Soekaboemi (Desire of the World), a favourite sanatorioum of the Dutch,
is approached by an exquisite railway, curving round the purple heights
of forest-girt Salak. The usual afternoon deluge weeps itself away,
palm plumes and cassava boughs, overhanging the silvery Tjiligong, drop
showers of diamonds into the current, and giant bamboos creak in the
spicy wind, redolent of gardenia and clove. The hills, scaled by green
rice-terraces, each with tiny rill and miniature cascade, are vocal
with murmuring waters. Lilac plumbago, red hybiscus, and golden
allemanda mingle with pink and purple lantana, yellow daisies, and
hedges of scarlet tassels, enclosing wicker huts in patches of banana
and cocoanut. Brown girls, in blue and orange _sarongs_, occupy the
steps of a basket-work shrine, from whence an unknown god, smeared with
ochre, extends a sceptred hand, for Hinduism left deep traces on
inland Java, dim with the dust of vanished creeds. The expense and
trouble of former travel by the superb post-roads, made at terrible
sacrifice of life in earlier days, is now done away with, though the
noble avenues and picturesque shelters, erected for protection from sun
or rain, suggest a pleasant mode of leisurely progress. No trains may
run at night, not only on account of native incompetence, but from
dangers caused by constant geographical changes on this volcanic soil,
where rivers suddenly alter their course, and earthquakes obstruct the
way with yawning chasms or heaps of debris. A paternal Government
provides the traveller with a half-way house, erecting a large hotel at
Maos, with uniform rates, entirely for the benefit of the passenger by
rail. Trains are built on the American plan, stations are spacious and
airy, refreshments easily secured, and every halting-place offers an
_embarras de richesses_ in the shape of tropical fruits, wherewith to
supplement or replace the solidity of the Dutch commissariat. Coffee
and tea plantations in ordered neatness, contrast with the untamed
profusion of forest vegetation, clothing sharp promontory and shelving
terrace. Dusky villages cling like birds' nests to ledges of rock,
screw-palms with airy roots frame mountain tarns, and a Brazilian
Emperor-palm, with smooth column bulging into a pear-shaped base,
accentuates the sunset glory from a crag crowned by the black canopy
of colossal fronds. The Preanger Regency was the heart of ancient
Mataram, that historic kingdom of old-world Java round which perpetual
warfare waged for centuries.
Language and customs change as we cross the saddle between the blue
peaks of Salak and Gedeh; gay crowds bring fruits to picturesque
wayside markets, bearing bamboo poles laden with golden papaya and
purple mangosteen, or plaited baskets containing the conglomerate
native cuisine. The elastic and gracefully-modelled figures of the
Soendanese populace betoken a purer race than that of the steamy
Batavian lowlands, where foreign elements deteriorate the native stock.
The Hotel Victoria at Soekaboemi consists of detached white buildings
round tree-filled courts, erected on the "pavilion system." Every two
visitors occupy a tiny bungalow of two bedrooms, opening on a spacious
verandah divided by a screen, and each section provided with lamp,
rocking-chair, and tea-table, the long public dining hall being
approached by a covered alley. The rain, swishing down through the
night in torrents and cataracts, clears at sunrise, and though heavy
clouds still veil the heights of Salak, the transparent beauty of the
morning crystallises the atmosphere, and sharply defines every feature
of the landscape. The country roads, shaded by towering palms and
fruit-laden mangos, glow with a continuous procession of brown
figures, the women clad in the universal _sarong_, but men and children
often in Nature's garb, with touches of orange or crimson in scarf and
turban. Water-oxen and buffaloes, goats and sheep, vary the throng, but
cattle fare badly in fertile Java, where the all-pervading rice ousts
the pasture-land. Glorious bamboos form arches of feathery green
meeting across the road, and the busy China _campong_, or _désar_ in
Preanger parlance, is full of life and movement with the first streak
of day, for all trade in Java depends upon the indefatigable industry
of the Celestial. The idle gambling Malay, though an expert hunter and
fisher, takes no thought for the morrow, and is protected by the Dutch
Government from ruin by an enforced demand of rice for storage,
according to the numbers of the family. Every village contains the
great Store Barn of plaited palm leaves, so that, in case of need, the
confiscated rice can be doled out to the improvident native, who thus
contributes to the support of his family in times of scarcity. This
regulation relieves want without pauperising, the common garner merely
serving as a compulsory savings bank. Many salutary laws benefit the
Malay, possessing a notable share of tropical slackness, and the lack
of initiative partly due to a servile past under the sway of tyrannical
native princes. The little brown people of Java, eminently gentle and
tractable, are honest enough for vendors of eatables to place a laden
basket at the roadside for the refreshment of the traveller, who drops
a small coin into a bamboo tube fastened to a tree for this purpose.
The customary payment is never omitted, and at evening the owner of the
basket collects the money, and brings a fresh supply of food for future
wayfarers. Country districts demonstrate the fact of Java being a
creedless land. This is Sunday, and the Feast of the Epiphany, but the
only honour paid to the day consists in a gayer garb, and a band
playing for an hour in the palm-shaded garden. Work goes on in
rice-field and plantation, but no church bell rings from the closed
chapel outside the gates, and no sign of religion is evident, whether
from mosque, temple, or church. Lovely lanes form alluring vistas. The
pretty _désas_ of plaited palm and bamboo, hiding in depths of tropical
woodland, with blue thunbergia clambering over every verandah, and the
Preanger girls, with their brilliant _slandangs_ of orange and scarlet,
amber and purple, make vivid points of colour in the foreground of blue
mountain and dusky forest. A copper-coloured boy carries on his head a
basket of gold-fish large as salmon, the westering sun glittering on
the ruddy scales.
Traditional servility remains ingrained in Preanger character, and the
crouching obeisance known as the _dodok_, formerly insisted upon, is
still observed by the native to his European masters, the humble
posture giving place to kneeling on a nearer approach. The kind
proprietor of the Soekaboemi Hotel offers every facility to those
guests anxious to penetrate below the surface of Soendanese life,
placing his carriage and himself at the disposal of the visitor, and
affording a mine of information otherwise unattainable, for books on
Java are few and far between, and the work of Sir Stamford Raffles
continues the best authority on island life and customs, though a
century has elapsed since it was written. Why, one asks in amazement,
did England part with this Eastern Paradise? rich not only in
vegetation, but containing unexplored treasures of precious metal and
the vast mineral wealth peculiar to volcanic regions, where valuable
chemical products are precipitated by the subterranean forces of
Nature's mysterious laboratory. In the far-off days when "the grand
tour" of Europe was the climax of the ordinary traveller's ambition,
beautiful Java was relinquished on the plea of being an unknown and
useless possession, too far from the beaten track of British sailing
ships to be of practical value. The remonstrances of Sir Stamford
Raffles, and his representations of future colonial expansion, were
regarded as the dreams of a romantic enthusiast, and the noble English
Governor, in advance of his age, while effecting during his brief
tenure of office results unattainable by a century of ordinary labour,
found his efforts wasted and his work undone. Instead of returning
home, he applied himself heroically to the developement of Singapore,
the eternal monument of patriotic devotion and invincible courage.
The line to Tjandjoer, the starting point for Sindanglaya, traverses
one of the exquisite plains characteristic of Java. Mountain walls,
with palm-fringed base and violet crest, bound a fertile expanse, where
myriad brooks foam through fairy arches of feathery bamboo and long
vistas of spreading palm fronds. Rice in every stage of growth, from
flaming green to softest yellow, covers countless terraces, the
picturesque outlines of their varied contours enhancing the beauty of
the fantastic scene. A _sado_, with a team of three tiny ponies, dashes
up the long avenue leading to the palm-fringed hills, the mighty
Amherstia trees forming aisles of dark green foliage, brightened with
the vivid glow of orange red blossoms. The broad road is a kaleidoscope
of brilliant colour, for native costume vies with the dazzling tints of
tropical Nature as we advance further into the Preangers. The gay
headgear, worn turbanwise, with two ends standing upright above plaited
folds, and magenta _kabajas_, with _slandangs_ of apple green, amber or
purple, make a blaze of colour against the forest background, or glow
amidst the dusky shadows of palm-thatched sheds, where thirsty
travellers imbibe pink and yellow syrups, the favourite beverages of
the Malay race. The ascending road commands superb views of the
mountain chain, and the rambling two-storied hotel, widened by immense
verandahs, stands opposite cloud-crowned Gedeh, half-veiled by the
spreading column of volcanic smoke. The misty blue of further hills
leads the eye to the three weird peaks of the Tangkoeban Prahoe, the
boat-shaped "Ark" regarded as the Ararat of Java, for the universal
tradition of the great Deluge underlies the religious history welded
from Moslem, Buddhist, and Hindu elements. Legendary lore clusters
round the petrified "Ark" in which the progenitors of the Malayan stock
escaped from the Noachian flood. The storm-tossed and water-logged
boat, lodged between jutting rocks, was reversed that it might dry in
the sun, but the weary voyagers who traditionally peopled the Malay
Archipelago remained in the lotus-eating land, and the disused "Ark" or
_Prau_, fossilizing through the ages, became a portion of the peaks
whereon it rested. The sacred mountain developed into a place of
pilgrimage and prayer, and the ruins of richly-carved temples, together
with four broken flights of a thousand steps, denote the former
importance ascribed to the great Altar of Nature, and the power of
religion on the social life of the past. Generations of later
inhabitants, dwelling in flimsy huts of bamboo and thatch, regarded the
mysterious ruins of the Tankahan Prahoe as the work of giants or
demons, and the haunted hill as a mysterious resort of evil spirits.
In lofty Sindanglaya, the swaying palms of the lowlands yield to
glorious tree-ferns, shading road and ravine with feathery canopies of
velvet green. A lake of azure crystal mirrors a thick fringe of the
great fronds, and on every parapet of the ruddy cliffs the living
emerald of the lanceolated foliage glows in vivid contrast with the
splintered crags. Sindanglaya is the refuge of fever-stricken Europeans
from malarial coast or inland swamp, but the hotel is now empty of
invalids. The kind proprietor lavishes time and care on English guests,
and the attentive Malay "room-boys," squatting on the verandah outside
our doors, fear to lose sight of their charges for a moment, lest some
need of native help should arise. They watch hand and eye like faithful
dogs, for their language is unintelligible to us as ours to them, and
the only attempt at speech is "_Chow-chow, mister!_" when the
dinner-bell rings, the mystic words accompanied by a realistic
pantomime of mouth and fingers.
The following morning dawns like an ideal day of June, and we start in
chairs, carried by four coolies, for the beautiful Falls of Tjibereum.
A mountain road winds through rice-fields and tree-ferns towards fold
upon fold of lilac peaks, until we reach the mountain garden of
Tjibodas, the beautiful supplement of incomparable Buitenzorg. A
strange sense of remoteness belongs to this lonely pleasaunce of the
upper world, on a sheltered slope of ever-burning Gedeh, quiescent now
save for the blue curl of sulphurous smoke, which gives perpetual
warning of those smouldering forces ever ready to devastate the
surrounding country. Subterranean activity increases during the rainy
season, and tremors of earthquake occasionally startle the equanimity
of those unused to the perils of existence on this thin crust of Mother
Earth, for Java's teeming soil and population rest upon an ominous
fissure of the globe's surface, and twelve of the forty-five volcanos
on this island of terror and beauty are still moderately active,
sometimes displaying sudden outbursts of energy. The green lawns and
towering camphor trees of Tjibodas suggest the spellbound beauty of
some enchanted spot, unprofaned by human foot. A glassy lake mirrors
the tall bamboos and feathery tamarinds, their slender and sensitive
foliage motionless in the still air of the dewy dawn. Huge coleas
accentuate the spring verdure with heavy masses of bronze and crimson,
and magnolias exhale intoxicating odours from snowy chalices. Blue
lilies and flaxen pampas grass grow in thickets upon the emerald
slopes, and the ordered loveliness of the mountain Paradise, walled in
by dense jungle and savage precipice, brings the glamour of dreamland
into the stern environment of mysterious forest and frowning peak. A
rudely-paved and mossy path, shadowed by the black foliage of stately
casuarinas, leads into the gloomy jungle. The forest monarchs are
curtained with tangled creepers and roped together with serpent-like
lianas, stag-horn ferns, and green veils of filmy moss fluttering from
every bough. A swampy path through rank grass and rough boulders
pierces the dense thickets, matted together with inextricable
confusion, teak and tamarind, acacia and bread-fruit, palm and
tree-fern losing their own characteristics and merging themselves into
concrete form. The appalling stillness and solemnity of the dense
jungle appears emphasised by a solitary brown figure, with pipe and
betel-box, beneath a thatched shed at an angle of the narrow track,
where he presides over a little stall of cocoanuts, bananas, and
coloured syrups, for the refreshment of coolies on their way from the
Tjibodas garden to villages across the heights of Gedeh. No voice ever
seems raised in these remote recesses of the mountains, where even the
children of each brown hamlet play silently as figures in a dream. Our
bearers, swishing through wet grass and splashing across brimming
brooks, push with renewed energies up a steep ascent to the heart of
the wild solitude, where three mighty waterfalls dash in savage
grandeur from a range of over hanging cliffs into a churning river,
descending by continuous rapids over a stairway of brown-striped
trap-rock and swirling between lichen-clad banks, to lose itself in the
green gloom of the impenetrable woods. One of these huge cascades
would make the fortune of a Swiss valley, and we need no further
efforts of our willing bearers in the cause of sight-seeing, but as
neither words nor gestures prove intelligible to Western obtuseness, a
brown coolie seizes each arm, and rushes us up a grassy hill to a huge
cavern, hung with myriad bats, and containing a pool of crystal water.
The simple minds of these kindly mountaineers shirk no trouble for the
benefit of the stranger, who, though regarded as a madman, must be
humoured as such, not only to the top of his bent, but often beyond it.
A descent through rice-fields and _désas_ skirts the serrated cliffs of
Gedeh's northward side, though tree-ferns growing in thousands afford
shelter from the daily showers. The sudden passion of tropical rain
dies away, leaving an atmosphere of unearthly transparency. Gedeh,
carved in amethyst, leans against a primrose sky, streaked by the puff
of white smoke from the crater. Villagers returning from work brighten
the road with patches of scarlet and yellow; children, clad only in
necklaces of red seeds and silver bangles, running about amid groups of
women in painted _battek_, with brown babies carried in the orange or
crimson folds of the _slandang_, pause before the doorways of woven
basket-work huts, or carry crates of yellow bananas and strings of
purple mangosteens, to supplement the "evening rice" of their frugal
meal. The Malay races have been called "the flower of the East," noted
for their soft voices and courteous manners in the days of old, but
European intercourse obliterates native characteristics, and the
inhabitant of the sea-coast, or of the larger towns, unpleasantly
imitates the brusquerie of his Dutch masters, and even exaggerates it.
The Soendanese of the Preanger hills, less in contact with the external
world, retains traces of life's ancient simplicity, and though a keen
intelligence forms no part of his mental equipment, his desire to
please and satisfy his employer is of pathetic intensity.
The Governor-General of Java, whose stipend is of double the amount
received by the American President, owns a country palace at
Sindanglaya, in addition to the splendid official residences at Batavia
and Buitenzorg. A lovely walk leads from this flower-girt mansion to a
pavilion on the Kasoer hill, commanding a prospect of four mountain
ranges, outlined in tender hues of lavender and turquoise against the
cobalt sky. In the foreground stretches a fertile plain, with bamboo
and sugar-cane varying the eternal rice in brilliant shades of green
and gold, always decorative, from the first emerald blade to the
amber-tinted straw, for the sacred grain possesses a beauty far
exceeding that of wheat, barley, or rye.
Undulating lines and ascending terraces break the uniformity of the
lovely plains with the fascination of weird contour and fanciful
design, intricate as the pattern traced on the native _sarong_. The
rice-culture of these fields and valleys is a perfect survival of the
primeval system, unchanged since the days when "the gift of the gods"
was first bestowed on primitive man in this land of plenty. The
peasant, toiling in the flooded _sawas_, and occupied from seedtime to
harvest in the arduous labour demanded by the rice-field, combines with
his agricultural work the idea of a sacred duty to the divinities who
gave him the staple commodity whereon his life mainly depends. Cocoanut
and sugar-cane, maize and tapioca, banana and cassava, supplement the
rice, but it ranks above all other products of the teeming soil, for
sacramental efficacy and supernatural origin have hallowed the "grain
of heaven" from the very dawn of history, and the hereditary belief in
the efficacy of the sacred crop still remains mystically rooted in the
sub-consciousness of the Malay race.