The first destination of the up-country traveller in Java is
Buitenzorg, the Dutch "Sans Souci," containing the Governor-General's
rural Palace, the houses of Court officials, and the superb Botanical
Garden, which ranks first among the horticultural triumphs of the
world. The two hours' journey by the railway, which now traverses the
whole of Java, shows a succession of tropical landscapes, appearing
unreal in their fantastic and dream-like beauty. The glowing green of
rice-fields, the dense forests of swaying palms, the porphyry tints of
the teeming soil, and the purple mountains, carved into the weird
contours peculiar to volcanic ranges, frame myriad pictures of
unfamiliar native life with dramatic effect. Villages of woven
basket-work cluster beneath green curtains of banana and spreading
canopies of palm, the central mosque surmounting the tiny huts with
many-tiered roofs, and walls inlaid with gleaming tiles of white and
blue. Brown figures, with gay _sarong_ and turbaned headgear, bring
bamboo buckets to moss-grown wells, gray water-buffaloes crop marshy
herbage, a little bronze-hued figure seated on each broad back, and
busy workers stand knee-deep in slush, to transplant emerald blades of
rice or to gather the yellow crops, for seedtime and harvest go on
together in this fertile land. Our train halts at Depok, a Christian
village unique in Java, for the religious history of the island shows
little missionary enterprise among a race strangely indifferent to the
claims of faith, and lightly casting away one creed after another, with
a carelessness which has ever proved a formidable bar to spiritual
progress. The Portuguese Jesuits were expelled by the Dutch, and
English efforts at conversion were succeeded by a general exclusion of
foreign missionaries. Public opinion eventually prevented the
continuance of this despotic rule, and at the present day a certain
number of Roman and Protestant clergy are supported by the Government,
but Roman zeal outstrips the niggardly spiritual provision, and proves
the appreciation in which it is held by full churches and devout
worshippers. The Mohammedanism of the Malay lacks the fiery fervour
common to Islam, and his slack hands are ever ready to forego all
symbols of faith. From the region of rice and tapioca, maize and
sugar-cane, we reach the great cacao plantations, hung with
chocolate-coloured pods, and the ruddy kina-groves on the lower slopes
of the mountain chain. The palms are everywhere, clashing their huge
fronds, and undulating in waves of fiery green, the light and shadow of
the golden evening reflected on the swaying foliage. Stately Palmyra,
slender areca, graceful pandang with a length of scarlet crowning each
smooth grey stem, the mighty royal palm, king of the forest, spreading
cocoanuts, and a hundred unknown varieties, soaring among bread-fruit
and teak, nutmeg and waringen, reveal the inexhaustible powers of
tropical Nature. Buitenzorg occupies an ideal position between the blue
and violet peaks of Gedeh and Salak, the guardian mountains of the
fairy spot, perennially green with spring-like freshness, from the
daily showers sweeping across the valley from one or other of the lofty
crests, and possessing a delicious climate at an altitude of eight
hundred feet. The Hotel Bellevue, where _back_ rooms should be secured
on account of a superb prospect, comprising river, mountain and forest,
stands near the great entrance of the world-famous Gardens, and our
balcony commands a profound ravine, carved by a clear river, winding
away between forests of palm to the dark cone of Mount Salak, the
climax of the picture. The artist destined to interpret the soul of
Java is yet unborn, or unable to grasp the character of her unique and
distinctive scenery, but a village of plaited palm-leaves, accentuating
this tropical Eden, brings it down to the human level, where soft Malay
voices, glimpses of domestic life, and a canoe afloat on the brimming
stream, remind us that we are still on _terra firma_, and not gazing
at a dreamland Paradise beyond earthly ken. Sleeping accommodation in
the hills suggests little comfort. A hard mattress beneath a sheet is
the sole furniture of the huge four-poster, surrounded by thick muslin
curtains to exclude air and creeping things; pillows are stuffed hard
with cotton-down, and no coverings are provided--an unalterable custom
possessing obvious disadvantages in a climate reeking with damp, where
the walls of a room closed for a day or two become green with mould.
Rheumatic stiffness on waking is a matter of course in humid Java, for
the hour between darkness and dawn contains a concentrated essence of
dew, mist, and malaria, which penetrates to the very marrow of
unaccustomed bones, even when it lacks the frequent accompaniment of
the violent cascade known as "a tropical shower." The glorious
Botanical Garden is approached by a mighty avenue of colossal
kanari-trees, over a hundred feet high, with yellow light filtering
through the fretted roof of interlacing boughs, which suggests a vast
aisle in some primeval forest. Stately columns and spreading roots
garlanded with stag-horn ferns, waving moss, white and purple orchids,
or broad-leaved creepers, falling in sheets and torrents of shining
foliage and knitting tree to tree, attest the irrepressible growth of
vegetation, which flings a many-coloured veil of blossom and leaf over
root, branch, and stem. A fairy lake glows with the pink and crimson
blossoms of the noble Victoria Regia, the huge leaves like green
tea-trays floating on the water, where a central fountain adds
prismatic radiance to the scenic effect of the splendid lilies.
Climbing palms and massive creepers, splashed with orange, scarlet, and
gold, tumble in masses from lofty branches, and the dazzling
Bougainvillea flings curtains of roseate purple over wall and gateway.
A dense thicket of frangipanni scents the air with the symbolic
blossoms, shining like stars from grey-green boughs of sharp-cut
leaves. A copse of splendid tree-ferns flanks the forest-like
plantation known as "The Thousand Palms," and beneath dusky avenues of
waringen (a variety of the banyan species, which strikes staff-like
boughs into the earth and springs up again in caverns of foliage),
herds of deer are wandering, snatching at drooping vines, or sheltering
from the fierce sun in depths of impenetrable shade. Tufts of
red-stemmed Banka palms cluster on the green islets of lake and river,
vista after vista opens up, each mysterious aisle appearing more lovely
than the last, and luring the wanderer to the climax formed by a
terraced knoll, commanding a superb view of Gedeh and Salak, the twin
summits of chiselled turquoise, gashed by the amethyst shadows of deep
ravines, with Gedeh's curl of volcanic smoke staining the lustrous
azure of the sky. Many-coloured tree carnations, gorgeous cannas and
calladiums, copses of snowy gardenia, and flowering shrubs of rainbow
hues, blaze with splendour, or exhale their wealth of perfume on the
languid air, thronged with the invisible souls of the floral multitude.
Graceful rattans shoot up in tall ladders of foliage-hidden cane,
climbing to the topmost fronds of the loftiest palm, and, unless
ruthlessly cut down, overthrowing the stately tree with their fatal
embrace. Sausage and candle trees, with strange parodies of prosaic
food and waxen tapers, climbing palms, sometimes extending for five
hundred feet, and gigantic blossoms like crimson trumpets, or
delicately-tinted shells of ocean, comprise but a tithe of Nature's
wonders, crowned by the mighty "Rafflesia," the largest flower in the
world, with each vast red chalice often measuring a circumference of
six feet. A hundred native gardeners are employed in this park-like
domain, and seventy men work in the adjacent culture-garden of forty
acres, where experiments in grafting and acclimatizing are carried on,
as well as in the supplementary garden of Tjibodas, beautifully
situated on the lower slopes of Mount Salak. The white palace of the
Governor-General faces the lake, fed by the lovely river Tjiligong,
winding in silver loops round verdant lawn and palm-clad hill, or
expanding into bamboo-fringed lakes, and bringing perennial freshness
into the tropical Eden of sun-bathed Java.
Beyond the fretted arches of the great kanari avenue, the white tomb
of Lady Raffles, who died during her husband's term of office in the
island, forms a pathetic link with the past. When the colony was
restored to Holland, a clause in the treaty concerning it, made the
perpetual care of this monument, to one deeply loved and mourned,
binding upon the Dutch Governor--a condition loyally observed during
the century since the cessation of English rule. Cinnamon and clove
scent the breeze which whispers mysterious secrets to the swaying
plumes of the tall sago-palms, and dies away in the delicate foliage of
tamarind and ironwood tree. A network of air roots makes a grotesque
circle round the spreading boughs of the banyan grove, mahogany and
sandal-wood, ebony and cork, ginger-tree and cardamom, mingle their
varied foliage, the translucency of sun-smitten green shading through
deepening tones into the sombre tints of ilex and pine with exquisite
gradation. Flamboyant trees flaunt fiery pyramids of blossom high in
the air, and the golden bouquets of the salacca light up dusky avenues,
where large-leaved lianas rope themselves from tree to tree in cables
of vivid green. Bare stems, except in the palms, are unknown in this
richly-decorated temple of Nature; climbing blade-plants with
sword-like leaves of gold-striped verdure, huge orchids like
many-coloured birds and butterflies fluttering in the wind, wreathe
trunk and branch with fantastic splendour, and matted creepers weave
curtains of dense foliage from spreading boughs. The austere and scanty
vegetation of Northern climes, which gives a distinct outline and value
to every leaf and flower, has nothing in common with the prodigal and
passionate beauty of the tropical landscape, where the wealth of earth
is flung broadcast at our feet in mad profusion. Day by day the
marvellous gardens of Buitenzorg take deeper hold of mind and
imagination. The early dawn, when the dark silhouettes of the palms
stand etched against the rose-tinted heavens, the hot noontide in the
shadows of the colossal kanari-trees, the sunset gold transfiguring the
foliage into emerald fire, and spilling pools of liquid amber upon the
mossy turf, or the white moonlight which transmutes the forest aisles
into a fairy world of sable and silver, invest this vision of Paradise
with varied aspects of incomparable beauty. The surrounding scenery,
though full of interest, seems but the setting of the priceless gem,
and when inexorable Time, the modern angel of the flaming sword, at
length bars the way, and banishes us from our Javanese Eden, the exiled
heart turns back perpetually to the floral sanctuary, the antitype of
that Divinely-planted Garden on the dim borderland of Time which
revealed and fulfilled the primeval beauty of earth's morning hours.