THE GARDEN THAT IS JAVA
I entered Java through the back door, as it were. That is to say,
instead of landing at Batavia, which is the capital of Netherlands
India, and presenting my letters of introduction to the
Governor-General, Count van Limburg Stirum, I landed at Pasuruan, at
the eastern extremity of the six-hundred-mile-long island. It was as
though a foreigner visiting the United States were to land at Sag
Harbor, on the far end of Long Island, instead of at New York. I
learned afterward, from the American Consul-General at Batavia, that in
doing this I committed a breach of etiquette. Though the Dutch make no
official objections to foreigners landing where they please in their
Eastern possessions, they much prefer to have them ring the front
doorbell, hand in their cards, and give the authorities an opportunity
to look them over. In these days, with Bolshevik emissaries stealthily
at work throughout the archipelago, the Dutch feel that it behooves
them to inspect strangers with some care before giving them the run of
the islands.
We landed at Pasuruan because it is the port nearest to Bromo, the most
famous of the great volcanoes of Eastern Java, but as there is no
harbor, only a shallow, unprotected roadstead, it was necessary for
the _Negros_ to anchor nearly three miles offshore. So shallow is the
water, indeed, that it is a common sight at low tide to see the native
fishermen standing knee-deep in the sea a mile from land. Until quite
recently debarkation at Pasuruan was an extremely uncomfortable and
undignified proceeding, the passengers on the infrequent vessels which
touch there being carried ashore astride of a rail borne on the
shoulders of two natives. A coat of tar and feathers was all that was
needed to make the passenger feel that he was a victim of the Ku Klux
Klan. But a narrow channel has now been dredged through the sand-bar so
that row-boats and launches of shallow draught can make their way up
the squdgy creek to the custom house at high tide.
Until half a century ago Pasuruan was counted as one of the four great
cities of Java, but with the extension of the railway system throughout
the island and the development of the harbor at Surabaya, forty miles
away, its importance steadily diminished, though traces of its one-time
prosperity are still visible in its fine streets and beautiful houses,
most of which, however, are now occupied by Chinese. Perhaps the most
interesting feature of the place today is found in the costumes of the
native women, particularly the girls, who wear a kind of shirt and veil
combining all the colors of the rainbow.
From Pasuruan to Tosari, which is a celebrated hill-station and the
gateway to the volcanoes of eastern Java, is about twenty-five miles,
with an excellent motor road all the way. For the first ten miles the
road, here a wide avenue shaded by tamarinds and djati trees, runs
across a steaming plain, between fields of rice and cane, but after
Pasrepan the ascent of the mountains begins. The highway now becomes
extremely steep and narrow, with countless hairpin turns, though all
danger of collision is eliminated by the regulations which permit no
down-traffic in the morning and no up-traffic in the afternoon. During
the final fifteen miles, in which is made an ascent of more than six
thousand feet, one has the curious experience of passing, in a single
hour, from the torrid to the temperate zone. In the earlier stages of
the ascent the road zigzags upward through magnificent tropical
forests, where troops of huge gray apes chatter in the upper branches
and grass-green parrots flash from tree to tree. Palms of all
varieties, orchids, tree-ferns, bamboos, bananas, mangoes, gradually
give way to slender pines; the heavy odors of the tropics are replaced
by a pleasant balsamic fragrance; the hillsides become clothed with
familiar flowers--daisies, buttercups, heliotrope, roses, fuchsias,
geraniums, cannas, camelias, Easter lilies, azaleas, morning glories,
until the mountain-slopes look like a vast old-fashioned garden. In the
fields, instead of rice and cane, strawberries, potatoes, cabbages,
onions, and corn, are seen. As the road ascends the air becomes cold
and very damp; rain-clouds gather on the mountains and there are
frequent showers. At one point the mist became so thick that I could
scarcely discern the figure of my chauffeur and we were compelled to
advance with the utmost caution, for at many points the road, none too
wide at best, falls sheer away in dizzy precipices. But as suddenly as
it came, just as suddenly did the mist lift, revealing the great plain
of Pasuruan, a mile below, stretching away, away, until its green was
blended with the turquoise of the Java Sea. It is a veritable Road of a
Thousand Wonders, but there are spots where those who do not relish
great heights and narrow spaces will explain that they prefer to walk
so that they may gather wild-flowers.
Were it not for the wild appearance of its Tenngri mountaineers,
Tosari, which is the best health resort in Java, might be readily
mistaken for an Alpine village, for it has the same steep and
straggling streets, the same weather-beaten chalets clinging
precariously to the rocky hillsides, the same quaint shops, their
windows filled with souvenirs and postcards, the same glorious view of
green valleys and majestic peaks, the same crisp, cool air, as
exhilarating as champagne. The Sanatarium Hotel, which is always filled
with sallow-faced officials and planters from the plains, consists of a
large main building built in the Swiss chalet style and numerous
bungalows set amid a gorgeous garden of old-fashioned flowers. Every
bedroom has a bath--but such a bath!--a damp, gloomy, cement-lined cell
having in one corner a concrete cistern, filled with ice-cold mountain
water. The only furniture is a tin dipper. And it takes real courage,
let me tell you, to ladle that icy water over your shivering person in
the chill of a mountain morning.
The mountain slopes in the vicinity of Tosari are dotted with the
wretched wooden huts of the native tribe called Tenggerese, the only
race in Java which has remained faithful to Buddhism. There are only
about five thousand of them and they keep to themselves in their own
community, shut out from the rest of the world. They are shorter and
darker than the natives of the plains and, like most savages, are lazy,
ignorant and incredibly filthy. Because the air is cool and dry, and
water rather scarce, they never bathe, preferring to remain dirty. As a
result the aroma of their villages is a thing not soon forgotten. The
doors of their huts, which have no windows, all face Mount Bromo, where
their guardian deity, Dewa Soelan Iloe, is supposed to dwell. Once each
year the Tenggerese hold a great feast at the foot of the volcano, and,
until the Dutch authorities suppressed the custom, were accustomed to
conclude these ceremonies by tossing a living child into the crater as
a sacrifice to their god. Though an ancient tradition forbids the
cultivation of rice by the Tenggerese, they earn a meager living by
raising vegetables, which they carry on horseback to the markets on the
plain, and by acting as guides and coolies. They are incredibly strong
and tireless, the two men who carried Hawkinson's heavy motion-picture
outfit to the summit of Bromo making the round trip of forty miles in a
single day over some of the steepest trails I have ever seen.
Growing on the mountainsides about Tosari are many bushes of thorn
apple, called _Datara alba_, their white, funnel-shaped flowers being
sometimes twelve inches long. From the seeds of the thorn apple the
Tenggerese make a sort of flour which is strongly narcotic in its
effect. Because of this quality, it is occasionally utilized by
burglars, who blow it into a room which they propose to rob, through
the key-hole, thereby drugging the occupants into insensibility and
making it easy for the burglars to gain access to the room and help
themselves to its contents. Which reminds me that in some parts of
Malaysia native desperadoes are accustomed to pound the fronds of
certain varieties of palm to the consistency of powdered glass. They
carry a small quantity of this powder with them and when they meet
anyone against whom they have a grudge they blow it into his face. The
sharp particles, being inhaled, quickly affect the lungs and death
usually results. A friend of mine, for many years an American consul in
the East, once had the misfortune to be next to the victim of such an
attack, and himself inhaled a small quantity of the deadly powder. The
lung trouble which shortly developed hastened, if it did not actually
cause, his death.
That we might reach the Moengal Pass at daybreak in order to see the
superb panorama of Bromo and the adjacent volcanoes as revealed by the
rising sun, we started from Tosari at two o'clock in the morning. Our
mounts were wiry mountain ponies, hardy as mustangs and sure-footed as
goats. And it was well that they were, for the trail was the steepest
and narrowest that I have ever seen negotiated by horses. The Bright
Angel Trail, which leads from the rim of the Grand Canon down to the
Colorado, is a Central Park bridle-path in comparison. In places the
grade rose to fifty per cent and in many of the descents I had to lean
back until my head literally touched the pony's tail. It recalled the
days, long past, when, as a student at the Italian Cavalry School, I
was called upon to ride down the celebrated precipice at Tor di Quinto.
But there, if your mount slipped, a thick bed of sawdust was awaiting
you to break the fall. Here there was nothing save jagged rocks. We
started in pitch darkness and for three hours rode through a night so
black that I could not see my pony's ears. The trail, which in places
was barely a foot wide, ran for miles along a sort of hogback, the
ground falling sheer away on either side. It was like riding
blindfolded along the ridgepole of a church, and, had my pony slipped,
the results would have been the same.
But the trials of the ascent were forgotten in the overwhelming
grandeur of the scene which burst upon us as, just at sunrise, we drew
rein at the summit of the Moengal Pass. Never, not in the Rockies, nor
the Himalayas, nor the Alps, have I seen anything more sublime. At our
feet yawned a vast valley, or rather a depression, like an excavation
for some titanic building, hemmed in by perpendicular cliffs a thousand
feet in height. Wafted by the morning breeze a mighty river of clouds
poured slowly down the valley, filling it with gray-white fleece from
brim to brim. Slowly the clouds dissolved before the mounting sun until
there lay revealed below us the floor of the depression, known as the
Sand Sea, its yellow surface, smooth as the beach at Ormond, slashed
across by the beds of dried-up streams and dotted with clumps of
stunted vegetation. Like the Sahara it is boundless--a symbol of
solitude and desolation. When, in the early morning or toward
nightfall, the conical volcanoes cast their lengthening shadows upon
this expanse of sand, it reminds one of the surface of the moon as seen
through a telescope. But at midday, beneath the pitiless rays of the
equatorial sun, it resembles an enormous pool of molten brass, the
illusion being heightened by the heat-waves which flicker and dance
above it. From the center of the Sand Sea rises the extinct crater of
Batok, a sugar-loaf cone whose symmetrical slopes are so corrugated by
hardened rivulets of lava that they look for all the world like folds
of gray-brown cloth. Beyond Batok we could catch a glimpse of Bromo
itself, belching skyward great clouds of billowing smoke and steam,
while from its crater came a rumble as of distant thunder. And far in
the distance, its purple bulk faintly discernible against the turquoise
sky, rose Smeroe, the greatest volcano of them all.
[Illustration: The volcano of Bromo, Eastern Java, in eruption]
The descent from the Moengal Pass to the Sand Sea is so steep that it
is necessary to make it on foot, even the nimble-footed ponies having
all they can do to scramble down the precipitous and slippery trail. It
is well to cross the Sand Sea as soon after daybreak as possible, for
by mid-morning the heat is like a blast from an open furnace-door. It
is a four mile ride across the Sand Sea to the lower slopes of Bromo,
but the sand is firm and hard and we let the ponies break into a
gallop--an exhilarating change from the tedious crawl necessary in the
mountains. Then came a stiff climb of a mile or more over fantastically
shaped hills of lava, the final ascent to the brink of the crater being
accomplished by a flight of two hundred and fifty stone steps. The
crater of Bromo is shaped like a huge funnel, seven hundred feet deep
and nearly half a mile across. From it belch unceasingly dark gray
clouds of smoke and sulphurous fumes, while now and then large rocks
are spewed high in the air only to fall back again, rolling down the
inside slope of the crater with a thunderous rumble, as though the god
whom the Tenggerese believe dwells on the mountain was playing at
ten-pins. Deep down at the bottom of the crater jets of greenish-yellow
sulphur flicker in a cauldron of molten lava, from which a red flame
now and then leaps upward, like an out-thrust serpent's tongue. No
wonder that the ignorant mountaineers look on Bromo with fear and
veneration, for it huddles there, in the midst of that awful solitude,
like some monster in its death agony, gasping and groaning.
The transition from the lofty solitudes of the Tengger Mountains to the
steaming, teeming thoroughfares of Surabaya, the metropolis of eastern
Java, is not a pleasant one. For Surabaya--there are no less than
half-a-dozen ways of spelling its name--though the greatest trading
port in Java, from the point of view of the visitor is not an
attractive city. Neither is it a healthy place, for it has a hot,
humid, sticky climate, it lacks good drinking water and enjoys no
refreshing breeze; mosquitoes feed on one's body and red ants on one's
belongings; malaria and typhoid are prevalent and even bubonic plague
is not unknown, the combined effect of all these showing in the sallow
and enervated faces of its inhabitants. Yet it is a bustling,
up-and-doing city, as different from phlegmatic, conservative old
Batavia as Los Angeles is from Boston.
Unlike the houses of Batavia, which stand far back from the street in
lovely gardens, the houses of Surabaya are built directly on the
street, with their gardens at the back. Most of the houses of the
better class are in the Dutch colonial style--low and white with green
blinds and across the front a stately row of columns. Every house is
marked with a huge signboard bearing the number and the owner's name,
thus making it easy for the stranger to find the one for which he is
looking. There are no sidewalks and, as a consequence, walking is
anything but pleasant, the streets being deep in dust during the dry
season and equally deep in mud during the rains. I do not recall ever
having seen a city of its size with so much wheeled traffic. Indeed,
the scene on the Simpang Road about three in the afternoon, when the
merchants are returning to their offices after the midday siesta,
resembles that on Fifth Avenue at the rush hour, the broad
thoroughfare being literally packed from curb to curb with vehicles of
every description: the ramshackle little victorias known as _mylords_,
the high, two-wheeled dog-carts, with their seats back to back, called
_sados_, the two-pony cabs termed _kosongs_, creaking bullock carts
with wheels higher than a man, hand-cars and rickshaws hauled by
dripping coolies, and other coolies staggering along beneath the weight
of burdens swinging from the carrying-poles called _pikolans_, and
every make and model of motor-cars from ostentatious, self-important
Rolls-Royces to busybody Fords. Standing in the middle of the roadway,
controlling and directing this roaring river of traffic with surprising
efficiency are diminutive Javanese policemen wearing blue helmets many
sizes too large for them and armed with revolvers, swords and clubs.
The port of Surabaya, which is the busiest in the entire Insulinde, is
four miles from the business section of the city, with which it is
connected by a splendid asphalt highway lined by huge warehouses,
factories, godowns and oil-tanks, many of them bearing familiar
American names. In fact, one of the first things to attract my
attention in Java was the great variety of American articles on sale
and in use--motor cars, tires, typewriters, office supplies, cameras,
phonographs, agricultural machinery of all descriptions.
More than a tenth of Surabaya's population is Chinese and their
commercial influence dominates the whole city. They have the finest
residences, the most luxurious clubs, the largest shops, the
handsomest motor cars. I was shown a row of warehouses extending along
the canal for one long block which are the property of a single
Chinese. Wherever I traveled in the Indies I was impressed by the
business acumen and success of these impassive, industrious sons of the
Flowery Kingdom. They are the Greeks of the Far East but without the
Greek's unscrupulousness and lack of dependability. A Chinese will not
hesitate to take advantage of you in a business deal, but if he once
gives you his word he will always keep it, no matter at what cost to
himself, and if you should leave your pocketbook in his shop he will
come hurrying after you to restore it. The Chinese living in the Indies
are uniformly prosperous--many of them are millionaires--they have
their own clubs and chambers of commerce and charitable organizations;
they not infrequently control the finances of the districts in which
they live and, generally speaking, they make excellent citizens.
* * * * *
Java has almost exactly the same area--50,000 square miles--and the
same population--34,000,000--as England. Agriculturally, it is the
richest country of its size in the world. Because I wished to visit the
great tea and coffee and indigo plantations of its interior and to see
its palaces and temples and monuments, I decided to traverse the island
from end to end by train and motor car. Accordingly we left the
_Negros_ at Surabaya, directing Captain Galvez to pick us up a
fortnight later at Batavia, at the other end of the island.
There are at present more than three thousand miles of railways in
operation in Java, about two-thirds of which are the property of the
government. With a few exceptions, the lines are narrow gauge. The
railway carriages are a curious combination of English, Swiss and
American construction, being divided into compartments, which are
separated by swinging half-doors, like those which used to be
associated with saloons. The seats in the second-class compartments,
which are covered with cane, are decidedly more comfortable than those
of the first class, which are upholstered in leather. Owing to the
excessive heat and humidity, the leather has the annoying habit of
adhering to one's clothing, so that you frequently leave the train
after a long journey with a section of the seat-covering sticking to
your trousers or with a section of your trousers sticking to the seat.
To avoid the discomfort of the midday heat, the long-distance express
trains usually start at daybreak and reach their destinations at noon,
which, though doubtless a sensible custom, necessitates the traveler
arising when it is still dark. The express trains have dining cars, in
which a meal of sorts can be had for two guilders (about eighty cents)
and the first and second-class carriages are equipped with electric
fans and screens. In spite of these conveniences, however, travel in
Java is hot and dusty and generally disagreeable. After a railway
journey one needs a bath, a shave, a haircut, a shampoo, a massage, and
a complete outfit of fresh clothes before feeling respectable again.
In many respects, motoring is more comfortable than railway travel. The
roads throughout the island are excellent and have been carefully
marked by the Java Motor Club, though fast driving is made dangerous by
the bullock carts, pack trains and carabaos, which pay no attention to
the rules of the road. Nor is motoring particularly expensive, for an
excellent seven-passenger car of a well-known American make can be
hired for forty dollars a day. Visitors to Java should bear in mind,
however, that all their motoring and sight-seeing must be done in the
morning, as, during the wet season, it invariably rains in torrents
during the greater part of every afternoon.
The hotels of Java, taking them by and large, are moderately good,
while certain of them, such as the Oranje at Surabaya, the Grand at
Djokjakarta, and the Indies at Batavia, are quite excellent in spots,
with orchestras, iced drinks, electric fans, and well-cooked food.
Though every room has a bath--a necessity in such a climate--tubs are
quite unknown, their place being taken by showers, or, in the simpler
hostleries, by barrels of water and dippers. The mattresses and pillows
appeared to be filled with asphalt, though it should be remembered that
a soft bed is unendurable in the tropics. Every bed is provided with a
cylindrical bolster, six feet long and about fifteen inches in
diameter, which serves to keep the sheet from touching the body. They
are known as "Dutch widows."
If you are fond of good coffee, I should strongly advise you to take
your own with you when you go to Java. From my boyhood "Old Government
Java" had been a synonym in our household for the finest coffee grown,
so my astonishment and disappointment can be imagined when, at my first
breakfast in Java, there was set before me a cup containing a dubious
looking syrup, like those used at American soda-water fountains, the
cup then being filled up with hot milk. The Germans never would have
complained about their war-time coffee, made from chicory and acorns,
had they once tasted the Java product. Yet I was assured that this was
the choicest coffee grown in Java. I might add that, as a result of a
blight which all but ruined the industry in the '70s, fifty-two per
cent of the total acreage of coffee plantations in the island is now
planted with the African species, called _Coffea robusta_, and thirteen
per cent with another African species, _Coffea liberia_, and the rest
with Japanese and other varieties. Though the term "Mocha and Java" is
still used by the trade in the United States, few Americans of the
present generation have ever tasted either, for virtually no Mocha
coffee and very little Java have been imported into this country for
many years.
The lazy, leisurely, luxurious existence led by the great Dutch
planters in Java is in many respects a counterpart of that led by the
wealthy planters of our own South before the Civil War. Dwelling in
stately mansions set in the midst of vast estates, waited upon by
retinues of native servants, they exercise much the same arbitrary
authority over the thousands of brown men who work their coffee, sugar
and indigo plantations that the cotton-growers of the old South
exercised over their slaves. Indeed, it was not until 1914 that a form
of peonage which had long been authorized in Java was abolished by law,
for up to that year private landowners had the right to enforce from
all the laborers on their estates one day's gratuitous work out of
seven.
There are no shrewder or more capable business men to be found anywhere
than the Dutch traders and merchants in Java. Many of the great trading
houses of the Dutch Indies have remained the property of the same
family for generations, their staffs being as carefully trained for the
business as the Dutch officials are trained for the colonial service.
The young men come out from Holland as cadets with the intention of
spending the remainder of their lives in the Insulinde, studying the
native languages and acquainting themselves with native prejudices,
predilections and customs. They are usually blessed with a phlegmatic
temperament, well suited to life in the tropics, take life easily, live
in considerable luxury, play a little tennis, grow fat, spend their
afternoons in pajamas and slippers, stroll down to the local Concordia
Club in the evenings to sit at small tables on the terrace and drink
enormous quantities of beer and listen to the band, not infrequently
marry native women, and often amass great fortunes.
Though the Javanese peasant is, from necessity, industrious, the upper
classes, particularly the nobles, are effeminate, indolent, decadent,
and servile. Their amusements are cock-fighting, dancing, shadow
plays, and gambling, and they lead an utterly worthless existence which
the Dutch do nothing to discourage. Their Mohammedanism is decadent and
has none of the virility which distinguishes those followers of Islam
who dwell in western lands. Though there is no denying that the natives
are immeasurably more prosperous, on the whole, than before the white
man came, the Dutch have done little if anything to improve their
living conditions. True, their rule is a just and a not unkind one;
they have built roads and railways, but this was done in order to open
up the island; and they have established a number of industrial and
technical schools, but there is no system of compulsory education, and
no systematic attempt has been made to ameliorate the condition of the
great brown mass of the people. I do not think that I am doing them an
injustice when I assert that the Dutch are administrators rather than
altruists, that they are more concerned in maintaining a just and
stable government in their insular possessions, and in increasing their
productivity, than they are in improving the moral, mental, and
material condition of the natives.
* * * * *
Lying squarely in the middle of Java are the _Vorstenlanden_, "the
Lands of the Princes"--Soerakarta and Djokjakarta--the most curious, as
they are the most picturesque, states in the entire Insulinde. But,
because in their form of government and the lives and customs of their
inhabitants they are so vastly different from the other portions of
the island, I feel that they are deserving of a chapter to themselves
and hence shall omit any account of them here.
* * * * *
Bandoeng, the prosperous and extremely up-to-date capital of the
Preanger Regencies, is the fifth largest city in Java, being exceeded
in population only by Batavia, Surabaya, Surakarta and Samarang. The
city, which is the healthiest and most modern in Java, stands in the
middle of a great plain, 2300 feet above the sea, having, therefore, a
delightful all-the-year-round climate. It has excellent electric
lighting, water and sanitary systems, miles of well-paved and shaded
streets, and many beautiful residences--the finest I saw in
Malaysia--set in the midst of charming gardens. It is planned to remove
the seat of government from Batavia to Bandoeng in the not far distant
future and the handsome buildings which will eventually house the
various departments are rapidly nearing completion. When they are
completed Bandoeng will be one of the finest, if not the finest
colonial capital in the world. But, attractive though the city is, it
holds nothing of particular interest to the casual visitor unless it be
the quinine factory. This company seems likely to succeed in cornering
the supply of Javanese cinchona bark and is fast building up a world
market for its product. The cinchona tree, from which the bark is
obtained, was first introduced from South America in the middle of the
last century and is now widely grown throughout the Preanger Regencies,
both by the government and by private planters. After six or seven
years the tree is sufficiently matured for the removal of its bark,
which, after being carefully dried, sorted, and baled, is shipped to
the factory in Bandoeng, where it is manufactured into the quinine of
commerce. The process of manufacture is a secret one, which explains,
though it does not excuse, the extreme discourtesy shown by the
management toward foreigners desiring to visit the plant.
It takes three and a half hours by express train from Bandoeng to
Buitenzorg, the summer capital of the Indies, and the journey is one of
the pleasantest in Java, the railway being bordered for miles by
marvellously constructed rice terraces which climb the slopes of the
Gedei, tier on tier, transforming the mountainsides into a series of
hanging gardens. When the shallow, water-filled terraces are
illuminated by the tropic sun, they look for all the world like a
titanic stairway of silver ascending to the heavens. Take my word for
it, the rice terraces of the Preangers are in themselves worth
traveling the length of Java to see.
Though Batavia is the official capital of Netherlands India, the
hill-station of Buitenzorg, some twenty miles inland, is the actual
seat of government and the residence of the Governor-General.
Buitenzorg--the name means "free from care"--is to Java what Simla is
to India, what Baguio is, in a lesser degree, to the Philippines. It
has often been compared to Versailles, and, in its pleasant existence,
in the enchanting effects which have been produced by its landscape
gardeners, in its great white palace even, one can trace some slight
resemblance to the famous home of le Roi Soleil. Buitenzorg is
conspicuously different from other Javanese cities, partly because,
being the seat of government, its European quarter is exceptionally
extensive, but primarily because it boasts the famous Botanical
Gardens, in many respects the finest in the world. Its avenues, shaded
by splendid trees, are lined with charming, white-walled villas, the
residences of the government officials and of retired officers and
merchants, set far back in lovely, fragrant gardens. The palace of the
Governor-General, a huge, white building of classic lines, faintly
reminiscent of the White House in Washington, is superbly situated in
the Botanic Gardens, the rear overlooking a charming lotos pond, its
surface covered with the huge leaves of the water-plant known as
_Victoria Regia_, amid which numbers of white swans drift gracefully;
while the colonnaded front commands a magnificent view of a vast deer
park which reminds one of the stately manor parks of England.
When you arrive at the Hotel Bellevue in Buitenzorg, be sure and ask
for one of the "mountain rooms." The view which is commanded by their
balconies has few equals in all the world. Far in the distance rises
the majestic, cloud-wreathed cone of Salak, its wooded slopes wrapped
in a cloak of purple-gray. From its foot, cutting a way toward
Buitenzorg through a sea of foliage, is a ribbon of brown--the Tjidani
River. Its banks, lined by miles of waving palms, are crowded with the
quaint, thatched dwellings of the natives, hundreds of whom--men, women
and children--are bathing in its water. One of the most curious and
amusing sights in Java is that of the native women bathing in the
streams. They enter the river wearing their sarongs, gradually raise
them as they go deeper into the stream, slip them over their heads when
the water has reached their armpits, and, when they have completed
their ablutions, reverse the process, thus achieving the feat of
bathing in full view of hundreds of spectators without the slightest
improper revelation. Hawkinson set up his camera on the bank of the
Tjidani and spent several hundred feet of film in recording one of
these performances. Even the Pennsylvania State Board of Censors will
be unable to find any objection to _that_ bathing scene.
Though the gardens of Buitenzorg are a veritable treasure-house for the
botanist and the horticulturist--for the Dutch are the best gardeners
in the world--from the standpoint of the casual visitor they cannot
compare, to my way of thinking, with the Peradenya Gardens of Ceylon.
It is beyond all doubt, however, the finest collection of tropical
trees and plants in existence. Here, besides full-grown specimens of
every known tree of the torrid zone, are culture gardens for sugar
cane, coffee, tea, rubber, ilang-ilang; for all the spice, gum, and
fruit trees; for bamboo, rattan, and the hard woods, such as mahogany
and teak--in short, for every variety of tree or plant of commercial,
ornamental, or utilitarian value. There are also gardens for all the
gorgeous flowers of Java: the frangipani, the wax-white, gold-centered
flower of the dead, the red and yellow lantanas, the scarlet poinsetta,
the crimson bougainvillea, and others in bewildering variety. There are
greenhouses to shelter the rarer and more sensitive plants--to shelter
them not, as in our hothouses, from the cold, but, on the contrary,
from the heat and the withering rays of the sun. Here too is one of the
finest collections of orchids in existence, tended by an ancient
Javanese gardener who is as proud of his curious blooms as a trainer is
of his race horses or a collector of his porcelains. As for the palms,
I had no idea that so many varieties existed until I visited
Buitenzorg--emperor palms, Areca palms, Banka palms, cocoanut palms,
fan palms, cabbage palms, sago palms, date palms, feather palms,
travelers' palms, oil palms, Chuson palms, climbing palms over a
hundred feet long--palms without end, Amen. Small wonder that the palm
is regarded with affection wherever it can be grown, for what other
tree can furnish food, shelter, clothing, timber, fuel, building
materials, fiber, paper, starch, sugar, oil, wax, dyes and wine?
But, when all is said and done, nothing in those splendid gardens, not
the stately avenue of kanari trees whose interlacing branches form a
nave as awe-inspiring as that of some great cathedral, not the rare and
curious orchids which would arouse the envy of a millionaire, appealed
to me so powerfully as a little Grecian temple of white marble, all but
hidden by the encircling shrubbery, which marks the sleeping-place of
Lady Raffles, wife of that Sir Stamford Raffles who once was the
British lieutenant-governor of Java. It pleases me to think that it is
toward this little, moss-grown temple that the bronze statue of the
great empire-builder, which stands on the Esplanade in Singapore, is
peering with wistful eyes, for on its base he carved these lines:
"Oh thou whom ne'er my constant heart
One moment hath forgot,
Tho' fate severe hath bid us part
Yet still--forget me not."
* * * * *
Batavia, the capital of the Indies, is built on both banks of the
Jacatra River, in a swampy and unhealthy plain at the head of a
capacious bay. Just as New York is divided into the boroughs of
Manhattan and the Bronx, so the metropolis of Netherlands India is
divided into the districts of Batavia and Weltevreden, the suburb of
Meester Cornelis corresponding to Brooklyn. Batavia is the business
quarter of the city; Weltevreden the residential. The former, which is
built on the edge of the harbor, is very thickly populated and, because
of its lowness, very unhealthy. Only natives, Malays, Chinese and Arabs
live here and the great European houses which were once the homes of
the Dutch officials and merchants have either fallen into decay or have
been converted into warehouses and shops. The Europeans now live in
Weltevreden, or Meester Cornelis, though they have their offices in the
lower town. Both the upper and lower towns are traversed by the
Jacatra--sometimes called the Tjiliwoeng--from which branch canals that
spread through the city in all directions, thereby emphasizing its
distinctly Dutch atmosphere. The streets are for the most part straight
and regular, being paved, as in the mother-country, with cobblestones.
Old Batavia contains very few relics of the early days, but it is
quaint and delightfully picturesque and its canals, though anything but
desirable from the standpoint of health, add much to its individuality
and charm. The most characteristic feature of Batavia, that
distinguishes it from all other colonial cities of the East, is that in
all its construction, both public and private, permanency seems to be
the dominant note. The Dutch do not come to Java, as the English go to
India and the Americans to the Philippines, in order to amass fortunes
in a few years and then go home; they come with the intention of
remaining. When their children grow up they are sent back to Holland to
be educated, but, once their schooling is completed, they almost
invariably return to the East and devote their lives to the development
of the land in which they were born.
Batavia, which means literally 'Fair meadows,' was originally called
Jacatra. The Dutch established a trading post here in 1610, the land
being obtained from the natives by a trick similar to that associated
by tradition with the acquisition of the lower end of Manhattan Island
by the founders of Nieuw Amsterdam. The Javanese, it seems, were
reluctant to sell to the Dutch a parcel of land sufficiently large for
the erection of a fort and trading station, but after much discussion
they finally consented to part with as much land as could be included
within a single bullock's hide, which was their way of saying that
their land was not for sale. This crafty stipulation did not worry the
equally crafty Dutch, however, for they promptly obtained the largest
hide available, cut it into narrow strips, and, placing these end to
end, insisted on their right to the very considerable parcel of ground
thus enclosed under the terms of the bargain.
A relic illustrative of the barbarous punishments which were in vogue
during the colony's earlier days is to be seen by driving a short
distance up Jacatra Road, in the lower town. Close by the ancient
Portuguese church you will find a short section of old wall. Atop the
wall, transfixed by a spear-point, is an object which, despite its many
coats of whitewash, is still recognizable as a human skull. Set in the
wall is a tablet bearing this inscription:
"In detested memory of the traitor, Peter Erberveld, who was
executed. No one will be permitted to build, lay bricks or plant
on this spot, either now or in the future.
Batavia, April 14, 1772."
Erberveld was a half-caste agitator who had conspired with certain
disaffected natives to launch a revolt, massacre all the Dutch in
Batavia, and have himself proclaimed king. Fortunately for the Dutch,
the plot was betrayed through the faithlessness of a native girl with
whom Erberveld was infatuated. Because of the imperative need of
safeguarding the little handful of white colonists against massacre by
the natives, it was decided that the half-caste should be punished in
a manner which would strike fear to the hearts of the Javanese, who
have no particular dread of death in its ordinary forms. The judges did
their best to achieve this object, for Erberveld was sentenced to be
impaled alive, broken on the wheel, his hands and head cut off, and his
body quartered. Why they omitted hanging and burning from the list I
can not imagine. The sentence was carried out--the contemporary
accounts record that he endured his fate with silent fortitude--and his
head is on the wall to-day. But I think that, were I the
Governor-General of the Indies, I should have that grisly reminder of
the bad old days taken down. Many nations have family skeletons but
they usually prefer to keep them out of sight.