JAVA—BATAVIA
October 16th.—We see an island on our right. It is Java, the Garden of
the East, one of the most splendid spots in the world, to which nature
has been prodigal with beauties and wonders. In the distance we perceive
the port of Batavia, the capital of Netherland India, with Dutch flags
flying. It was a strange land to come to. I seemed to be in a dream all
the time, and felt as if transported into another planet. It was like
being in a theatre where all the scenery was real and the curtain never
came down.
Our Consul—Mr. Bakounine—was on the quay. It was nice meeting someone
from the part of the world I was born in. The warm and damp climate
of Java had not suited our Consul; he looked very thin and white. Mr.
Bakounine was extremely kind and gave all his time to us.
On the quay exemplary order reigned. The natives are treated by the Dutch
as pariahs, and ruled with a hand of iron. They are not allowed to speak
Dutch, and as we were not acquainted with the native language, we had the
universal language, that of the signs, left to us. The Dutch also evince
great contempt for the Chinese, and treat them as if they were dirt.
Coolies are not permitted to ride in tramways with white-faced Europeans;
only high-caste Parsees may ride with sahibs in second-class compartments.
Batavia is the reunion of three separate towns: Weltewredeu, the new
town, buried in luxuriant vegetation, with low-built white houses,
surrounded by verandas, groves of palm and cocoa-nut, gives one the
impression of a series of villas built in a large park; the Pettah,
(old town) is an agglomeration of bamboo-huts forming narrow streets,
inhabited by the natives, and separated from the European quarter by a
cricket-ground; the so-called Chinese Town is inhabited only by Chinamen.
We took the train, which brought us in twenty minutes to Batavia. Whilst
we crossed a beautiful cocoa and palm-wood, Mr. Bakounine said that he
would have exchanged willingly one single birch-tree of far-away Russia
for all the palms in the world. How I understand him! I also would have
gladly exchanged all this luxurious tropical vegetation and blue sky for
the grey skies of dear old Petersburg.
When we arrived at Batavia, we were driven in a cab, with a native
coachman on the box, to the Hôtel de Java. I had got hold of some
Japanese words and kept repeating to him: “Plan, plan,” which means “go
slowly.” The inhabitants were probably taking their “siesta,” during the
sweltering heat of midday: troops, natives, animals, were all asleep.
Batavia seemed deserted, all the houses had dropped their blinds. We only
saw lizards in the streets, warming themselves in the sun.
The Hôtel de Java is a square, one storied building with an open
courtyard in the middle and a veranda supported by pillars on the
whole length of the front. The rooms are barely furnished, the floors
covered with mats; there are wire nettings in the doors and windows to
keep away the midges, who weren’t even honourable enough to wait until
sunset before attacking you. There are no bells in the hotel and I grew
hoarse calling the Malay “boy” for some information I wanted. With many
gesticulations he began to gabble in an unknown tongue to me, and I was
obliged to write down my requests on a bit of paper which the “boy”
carried to the office. One may well imagine how promptly my demands were
satisfied.
The veranda was full of creole ladies seeking relief from the sunshine
outside and whiling away the dreary midday hours reclining in hammocks
and cane-lounges, clad in loose transparent night-jackets, stockingless,
with their hair in curling-pins, their discarded shoes lying on the
floor. The climate makes them indolent. They enjoyed their “siesta”
smoking cigarettes and drinking iced lemonade.
We had tiffin in the dining-room. The Dutch cooking does not please
me. Tiffin always begins with the traditional “reistafel,” a dish of
chipped meat and rice, without any seasoning to it. The meat is lean
and unsavoury, and the dairy products are very bad. The cattle in Java
are very small, looking more like goats than cows. The natives are not
exacting in this country, cocoa-nuts serve them both as food and drink;
they eat the pulp and drink the milk.
Towards evening, the town became animated; the streets were full of
bustle. Europeans go out in the streets bareheaded, and seem to have
forgotten their hats.
We drove in a tram through the three towns. Batavia is a city of many
canals; it reminded me of Rotterdam. We saw lots of natives bathing in
the Grand Canal. When passing the Portuguese Gate, we were shown a big
cannon which is the object of a queer sort of pilgrimage for barren Malay
women, who bring offering to the cannon in order not to remain childless
in their wedded life.
October 17th.—I passed a wretched night, tossing and turning in my bed,
half smothered with mosquito-curtains, which effectually keep off any
little breath of air there is. In that awful heat sleep was out of the
question. As soon as I lay down I felt myself devoured by quantities of
famished creatures who greedily awaited their prey, and with which I
fought a desperate battle, persevering in the chase with a fine sporting
spirit until morning.
Batavia does not enchant me. The heat is tremendous. We have determined
to-day to go and seek freshness on the wooded slopes of Buitenzorg,
the summer resort of the Dutch Resident, situated a few hours out of
Batavia. The railway-line from Batavia to Buitenzorg is one of the most
picturesque in the world. Marvellous landscapes spread out before our
admiring eyes. What vegetation! There are thick mighty palms, bananas
and dense tropical jungle. The road is very steep and we ascended
slowly along wide precipices, stopping only twice at neat little
railway-stations. The higher we mounted the fresher the air became. We
rolled now between sugar-cane, vanilla and cotton plantations, with
trees covered with white flakes, and passed picturesque villas with tall
cocoa-nut palms casting cool shadows on the low flat roofs. The tropical
sun made the train like a furnace. After three hours’ drive we saw a
settlement of low dwellings, at the foot of blue hills, half hidden in an
eucalyptus forest and gigantic mimosas. It was Buitenzorg!
When we left the train, an aide-de-camp of the Resident came up to my
husband and offered his carriage to drive us to the Hôtel du Chemin de
Fer. The hotel is kept by a Frenchman. We entered a courtyard surrounded
by several low buildings. Our apartment disappointed me by the doubtful
cleanliness of its beds denuded of coverlets and sheets. Lizards were
running about the ceiling and the walls. A barefooted “boy” arrayed in a
white loose jacket, armed with a feather-brush and a duster, came to tidy
our bedroom. He first swept the petroleum lamp (there are no candles to
be had in this corner of the globe) and then began to dust our beds with
the same brush. It won’t be an easy task to civilise him!
Our windows looked out into the garden. Green coffee-trees covered with
white flowers and ripe fruit, peeped into our room, and a sweet musky
aromatic odour pervaded the air.
The year, in all tropical countries, is divided into two seasons, summer
and winter. Summer begins towards October to end in May, which is
winter-time here. The wet season has set in, the season of ceaseless,
abundant rain and suffocating heat. In these abominable regions, when
summer ends and the intense heat of January has passed, tepid rain begins
to fall every day from four to six o’clock with astonishing persistency.
The air is clear and yet full of moisture; everything grows musty. If
a pair of boots have not been cleaned for two days, they get covered
with green mould. Leaves and branches grow now and then on the telegraph
posts, transforming them into trees, which obliges the railway companies,
sometimes, to use iron instead of wooden posts. Watches and all metal
objects when exposed to the air become covered with rust.
October 18th.—Foreigners come rarely to Java and, except our company,
there are only two Dutch families in our hotel, who arrived a few days
ago from Borneo.
Snakes, centipedes and all sorts of filthy vermin abound here. One must
look out for poisonous serpents hidden in the grass; they often creep
into the houses. Quite recently an enormous boa, measuring over three
yards, penetrated into the Resident’s courtyard, and after having regaled
himself with a fowl, that he snapped up on his way, the formidable
reptile crept into the Palace and coiled himself into a comfortable
position under the Resident’s writing-table. One of the Dutch ladies
stopping at the hotel went down into the drawing-room this afternoon to
play the piano and perceived a huge cobra-capella, a serpent of the most
dangerous species, taking his nap under the instrument.
I heard a dog barking under my window. It appeared to be a little
subterranean animal called “Earth dog,” who barks loudly each time anyone
passes before his hole.
Before dinner Sergy went to pay a visit to the Resident, who had sent
his carriage for him, drawn by a team of four horses, with a Javanese
coachman on the box and two barefooted footmen in splendid livery,
wearing helmets.
The Resident is absolute sovereign in these parts; his surroundings
transport one at the end of the nineteenth century to the epoch of
feudalism. During the reception barefooted servants presented trays
charged with wine and champagne, in humble attitudes, bending the knee
before their master, and retreated backwards bowing very low.
The Resident invited Sergy for a drive in his carriage. They crossed
large fields allotted to the culture of tobacco, cacao, pepper, indigo
and coffee. A long street of small huts, with roofs that may be opened,
all of the same shape and size, spreads in the coffee plantations,
serving for the drying of the grains. As soon as the sun appears, the
roofs are opened and the coffee grains are spread on the floor to be
dried. From thence Sergy was driven to the Piradenia Gardens, containing
a rich collection of queer tropical plants, trees of the rarest species,
and beautiful flower-beds. To see the gardens took hours. Sergy was
dazzled by the beauty of all he saw. On his way back to the hotel, a
storm broke out; it was one of those formidable equatorial rains of such
violence, that it seemed as if the sky was emptying itself upon the
earth.
As soon as dinner was over, we went for a walk round Buitenzorg. After
the shower there was a delicious perfume of plants and damp earth. We
strolled through broad streets lined with huts built of bamboo and
thatched with cocoa-nut leaves, hidden in the dense foliage.
October 19th.—To-day the Resident gave a grand dinner to my husband, a
Lucullus-like feast. Sergy was entertained in great state by his host,
who did things royally. The marble steps of the wide staircase were
decorated with barefooted lackeys in showy livery and powdered wigs,
standing all the way up at equal distances. The brilliantly lighted
reception-rooms of the Palace were full of elegantly dressed gentlemen
and ladies in low dresses, showing all their jewellery and shoulders. The
table was beautifully laid; before each stool stood a native servant.
Champagne flowed abundantly, but Sergy was too hot to enjoy the meal, for
there are no punkahs in Java, because the Dutch find that these huge fans
tend to induce bald heads.
I find it a bit dull here. There is positively nothing to do in the
evening but to sit on the veranda and admire the beautiful tropical
night, which falls suddenly without twilight. Everything is queer in
these equatorial regions. The moon is right over our heads, the sickle
pointing upwards, and the shade caused by the planet spreads right under
our feet.
October 22nd.—We took the train back to Batavia this morning, and put
up this time at the Hôtel Niderlander, a cool white building with
deep pillared verandas, carpeted with cocoa-nut mattings and strewn
with tables and easy cane chairs. We sat on the veranda after dinner,
listening to the band playing in Waterloo-Square, just opposite.
Strolling merchants bothered us, offering their wares; we sent them off
by saying “piggie,” meaning in Javanese “get off with you,” at which they
beat a hasty retreat.
October 24th.—We are leaving Java to-day without regret. The hideous
climate is depressing, the hot, steamy atmosphere awfully enervating. The
head-manager came to knock at our door at four o’clock in the morning to
inform us that it was time to go to the railway station. Mr. Bakounine
and the agent of the Méssageries Maritimes rode down with us to the port,
a veritable inferno, full of mosquitoes and pestered by malarial fever,
in which deadly miasmas seem to evaporate from the unwholesome soil.
The _Godavéri_ set sail at ten o’clock in the morning. Adieu, Java!
We are about twenty passengers on board. There is a young half-caste
among them, the proprietor of a rich tea-estate, sent back for his health
to Europe.