EASTERN JAVA, LOMBOCK, TIMOR, AND THE ARU ISLANDS.
Greatly pleased with their visit to the tea and coffee plantations, our
friends returned to Bandong. On the way back they had an accident that
for a few moments was quite exciting, and threatened serious results.
While descending a long hill the brake of the carriage gave way, and the
horses started on a full gallop; they were quite out of the control of
the driver, and the two footmen were left a long way behind. The driver
managed to turn his team into a side road at the risk of an overturn,
and gave them a little practice in running up hill instead of down.
Gradually they reduced their pace, and some workmen in a field close at
hand came to his assistance, and held the horses till the grooms could
come up. One of the springs of the carriage was broken, in the severe
shaking they had received, but otherwise the vehicle was not much
injured.
It was necessary to stop a day at Bandong to have the carriage repaired,
and the delay enabled the boys to learn something more about the
country.
[Illustration: VOLCANO IN EASTERN JAVA.]
They ascertained that, if they had the time to spare, they could go to
the eastern capitals of Java along good roads, and through a succession
of mountains and plains. They would see volcanoes, both active and
silent, and might possibly have a practical acquaintance with an
earthquake, or an eruption of one of the burning mountains. Frank was a
little doubtful of the safety of such a journey when he learned that one
volcano had thrown out, in a single night, ashes and scoriæ to the depth
of fifty feet over an area of several miles, destroying forty villages
and three thousand people; and another volcano had overwhelmed
everything within twenty miles of it, and caused the deaths of twenty
thousand persons. But the Doctor assured him that the eruption of a
volcano was not so sudden that those who wished to get away could not do
so, and the majority of the burning mountains of the world were
accustomed to give warning weeks and sometimes months ahead.
[Illustration: RUINS NEAR SOURABAYA.]
The eastern capitals of Java are Samarang and Sourabaya, but they are
capitals only of the provinces of the same names. Both of them are
important commercial points; and there is a railway from Samarang which
is intended in course of time to unite with the one from Batavia.
Samarang is about two hundred and fifty miles from Batavia, or nearly
half-way from one end of the island to the other; while Sourabaya is
close to the eastern extremity, and not far from the island of Madura.
The country around Sourabaya is quite flat, and very fertile; and the
roads sometimes run for miles in perfectly straight lines. Back towards
the interior, when the hilly region is reached, there is a magnificent
forest, where tigers abound; and the hunter is rewarded by frequent
shots at the beautiful Java peacock. The country is full of ruins of
temples and palaces; and there are many evidences that it was once
occupied by a people greatly advanced in architecture and the fine arts.
"But what should we find if we went beyond Java?" Fred asked.
Just as he spoke the door opened, and a gentleman entered. He proved to
be their host of the coffee plantation, who had heard of their accident,
and called to congratulate them on their escape from injury. After an
exchange of civilities, he seated himself, and asked if he could be of
any service; and, turning to Fred, he said,
"I heard your question as I entered the room, and think I can answer it.
I have made the journey around the Dutch possessions in the East, and
will try to tell you about them."
Both the boys expressed their delight at the chance of learning
something of the islands of the Oriental Seas. The gentleman said he had
an hour to spare, and would endeavor to enable them to pass it
agreeably; and if they wanted to take any notes of what he said, they
were welcome to do so.
They were desirous and ready, and he began at once.
"I have twice made the journey," said he; "once by steamer, and once by
native boats."
"Do the steamers run there regularly?" one of the boys inquired.
"Certainly," was the reply; "the company whose ship brought you from
Singapore to Batavia sends a steamer every month to make the tour of the
Dutch East Indies. It leaves Batavia on the 15th of the month, and
Sourabaya on the 22d; and goes to Macassar, Menado, Ternate, Boeroe,
Amboina, Banda, and Timor, and then returns to Sourabaya and Batavia.
The voyage takes about a month, and the steamer remains in each port
from twenty-four to forty-eight hours."
"What a delightful voyage it must be," said Frank; "and how much does it
cost?"
[Illustration: AN ISLAND PORT.]
"A ticket for the round trip," the gentleman replied, "costs three
hundred dollars, and sometimes more. You have already found that
steamship fares in the East are dear; and this line forms no exception
to the rule. In return for your money you have all the comforts the ship
can give; and you may live on board all the time she remains in port at
the different stopping-places.
"If you go by a native boat you will be much longer on the way; but you
can visit more places than the steamer stops at, and can see more of the
life of the East. We will drop that part of the subject, and consider
what you might see in some of the islands of the Malay Archipelago,
supposing you should go there; we haven't time for all of them.
"The colonial possessions of the Dutch in the Archipelago comprise about
six hundred thousand square miles, with a population of twenty-five
millions. They include the whole of Java and Madura, the Moluccas, or
Spice Islands, and large portions of Borneo and Sumatra. Consequently,
you can make a long journey without once going out of the Dutch
territory."
[Illustration: WILD FIG-TREE.]
"The first place I visited, after leaving Sourabaya, was the island of
Lombock. There is not much of interest in the principal port, which is
called Ampanam, as the place is small, and the inhabitants are not
particularly enterprising. There are some groves of wild fig-trees close
to the town; and one of my amusements was to shoot the green pigeons and
orioles that abounded there. Some of the trees are almost covered with
the hanging-nests of the orioles; and, as they are rarely disturbed by
the natives, I found them so tame that it required no skill at all to
get near enough to shoot them.
[Illustration: A VILLAGE IN LOMBOCK.]
"Several miles out in the country from Ampanam is the village where the
Rajah of the island lives; it is called Mataram, and no native of the
lower classes is allowed to ride on horseback through it. If you should
happen to be travelling there, and had your Javanese servant mounted on
a horse, he would be obliged to walk from one end of the town to the
other, and lead his animal.
[Illustration: VIEW NEAR MATARAM.]
"There is a fine volcano in Lombock, about eight thousand feet high. Mr.
Wallace tells a good story in connection with this volcano, and the plan
by which the Rajah took the census of the population of the island.
"You must know that the principal product of Lombock is rice, and the
taxes are paid in this article. Each man, woman, and child contributed a
small measure of rice once a year; but it passed through many hands
before it reached the treasury, and a little of it clung to each hand
that it touched. The result was that the Rajah did not get half of what
was due him, and all his officers conspired to tell him that the crops
were short in some districts, and many people had died in others; and no
matter what he did to find out the truth, they managed to prevent his
learning it. He determined to take a census of his people, but did not
know how to go at it, as his officers would suspect what it was for,
and would make out the population according to the rice that he received
the previous year. He thought a long time over the matter, and finally
hit on a plan so shrewd that nobody suspected there was any census at
all.
"For several days he appeared to be very sick at heart; and finally he
called his officers together, and told them he had been summoned to go
to the top of the great fire-mountain to hear a revelation from the
spirit who ruled the island. The spirit had come to him in a vision, and
said he must go there at once, or the island would be destroyed.
[Illustration: WHERE THE GREAT SPIRIT AND THE RAJAH MET.]
"Of course they made arrangements immediately, and a grand procession
accompanied the Rajah to the designated spot. From the foot of the
mountain to the summit he was escorted by a few priests and attendants;
and as he neared the crater he ordered them to remain behind, under the
shadow of a great rock, while he went alone to meet the spirit. He
remained away for a long time; the fact is, he lay down and took a
comfortable nap, and it was naturally thought that the spirit had a
great deal to say to him.
"When he returned he was silent and sorrowful, and did not speak a word
for three days. Then he summoned his officers, and told them what the
spirit had said. He described the spirit as having a face of burnished
gold, and a voice that sounded like distant thunder.
"'Oh, Rajah!' the spirit said, 'much plague, and sickness, and fever are
coming on the earth--on men, and horses, and cattle; but as you and your
people have obeyed me and come to the mountain, and have been good and
faithful, I will tell you how you can avoid the pestilence.
"'You must make twelve sacred krisses; and to make them, every village
and every district must send a bundle of needles--a needle for every
head in the village. And when any disease appears in a village, one of
the krisses shall be sent there; if every house in that village has sent
the right number of needles, the disease shall cease immediately; but if
the number of needles has not been exact, then all shall die!'
"So the princes and chiefs made haste to collect the needles; and they
were very exact about it, for they feared that, if a single needle
should be wanting in any case, the whole village would perish. When the
needles were collected, the Rajah received them; then he had a workman
come and make twelve krisses from those needles; but the papers that
were around the needles, and told the name of each village, and the
number of men, women, and children in it, he carefully preserved, and
put away in his private chest.
"When the rice-tax came in that year, and the quantity fell short, the
Rajah said to the officers that there was some mistake about it. He then
told them the exact number of inhabitants in that village, according to
the packages of needles, and it did not take long to set the matter
right. The result was that the Rajah grew very rich, and his fame went
out through all the islands and countries of the East."
"A capital story," said Frank; and the opinion was emphatically endorsed
by Fred.
"It is evident," the latter remarked, "that the kriss, or dagger, is
held in great respect in Lombock."
"Certainly," said the gentleman, in reply; "there is no part of the
Archipelago where it is more honored, and where the wealthy natives have
so much money invested in this weapon. Very often they have them with
golden handles set with jewels; and I have seen some that cost thousands
of dollars. Every man carries one of these knives, and frequently it is
the only property he can boast of possessing. The blade is twisted; and
when it is used it makes a frightful wound."
"That is what the Malays 'run a-muck' with, is it not?" Frank asked.
"Yes; and Lombock is one of the most famous places in the East for that
amusement. The island, though close to Java, is independent, and the
Rajah does pretty much what he pleases as long as he remains on good
terms with his Dutch neighbors. The taxes are not heavy, but the laws
are very severe. Small thefts are punished with death; and it is a rule
of the country that a person found in a house after dark, without the
owner's consent, may be killed, and his body thrown into the street,
without fear that anybody will ask a question about the matter.
"The word 'amok' means 'kill;' and the Malays kill others in the
expectation that others will kill them. Running amok is the fashionable
way of committing suicide; a man grows desperate from any cause, and
determines to put an end to his life, and to kill as many others as he
can before he is killed himself. He grasps his kriss handle, and stabs
somebody to the heart; then he rushes down the street, shouting 'amok!
amok!' and stabbing everybody he can reach. People rush on him with
knives, spears, daggers, guns, or other weapons, and despatch him as
soon as possible--as they would a mad dog. Sometimes five or ten persons
are killed by the man before he is brought down; and I know one instance
where sixteen were killed or wounded by a native running amok.
"The Malays are excellent workers of steel, and the weapons they make
are difficult to surpass in fineness and beauty. The marvellous thing is
that they will accomplish so much with the rudest implements; a smith
has a small forge, a hammer or two, and a few files, and with these and
one or two other things he will turn out work that astonishes the
skilled artificers of Sheffield. A Malay gunsmith produces weapons that
shoot with precision, and are bored with perfect accuracy; but the
boring is done without any machinery whatever. This is the apparatus:
[Illustration: GUN-BORING IN LOMBOCK.]
"There is an upright pole which is thrust through a bamboo basket; its
top is fastened to a cross-bar, and the bottom is equipped with an iron
ring in which boring-irons can be fitted. The barrel to be bored is set
in the ground, the basket is filled with stones to give it weight, and
two boys turn the cross-bar to make the boring-iron revolve. The barrel
is bored in sections about eighteen inches long; and these are welded
together, and afterwards bored to the required size.
[Illustration: NATIVES OF TIMOR.]
"Considerably to the eastward of Lombock is the island of Timor, which
is interesting because it is one of the few places where the Portuguese
have a local habitation and a name in the Malay Archipelago. Timor is
about three hundred miles long by sixty wide, and is partly occupied by
the Dutch and partly by the Portuguese. The Dutch settlements are at the
western end, and their principal town is Coupang; it has a mixed
population of Malays, Chinese, and Dutch, in addition to the natives,
who are closely allied to the natives of Papua, or New Guinea, and have
very little affinity with the Malay race. They are of a dirty brown
color, and have large noses and frizzled hair, so that they strongly
resemble the negro.
[Illustration: DELLI, PORTUGUESE TIMOR.]
"The seat of the Portuguese part of Timor is at Delli, a miserable
village of thatched huts, with a mud fort, and very little appearance of
civilization. The governor's house is a trifle better than the rest,
but not much; and the place has a reputation for fever that is not at
all agreeable for a stranger. I don't think much of Delli, and never
heard of any one who did.
"The Portuguese government in Timor is a very shadowy affair, and the
sooner it comes to an end the better. It has been there three hundred
years, and yet there is not a mile of road in the interior of the
country, and the agricultural resources of the island have received no
development. The example of the Dutch in Java seems to be quite lost on
the Portuguese, who oppress the inhabitants in every possible way, and
plunder them without fear of punishment."
Frank asked if Timor was one of the islands where the bird of paradise
is found.
"No," replied the gentleman; "but it is not far from there to the Aru
Islands, where the Great Bird of Paradise lives. I went from Timor to
Aru in a native boat, and narrowly escaped drowning on the way. We were
caught in a storm, and anchored near a small island off the coast of
Aru; the Malay anchor is a stick of wood from the fork of a tree, with a
stone to give it weight, and, as it has only one fluke, you can never be
sure that it goes down so as to seize the bottom. Ours bothered us so
that we had to throw it several times, and when we finally got it to
hold we were not twenty yards from the rocks where the wind was driving
us.
"But a miss is as good as a mile, and we were safe on shore the next
morning, very thankful at our escape.
"I had an opportunity to go to the forest to see the process of shooting
the Great Bird of Paradise, and went at once. Quite a trade is carried
on in these birds, and the skill of the natives is devoted to capturing
them without staining their plumage with blood, or allowing the birds to
injure it during their struggles.
"The birds have a curious habit of getting up dancing-parties in the
month of May, when their plumage is finest. They assemble before sunrise
in a tree that has plenty of room among its branches for them to move
about, and as soon as the sun is fairly up they begin their dancing.
They elevate their plumes as peacocks display their tails, stretch their
necks, raise their wings, and hop from branch to branch in a state of
great excitement.
[Illustration: NATIVES OF ARU SHOOTING THE GREAT BIRD OF PARADISE.]
"The natives hunt through the forest till they find a tree where the
birds assemble. They go there in the evening and build a screen of
leaves over the fork of the tree, and just before daylight they climb up
there ready for business. They keep perfectly still till the birds are
busily engaged in their dance, and then they shoot with blunt-pointed
arrows. The bird is stunned and falls to the ground, and before he
recovers he is seized by a boy who is waiting for him; the bird's neck
is broken without injuring the skin, and thus the prize is secured
without staining the feathers with blood."
Fred asked if, when one bird was shot, the rest did not fly away.
"Not by any means," was the answer. "They are so busy with displaying
their feathers to each other, that they do not take notice of the
disappearance of one of their number until they are greatly reduced. The
morning I went out to see the business, I was stationed in a little
bower about a hundred yards from the tree where the birds were, so that
I could see all that went on. There were twenty-one birds there, all
beautiful males, and they made the prettiest sight of the kind that ever
came before my eyes. The natives shot fifteen of them, and finally one
of the birds was not hit hard enough to prevent his screaming as he
fell. The others then took the alarm, and in two minutes they were all
out of sight."
[Illustration: A NATIVE ANCHOR.]