, around the
promontory formed by Mount Japara, whose sides are so completely scored
by deep ravines that little or none of the original surface of the
mountain can be seen. Dr. Junghuhn, who has spent many years studying
in detail the mountains of Java, finds that above a height of ten
thousand feet but very few ravines exist. This height is the common
cloud-level, and the rains that they pour out, of course, only affect the
mountain-sides below that elevation, hence the flanks of a mountain are
sometimes deeply scored while its top remains entire. The substances of
which these great cones are chiefly composed are mostly volcanic ashes,
sand, and small fragments of basalt or lava, just the kind of materials
that swift torrents would rapidly carry away.
The volcanoes of Java are mostly in two lines: one, commencing near Cape
St. Nicholas, its northwestern extremity, passes diagonally across the
island to its southeastern headland on the Strait of Bali. The other is
parallel to this, and extends from the middle of the Strait of Sunda
to the south coast in the longitude of Cheribon. They stand along two
immense fissures in the earth’s crust, but the elevating power appears
only to have found vent at certain separate points along these fissures.
At these points sub-aërial eruptions of volcanic ashes, sand, and scoriæ
have occurred, and occasionally streams of basaltic and trachytic lava
have poured out, until no less than thirty-eight cones, some of immense
size, have been formed on this island. Their peculiar character is, that
they are distinct and separate mountains, and not peaks in a continuous
chain.
The second characteristic of these mountains is the great quantity of
sulphur they produce. White clouds of sulphurous acid gas continually
wreath the crests of these high peaks, and betoken the unceasing activity
within their gigantic masses. This gas is the one that is formed when a
friction-match is lighted, and is, of course, extremely destructive to
all animal and vegetable life.
At various localities in the vicinity of active volcanoes and in old
craters this gas still escapes, and the famous “Guevo Upas” or Valley of
Poison, on the flanks of the volcano Papandayang, is one of these areas
of noxious vapors. It is situated at the head of a valley on the outer
declivity of the mountain, five hundred or seven hundred feet below the
rim of the old crater which contains the “Telaga Bodas” or White Lake.
It is a small, bare place, of a pale gray or yellowish color, containing
many crevices and openings from which carbonic acid gas pours out from
time to time. Here both Mr. Reinwardt and Dr. Junghuhn saw a great number
of dead animals of various kinds, as dogs, cats, tigers, rhinoceroses,
squirrels, and other rodents, many birds, and even snakes, who had lost
their lives in this fatal place. Besides carbonic acid gas, sulphurous
acid gas also escapes. This was the only gas present at the time of
Dr. Junghuhn’s visit, and is probably the one that causes such certain
destruction to all the animals that wander into this valley of death.
The soft parts of these animals, as the skin, the muscles, and the hair
or feathers, were found by both observers quite entire, while the bones
had crumbled and mostly disappeared. The reason that so many dead animals
are found on this spot, while none exist in the surrounding forests, is
because beasts of prey not only cannot consume them, but even they lose
their lives in the midst of these poisonous gases.
It was in such a place that the deadly upas was fabled to be found. The
first account of this wonderful tree was given by Mr. N. P. Foersch, a
surgeon in the service of the Dutch East India Company. His original
article was published in the fourth volume of Pennant’s “Outlines of the
Globe,” and repeated in the _London Magazine_ for September, 1785. He
states that he saw it himself, and describes it as “the sole individual
of its species, standing alone, in a scene of solitary horror, on the
middle of a naked, blasted plain, surrounded by a circle of mountains,
the whole area of which is covered with the skeletons of birds, beasts,
and men. Not a vestige of vegetable life is to be seen within the
contaminated atmosphere, and even the fishes die in the water!” This,
like most fables, has some foundation in fact; and a large forest-tree
exists in Java, the _Antiaris toxicaria_ of botanists, that has a
poisonous sap. When its bark is cut, a sap flows out much resembling
milk, but thicker and more viscid. A native prepared some poison from
this kind of sap for Dr. Horsfield. He mingled with it about half a
drachm of the sap of the following vegetables—arum, kempferia galanga,
anomum, a kind of zerumbed, common onion or garlic, and a drachm and a
half of black pepper. This poison proved mortal to a dog in one hour; a
mouse in ten minutes; a monkey in seven; a cat in fifteen; and a large
buffalo died in two hours and ten minutes from the effects of it. A
similar poison is prepared from the sap of the _chetek_, a climbing vine.
The deadly anchar is thus pictured in Darwin’s “Botanic Garden:”
“Fierce in dread silence, on the blasted heath,
Fell Upas sits, the hydra-tree of death!
So, from one root, the envenomed soil below,
A thousand vegetative serpents grow!
In shining rays the steady monster spreads
O’er _ten square leagues_ his far-diverging head,
Or in one trunk entwists his tangled form,
Looks o’er the clouds, and hisses at the storm;
Steeped in fell poison, as his sharp teeth part,
A thousand tongues in quick vibration dart,
Snatch the proud eagle towering o’er the heath,
Or pounce the lion as he stalks beneath;
Or strew, as martial hosts contend in vain,
With human skeletons the whitened plain.”
All the north coast of Java is very low, often forming a morass,
except here and there where some mountain sends out a spur to form a
low headland. As we neared Madura this low land spread out beneath the
shallow sea and we were obliged to keep eight or ten miles from land.
On both sides of the Madura Strait the land is also low, and on the left
hand we passed many villages of native fishermen who tend bamboo weirs
that extend out a long way from the shore.
Here, for the first time, I saw boats with outriggers. Each had one such
float on the leeward side, while, on a kind of rack on the windward
side, was placed a canoe and every thing on board that was movable. Each
boat carries two triangular sails, made of narrow, white cloths, with
occasionally a red or black one in the middle or on the margins by way of
ornament.
Just before entering the road of Surabaya we passed Gresik, a small
village of Chinese and other foreigners, situated immediately on the
beach. It is an old site and famous in the early history of Java, but the
houses seemed mostly new, and their red-tiled roofs contrasted prettily
with their white ridge-poles and gable-ends. It was here, according
to the Javanese historians, that the Mohammedan religion was first
established on their soil.
At Surabaya there appears to be much more business than at Batavia, and
we found a larger number of vessels at anchor in the roads. At Batavia,
the anchorage is somewhat sheltered by the islands at the mouth of the
bay. At Samarang, the anchorage is quite exposed during the western
monsoon, and the swell and surf are sometimes so great that boats cannot
land, but at Surabaya the shipping is perfectly sheltered from all gales.
There are, however, strong tidal currents, on account of the size of the
bay, at the anchorage, and the narrow straits that connect it with the
sea. These straits, though narrow, are not dangerous, and this may be
said to be the only good harbor that is frequented on the island of Java.
On the south coast, at Chilachap, there is a safe and well-sheltered
anchorage, but it has very little trade.
At evening, when the water is ebbing, flocks of white herons range
themselves in lines along its retreating edge, and calmly await the
approach of some unlucky fish. Then the fishing-boats come up from the
east, spreading out their white sails, and forming a counterpart to the
lines of white herons along the shore.
The natives, unable to walk to their huts on the banks, have a most novel
and rapid mode of navigating these mud-flats. A board about two feet
wide, five or six feet long, and curved up at one end like the runner of
a sled, is placed on the soft mud, and the fisherman rests the left knee
on it while he kicks with the right foot, in just the way that boys push
themselves on their sleds over ice or snow. In this way they go as fast
as a man would walk on solid ground.
Like Batavia and Samarang, Surabaya[3] is situated on both sides of a
small river, on low land, but not in a morass, like the old city of
Batavia, and yet much nearer the shipping. This river has been changed
into a canal by walling in its banks. Near its entrance it is lined on
one side with nice dwelling-houses, and bordered with a row of fine
shade-trees. Back of these dwellings is the government dock-yard. It
is very carefully built, and contains a dry-dock, a place to take up
ships like our railways, ample work-shops, and large sheds for storing
away lumber. They were then building six small steamers and two or
three boats, besides a great dry-dock for the largest ships. Here was
the Medusa, the ship that led the allied Dutch, English, French, and
American fleet in the attack on Simonosaki, at the entrance of the Inland
Sea in Japan. The many scars in her sides showed the dangerous part she
had taken in the attack, and I have frequently heard the Dutch officers
speak with a just pride of the bravery and skill of her officers in that
engagement. Formerly, ships could only be repaired by being “thrown down”
at Onrust, an island six miles west of the road at Batavia; but now
nearly all such work is done in this yard. It was most enlivening to hear
the rapid ringing of hammers on anvils—a sound one can rarely enjoy in
those dull Eastern cities.
The government machine-shop is another proof of the determination of the
Dutch to make for themselves whatever they need, and to be independent of
foreign markets. Here they make many castings, but their chief business
is manufacturing steam-boilers for the navy. Nine hundred Javanese were
then in this establishment, all laboring voluntarily, and having full
liberty to leave whenever they chose. Most of the overseers even are
natives, and but few Europeans are employed in the whole works. They all
perform their allotted tasks quietly and steadily, without loud talking
or any unnecessary noise. Some of them are so skilful that they receive
nearly two guilders per day. These facts show the capabilities of the
Javanese, and indicate that there may yet be a bright future for this
people. Here the standard weights and measures for the government are
manufactured; and as an instance of the longevity of this people, when
they are correct in their habits, the director told me that one native
had worked for fifty-seven years in that department, and for some time
had been assisted by both his sons and grandsons. He had just retired,
and the director had been able to obtain for him a pension of full pay
on account of the long time he had been in the service. There were
three others still in the works, who also began fifty-seven years ago.
Such cases are the more remarkable, because these natives are usually
unable to labor at the age of thirty-five or forty, on account of their
dissolute habits. Most of their machinery is not as nicely finished as
that imported from Europe, but it appears to be quite as durable. Yet
the fact that some Javanese have the capacity to do nice work was proved
by one in charge of the engraving-department, whose fine lines would
have been creditable to many a European. A merchant also has a similar
machine-shop on a still greater scale.
Near by are the government artillery-works, where all the parts of wood
and iron and the saddles and harnesses are manufactured, every thing
but the guns. The wood used is carefully-seasoned teak. It is extremely
durable, and combines in a good degree both lightness and strength. The
leather is made by the natives from hides of the _sapi_, or cattle of
Madura, the only kind seen here in Surabaya. It is light and flexible,
and somewhat spongy compared to that made from our Northern hides. When
it is wet it “spots,” the wet places taking a darker color, which they
retain when the leather again becomes dry. The director of the works
thought that these defects might be remedied by adopting some other mode
of tanning it. The leather made from the hide of the buffalo is thin,
and, at the same time, excessively rigid.
The streets of Surabaya are narrow compared to those of Batavia; but they
are far better provided with shade-trees of different species, among
which the tamarind, with its highly compound leaves, appears to be the
favorite. Here, as in all the other chief cities of the archipelago,
the dusty streets are usually sprinkled by coolies, who carry about two
large watering-pots. In the centre of the city, on an open square, is
the opera-house, a large, well-proportioned building, neatly painted
and frescoed within. In the suburbs is the public garden, nicely laid
out, and abounding in richly-flowering shrubs. There were a number of
birds peculiar to the East: a cassowary from Ceram, a black-swan from
Australia, and some beautiful wild pheasants (_Gallus_) from Madura. Of
this genus, _Gallus_, there are two wild species on that island and in
Java. One of these, _Gallus bankiva_, is also found in Sumatra and the
peninsula of Malacca. A third species is found in the Philippines, but
none is yet known in the great islands of Borneo and Celebes or in any of
the islands eastward. On the peninsula of Malacca, Sumatra, Borneo, and
the Spice Islands, the Malay word _ayam_ is used, but on the Philippines
and Java the Javanese word _manuk_ is frequently heard—it has hence been
inferred that the Malays and Javanese were the first to domesticate it,
and distribute it over the archipelago. Temminck regards the _Gallus
bankiva_ as the progenitor of our common fowl. If he is right in this
conjecture, it was probably brought into Greece by the Persians, for the
Greeks sometimes called it the “Persian bird.”[4] Its early introduction
into Europe is shown by representations of it on the walls of the
Etruscan tombs, and Mr. Crawfurd states that it was found in England
more than two thousand years ago. The small variety known to us as “the
Bantam,” is not a native of Java, but received that name because it was
first seen by European traders on Japanese junks which came to that city
to trade.
All the Malay race, except the Javanese, have the most inordinate thirst
for gambling, and their favorite method of gratifying this passion is
cock-fighting. This is forbidden by the Dutch Government; but in the
Philippines the Spanish only subject the gamblers to a heavy tax, and the
extent to which it is indulged in those islands is indicated by a yearly
revenue of forty thousand dollars from this source alone.
The passion for this vice among the Malays is also shown in their
language; for, according to Mr. Crawfurd, there is one specific name for
cock-fighting, one for the natural and one for the artificial spur of
the cock, two names for the comb, three for crowing, two for a cock-pit,
and one for a professional cock-fighter.
But to return to the garden, where, among more interesting objects, were
some images of the Brahman or Buddhist gods, worshipped by the ancient
Javanese. One, particularly monstrous, appeared to have the body of a man
and the head of a beast. A favorite model was to represent a man with the
head of an elephant, seated on a throne that rested on a row of human
skulls.
Hinduism was undoubtedly introduced into the archipelago in the same
way as Mohammedanism—namely, by those who came from the West to trade,
first into Sumatra, and afterward into Java and Celebes. This commercial
intercourse probably began in the very remotest ages; for, according to
Sir Gardner Wilkinson, the Egyptians used tin in manufacturing their
implements of bronze two thousand years before the Christian era, and
it is more probable that this tin came from the Malay peninsula than
from Cornwall, the only two sources of any importance that are yet known
for this valuable metal, if we include with the former the islands of
Billiton and Banca. In the “Periplus of the Erythræan Sea,” written
about A. D. 60, it is stated that this mineral was found at two cities
on the western coast of India, but that it came from countries farther
east. In this same descriptive treatise it is also mentioned that the
_malabrathrum_, a kind of odoriferous gum imported from India for the
use of the luxurious Romans, was found at Barake, a port on the coast
of Malabar, but that it likewise came from some land farther east;
and malabrathrum is supposed by many to be the modern benzoin, a resin
obtained from the _Styrax benzoin_, a plant only found in the lands of
the Battas, in Sumatra, and on the coast of Brunai, in the northern part
of Borneo.
[Illustration: A KLING.]
[Illustration: NATIVE OF BILUCHISTAN.]
Although we gather from the records of Western nations these indications
of products coming from the archipelago in the earliest ages, yet we have
no information in regard to the time that the Hindu traders, who sailed
eastward from India and purchased these valuable articles, succeeded in
planting their own religion among those distant nations. The annals of
both the Malay and Javanese are evidently fanciful, and are generally
considered unreliable for any date previous to the introduction of
Mohammedanism. Simple chronological lists are found in Java, which
refer as far back as A. D. 78; but Mr. Crawfurd says that “they are
incontestable fabrications, often differing widely from each other, and
containing gaps of whole centuries.”
The people who came from India on these early voyages were probably
of the same Talagu or Telugu nation as those now called by the Malays
“Klings” or “Kalings,” a word evidently derived from Kalinga, the
Sanscrit name for the northern part of the coast of Coromandel. They
have always continued to trade with the peninsula, and I met them on the
coast of Sumatra. Barbosa, who saw them at Malacca when the Portuguese
first arrived at that city, thus describes them:[5] “There are many great
merchants here, Moor as well as Gentile strangers, but chiefly of the
Chetis, who are of the Coromandel coast, and have large ships, which they
call giunchi” (junks). Unlike the irregular winds that must have greatly
discouraged the early Greeks and Phœnicians from long voyages over the
Euxine and the Mediterranean, the steady monsoons of the Bay of Bengal
invited those people out to sea, and by their regular changes promised to
bring them within a year safely back to their homes.
The United States steamship Iroquois was then lying in the roads, and
our consular agent at this port invited Captain Rodgers, our consul from
Batavia, who was there on business, and myself, to take a ride with
him out to a sugar-plantation that was under his care. In those hot
countries it is the custom to start early on pleasure excursions, in
order to avoid the scorching heat of the noonday sun. We were therefore
astir at six. Our friend had obtained a large post-coach giving ample
room for four persons, but, like all such carriages in Java, it was so
heavy and clumsy that both the driver and a footman, who was perched up
in a high box behind, had to constantly lash our four little ponies to
keep them up to even a moderate rate of speed. Our ride of ten miles
was over a well-graded road, beautifully shaded for most of the way
with tamarind-trees. Parallel with the carriage-roads, in Java, there
is always one for buffaloes and carts, and in this manner the former
are almost always kept in prime order. Such a great double highway
begins at Angir, on the Strait of Sunda, and extends throughout the
whole length of the island to Banyuwangi, on the Strait of Bali. It
passes near Bantam and Batavia, and thence along the low lands near
the north coast to Cheribon and Samarang, thence south of Mount Japara
and so eastward. This, I was informed, was made by Marshal Daendals,
who governed Java under the French rule in 1809. There is also a
military road from Samarang to Surakarta and Jokyokarta, where the two
native princes now reside. Java also enjoys a very complete system of
telegraphic communication. On the 23d of October, 1856, the first line,
between Batavia (Weltevreden) and Buitenzorg, was finished. Immediately
after, it was so rapidly extended that, in 1859, 1,670 English miles were
completed. A telegraphic cable was also laid in that year from Batavia up
the Straits of Banca and Rhio to Singapore; but, unfortunately, it was
broken in a short time, probably by the anchor of some vessel in those
shallow straits. After it had been repaired it was immediately broken
a second time, and in 1861 the enterprise was given up, but now they
are laying another cable across the Strait of Sunda, from Angir to the
district of Lampong; thence it will extend up the west coast to Bencoolen
and Padang, and, passing across the Padang plateau, through Fort de Rock
and Paya Kombo, come to the Strait of Malacca, and be laid directly
across to Singapore.
These Javanese ponies go well on a level or down-hill, but when the road
becomes steep they frequently stop altogether. In the hilly parts of
Java, therefore, the natives are obliged to fasten their buffaloes to
your carriage, and you must patiently wait for those sluggish animals to
take you up to the crest of the elevation.
Our road that morning led over a low country, which was devoted wholly
to rice and sugar-cane. Some of these rice-fields stretched away on
either hand as far as the eye could see, and appeared as boundless as
the ocean. Numbers of natives were scattered through these wide fields,
selecting out the ripened blades, which their religion requires them to
cut off _one by one_. It appears an endless task thus to gather in all
the blades over a wide plain. These are clipped off near the top, and
the rice in this state, with the hull still on, is called “paddy.” The
remaining part of the stalks is left in the fields to enrich the soil.
After each crop the ground is spaded or dug up with a large hoe, or
ploughed with a buffalo, and afterward harrowed with a huge rake; and to
aid in breaking up the clods, water to the depth of four or five inches
is let in. This is retained by dikes which cross the fields at right
angles, dividing them up into little beds from fifty to one hundred feet
square. The seed is sown thickly in small plats at the beginning of the
rainy monsoon. When the plants are four or five inches high they are
transferred to the larger beds, which are still kept overflowed for some
time. They come to maturity about this time (June 14th), the first part
of the eastern monsoon, or dry season. Such low lands that can be thus
flooded are called _sawas_. Although the Javanese have built magnificent
temples, they have never invented or adopted any apparatus that has come
into common use for raising water for their rice-fields, not even the
simple means employed by the ancient Egyptians along the hill, and which
the slabs from the palaces at Nineveh show us were also used along the
Euphrates.
Only one crop is usually taken from the soil each year, unless the fields
can be readily irrigated. Manure is rarely or never used, and yet the
_sawas_ appear as fertile as ever. The sugar-cane, however, quickly
exhausts the soil. One cause of this probably is that the whole of every
cane is taken from the field except the top and root, while only the
upper part of the rice-stalks are carried away, and the rest is burned
or allowed to decay on the ground. On this account only one-third of
a plantation is devoted to its culture at any one time, the remaining
two-thirds being planted with rice, for the sustenance of the natives
that work on that plantation. These crops are kept rotating so that the
same fields are liable to an extra drain from sugar-cane only once in
three years. On each plantation is a village of Javanese, and several of
these villages are under the immediate management of a _controleur_. It
is his duty to see that a certain number of natives are at work every
day, that they prepare the ground, and put in the seed at the proper
season, and take due care of it till harvest-time.[6]
The name of the plantation we were to see was “Seroenie.” As we neared
it, several long, low, white buildings came into view, and two or three
high chimneys, pouring out dense volumes of black smoke. By the road was
a dwelling-house, and the “fabrik” was in the rear. The canes are cut in
the field and bound into bundles, each containing twenty-five. They are
then hauled to the factory in clumsy, two-wheeled carts called _pedatis_,
with a yoke of _sapis_. On this plantation alone there are two hundred
such carts. The mode adopted here of obtaining the sugar from the cane
is the same as in our country. It is partially clarified by pouring over
it, while yet in the earthen pots in which it cools and crystallizes,
a quantity of clay, mixed with water, to the consistency of cream. The
water, filtering through, washes the crystals and makes the sugar, which
up to this time is of a dark brown, almost as white as if it had been
refined. This simple process is said to have been introduced by some one
who noticed that wherever the birds stepped on the brown sugar with their
muddy feet, in those places it became strangely white. After all the
sugar has been obtained that is possible, the cheap and impure molasses
that drains off is fermented with a small quantity of rice. Palm-wine
is then added, and from this mixture is distilled the liquor known as
“arrack,” which consequently differs little from rum. It is considered,
and no doubt rightly, the most destructive stimulant that can be placed
in the human stomach, in these hot regions. From Java large quantities
are shipped to the cold regions of Sweden and Norway, where, if it is as
injurious, its manufacturers are, at least, not obliged to witness its
poisonous effects.
After the sugar has been dried in the sun it is packed in large
cylindrical baskets of bamboo, and is ready to be taken to market and
shipped abroad.[7]
Three species of the sugar-cane are recognized by botanists: the
_Saccharum sinensis_ of China; the _Saccharum officinarum_ of India,
which was introduced by the Arabs into Southern Europe, and thence
transported to our own country[8] and the West Indies; and the _Saccharum
violaceum_ of Tahiti, of which the cane of the Malay Archipelago is
probably only a variety. This view of the last species is strengthened by
the similarity of the names for it in Malaysia and Polynesia. The Malays
call it _tabu_; the inhabitants of the Philippines, _tubu_; the Kayans
of Borneo, _turo_; the natives of Floris, between Java and Timur, and of
Tongatabu, in Polynesia, _tau_; the people of Tahiti and the Marquesas,
_to_; and the Sandwich Islanders, _ko_.
It is either a native of the archipelago or was introduced in the
remotest times. The Malays used to cultivate it then as they do now,
not for the purpose of making sugar, but for its sweet juice, and great
quantities of it are seen at this time of year in all the markets,
usually cut up into short pieces and the outer layers or rind removed.
These people appear also to have been wholly ignorant of the mode of
making sugar from it, and all the sugar, or more properly molasses, that
was used, was obtained then as it is now in the Eastern islands, namely,
by boiling down the sap of the gomuti-palm (_Borassus gomuti_).[9]
Sugar from cane was first brought to Europe by the Arabs, who, as we know
from the Chinese annals, frequently visited Canpu, a port on Hanchow
Bay, a short distance south of Shanghai. Dioscorides, who lived in the
early part of the first century, appears to be the earliest writer in the
West who has mentioned it. He calls it _saccharon_, and says that “in
consistence it was like salt.” Pliny, who lived a little later in the
same century, thus describes the article seen in the Roman markets in his
day: “Saccharon is a honey which forms on reeds, white like gum, which
crumbles under the teeth, and of which the largest pieces are of the size
of a filbert.” (Book xii., chap. 8.)
This is a perfect description of the sugar or rock-candy that I found the
Chinese manufacturing over the southern and central parts of China during
my long journeyings through that empire, and at the same time it is not
in the least applicable to the dark-brown, crushed sugar made in India.