NETHERLANDS INDIA.
Our first voyage across the Atlantic began the fate which has since
pursued us, of arriving at our destination on Sunday. We have landed at
New York, at Auckland, at Wellington on Sunday, and now, after our three
weeks' voyage through the Torres Straits, the Arafura Sea, and Indian
Ocean, we find ourselves at anchor early on a Sunday morning inside the
little breakwater of Tandjong Priok, the harbour of Batavia.
The scene which greets me as I go up on deck is truly Dutch. I see low
stretches of flat, marshy land, barely redeemed from the ocean, with
a group of red-tiled roofs, hidden among some tall, straight trees in
the foreground, and the peculiar watery-grey sky so dear to the Dutch
landscape painters.
Terrible confusion reigns on board as we leave. Hatches are battened
down, ports closed, skylights carefully covered over, for a dozen
lighters are alongside preparing for the dreaded operation of coaling.
A little steam-tug is bringing them up as fast as it can, lashed
together in single file, with ten more barges, with cargo and provisions
to be taken on board, on the other side. The natives--Javanese and
Malays--have paddled out in their canoes, bringing contributions of fruit
and vegetables "on spec," and are climbing up the side of the ship or
swarming on the decks.
All on board the _Merkara_ envy us deeply as we say good-bye to them, for
they have the present prospect of the horrors of coaling, and prospective
ones in the five weeks' voyage, with the tossing in the Bay of Biscay
that still remains to them before arrival in England. The tender takes
us off and lands us opposite the station, a bamboo shed, by the side of
the single line of rails. We find here a group of Fathers and Sisters,
but just landed from the ship which came in and anchored after us this
morning, from Holland.
The railway-carriages are painted a dismal grey, and two doors lead to
the three seats running lengthways down the carriage, the additional
one being placed in the centre. The carriages were so dirty that even a
Javanese wiped the seat before sitting down. The new docks at Tandjong
Priok have recently been made by blasting the land away with dynamite
to the required size, when the sea was allowed to rush in. We travelled
along by the side of the canal, which has been made for the carriage of
merchandise from the docks to the town. Dense jungle--our first sight of
real tropical jungle--skirted the towing-path, along which barges were
being towed, while boats, with their one clumsy sail, passed up and down.
We arrived at another bamboo shed--the station of Batavia.
Batavia is the capital of Java, and with its 1,000,000 of inhabitants,
80,000 of whom are Chinese, is second in importance and size only to
Calcutta, and therefore may be called the second town in the East. It
is also the chief city of Netherlands India, or the Dutch East Indies.
Their possessions in this Eastern Archipelago are numerous, including as
they do the west coast of Sumatra, part of the coast of New Guinea and
of Borneo, the four islands of the Moluccas and Celebes, the islands of
Madura, Sambawa, Lombok, and Baly, and part of Timor, the five latter
of which we passed in the Torres Straits, and Banka and Riou, near the
Straits Settlements.
Outside the station there was a crowd of little two-wheeled carriages,
or victorias, drawn by the funniest little ponies, that could only be
dignified by the name of "rats." They are about the size or smaller than
our Shetland ponies, and are nearly all imported from Timor. They go
like the wind when once they are fairly off, but they jib horribly at
starting. You often see the ridiculous sight of two or three natives
standing helpless before the persistent jibbing of one of these rats,
when you know that they could lift them up with ease.
A drive through China Town by the side of a canal brought us to the
"Hotel der Niederlanden." Here, under the circular portico, was a
marble floor, with chairs and tables arranged in groups, where John
the Chinaman never wearies of coming with his wares for sale, tied up
in large pocket-handkerchiefs, day after day, showing you the same
bright-coloured cotton pyjamas, and sarongs, or cambric handkerchiefs,
with gold-embroidered slippers, soap, or carved ivories, scent or
sandalwood boxes. It matters not that you frown and scowl, or push the
things away, he still persists in thrusting them under your nose, and
when he goes his place is immediately taken by another, not discouraged
by his non-success and the identity of the wares. The prices asked are
exorbitant in the first instance; one-fourth is, however, gladly accepted
in the end. On a centre table stands gin-bitters (without charge), as
a welcome to new arrivals. Upstairs we found musty corridors, dark and
rambling, untidy and uncarpeted, with native servants squatting outside
their master's doors, blacking boots, or playing at games amongst each
other. The dining-room is a kind of loggia, built out, with the roof
supported by pillars, leaving the sides entirely open to the courtyard,
and these are protected by green and white blinds. Round this courtyard,
under the low red-tiled roof and _pavé_, the Dutch ladies and gentlemen
spend their day, lounging, writing, and reading, whilst their "boys," or
Javanese women, are washing or busy around them.
We sat down to the "reis tag," or midday "rice meal," at a long, bare
table. A deep soup-plate was put before one, into which you lay a layer
of rice two inches thick; then in succession are handed to you eight or
nine dishes containing little messes--strips of omelette, kromeskies,
gherkin, hard-boiled eggs, chicken, dried fish, an orange sauce (which I
never ventured on), lobster salad, fried potatoes, and pickles. A round
tray with many divisions is also offered, with chili, chutney, cucumber,
and cayenne pepper, caviare, and relishes of all sorts. You see a Dutch
lady sitting with the rice before her, and choosing leisurely first
from one dish and then from another, and when she has done so mixing
and chopping it all up together. The custom of the "reis tag" prevails
throughout the whole of the Netherlands India, and though it is not a
purely Dutch custom, the curious mixture has its origin from Holland, and
the rice and fruit which follows from the East.
Between the hours of 1 and 5 p.m. life at Batavia pauses. Sleep settles
down on the community; no sound is heard in the house, and the streets
are deserted. A general awakening for the enjoyment of the cool of the
evening comes with the tea, brought at five o'clock. The heat in Java,
situated 6° from the Equator, is always tropical, and never varies from
one end of the year to the other, beyond that, in the rainy season, which
lasts during December and January, it is more oppressive and unhealthy.
Java in general, and Batavia especially, bears a very bad name for
malaria. In Batavia it is greatly increased by the canals which the
Dutch could not fail to introduce from the mother country. The canals
are freely used by the natives for bathing and washing in, and even the
horses are brought down here to be cleaned. The dark, brackish water was
also formerly used for drinking purposes. Artesian wells have been lately
sunk all over the city; since then there has been no epidemic of cholera,
which constantly prevailed in Batavia to a terrible extent up to that
time.
Mr. MacNeill, the English consul, was most kind in sending his carriage
for us in the evening.
We drove along under the broad avenues of trees, overhanging the canals,
and shading the pathway of red tiles. All is scrupulously clean, and the
roads well kept and carefully watered. The houses have an extraordinary
similarity; as brilliant as whitewash and paint can make them, they have
all the same high pointed roofs, covered with red tiles, that seem out
of proportion to the one storey of the house below, almost hidden under
the shade of the projecting verandah. A gravel drive, with a grass-plot
and one bed of brilliant and variegated crotons in the centre, forms the
unvarying approach. A marble post at the gateless entrance bears the name
of the owner, so that every visitor easily finds the house he seeks. The
doors and windows stand always open, and you have such charming glimpses
of the cool, dark interiors, and take away some little incident of
domestic life within as you pass along. People go away for months, we are
told, and leave doors unlocked and windows shutterless, for robbers in
Batavia are unknown. In the marble verandahs stands the familiar round
table, with the four rocking-chairs, in their dear old-fashioned white
dimity "nightcaps," set primly round. In the evening they are brightly
lighted, and tenanted with people receiving their friends.
We drove along the Königsplein, or park, bordered by the palace of the
Governor-General and many of the prettiest houses, to the Zoological
Gardens. They are really bare and ill-kept; but the beauty of the
tropical vegetation reigns supreme everywhere, and we were charmed by
all the curious shrubs and plants, trees and flowers, new to us--so
common here, with the rich pink and crimson of the huge hybiscus bushes,
and the purple and yellow of the allamandas, so like the gloxsinia,
that I mistook it at first. The collection of animals includes some of
our common brown ducks, guinea-fowls, and deer. We saw an albino idiot
monkey, that chattered and mumbled to himself, gesticulating from the
corner of the cage; also a shed full of cockatoos, and two splendid
orange-colour ourang-outangs. Their name of ourang-outang is the Malay
for "The Man of the Wood."
There was a pretty tropical scene looking down the stream with jungle,
where some natives were tumbling and splashing about in the water.
We passed the marble palace belonging to the commander-in-chief, the
principal Dutch church, with its dome and latticed window, and drove on
to Waterloo Plain. The Government buildings, a row of ugly whitewashed
houses, without so much as a projecting cornice, or scrap of ornamented
plaster-work, forms one side of the square. Just opposite is the hideous
thick pillar, with the stunted beast at the top, erected to the joint
memory of the Dutch and Belgians who fell at Waterloo. The inscription
and joint dedication is intended as a "sop" to the pride of the Belgians,
and as a false exaltation of themselves as a nation before the Javanese,
for no mention is made of English or Prussians. The barracks are here;
and the officers' quarters--pretty bungalows--surround the other three
sides of the Waterloo Plain. As we came home the Königsplein was crowded
with smart victorias and landaus, drawn by the fine carriage-horses
that are imported from Australia. The native coachmen and footmen wear
liveries of black and scarlet-striped cottons with turbans, two syces
standing up behind, with fly-wisps, and ready to rush to the horses'
heads at the slightest sign of restiveness. For instance, they always
jump off at the approach of a steam train (for there _are_ steam tramways
in Batavia), and the native coachmen invariably look afraid of their
horses. A few people have been foolish enough to put their Malay coachmen
into tall hats, with gold lace, when the turban and black face peeping
out from underneath looks utterly ridiculous. The Dutch ladies never
think of driving or walking in hat or bonnet, and the smartly dressed
ladies that we passed, with their round, pasty, good-natured faces, were
all bareheaded. The gentlemen, too, go about with gloves and stick, but
no hat.
As we passed the Weltervreden Station, there was a hearse waiting outside
for the arrival of the train. The driver, with "ducks" and black hat with
white band, and the six little "rats," covered entirely by long black
clothes, produced a somewhat curious effect. Gay crowds were strolling
along the shady canals, which are the "boulevards" of Batavia, as we
returned home, forming a bright parti-coloured stream and strange mixture
with the vivid colours and olive skins of the Javanese and Malays, and
the white faces and ordinary European clothing of the Dutch. There are
only forty-five English in Batavia, but they are very energetic amongst
themselves with their racing, cricket, tennis and theatrical clubs; they
also have a pretty church, but no clergyman at present.
I cannot say much for the domestic comfort produced by the combination of
Dutch and Malay customs. Our room is large and airy, with French windows.
Bamboo matting covers the floor, but it is not made in strips, but
plaited in one piece to the size of the room. A row of pegs on a stand,
covered with white curtains, forms a cupboard. The beds are swathed in
mosquito-curtains, which are let down from their tortoise-shell hooks
early in the afternoon. Indeed they are sorely needed by the evening,
and you only feel safe when within their grateful shelter from the
plague of insects, not only mosquitoes, that swarm in when the candles
are lighted. They penetrate everywhere, more particularly nesting in
one's hair-brushes; and I have had to give up writing near the light on
account of the number falling and leaving their trails in the wet ink of
the letters! But the beds are most interesting. There is not a vestige
of sheet, or blanket, or counterpane on them, but in the centre of each
bed lies the "Dutch wife." This bolster is placed with the object of
providing a cool substance to lie against, one side being turned over
when the other becomes hot.
They do not understand here the true meaning of a bath, but you have to
descend to one of the tiled rooms, where there is a wooden tub, with a
tin pot with which to throw the water over you. The lamps in the passages
are a series of glass tumblers, with a wick and some oil floating in them.
_Monday, December 22nd._--We must be truly grateful for the fine morning
which we have, as the wet season is now here.
Life at Batavia seems to be a _dolce far niente_ existence, a very easy,
lazy life adapted to the climate. We could see this in the costume of the
ladies appearing at the breakfast-table.
They have the reprehensible habit of wearing the "saronga" and "kabayah."
The sarongs, or sarong, is a bright-coloured square of calico, with an
oriental pattern in black and orange. The natives wear the same to all
appearance, but there is really a great difference in their texture
and manufacture, the good ones being woven by hand, and coloured by a
laborious process of laying on the colour separately in oil for each
line of the red, black, and yellow pattern. I was surprised to learn
that these sarongs, which look like cheap Birmingham or Manchester
wares--as indeed the common ones are, being specially manufactured for
the Malay market--cost as much as from fifteen to twenty guilders. This
sarong is wrapped _tightly_ round the figure as a short petticoat; and
worn with the kabayah, or loose cotton bed-jacket, with bare legs and
feet slipped into heelless slippers. Many ladies wear their hair down
in this costume, and when sitting at table they present the appearance
of being in their night garments. The sarong in hotels as well as in
private life is worn, not only at breakfast, but also at the "reis tag."
The strange transformation that takes place at five, when these same
strange _negligés_ figures appear with their hair coiled up in the latest
fashion, and "clothed" (and "in their right minds," I might add) is
wonderful to behold. Then the ladies go for their drive in the park, and
spend the evening in paying visits, going from one house to another as
they see their friends are at home by the brilliancy of additional light
in the verandah, and the carriages waiting outside. Their life, it seems
to me, consists of the very early morning and the darkness of night, for
in this equatorial latitude the light is the same all the year round;
there is no twilight, but darkness falls almost suddenly from a quarter
to half-past six.
There is a great deal of pleasant society in Batavia. Rich Dutch
merchants who have come out in their earlier years to make money, go
home to settle; but the cold gloom of Holland sends them back to warmth
and tropical life in Java. Though Java is to the Dutch what India is to
us, unlike our Indian officials, who stay in India but to make enough
money to go home to England, the Dutchman lives and returns to die in his
adopted home.
This morning we had a victoria with a pair of rats to drive down to
the English Consulate, some three miles off, and which lies on the
commercial wharfs. I sat outside watching the ships being slowly towed
up the canals, and the lading and unlading of the merchandise on to
bullock-carts. Much of the charm of the streets of Batavia consists in
the mixture of races, with their various national costumes.
We drove first through China Camp, that most quaint and picturesque
of towns within a town. Wherever the Chinese go--that is all the
world over--you find that there they cluster together, and form
their own quarter. The different trades of carpentering, shoemaking,
umbrella-making, &c., are all carried on on a counter exposed to the
streets; even the barbers' shops are open, and you see "John" in the
different stages of being lathered, shaved, and of having his pigtail
plaited with white, blue, or red cords that fringe and lengthen its wispy
end. The top of the head requires shaving as often as his face (which
is always kept hairless, and which gives to it the almost childlike
look so common to John), because the growth of the pigtail is from the
patch on the back of the head, and all round is clean shaven. China
Town always reminds me of a rabbit warren, there seem to be so many
Chinamen swarming in and out of the little huts, and about the confined
quarters. All so active and busy about their own concerns, all living on
a handful of rice--no wonder they succeed where others fail, with their
ceaseless energy and thrifty habits. We passed by numbers of fascinating
little Chinese tea-gardens, walled round and approached by a drive; the
balconies and roofs were gilded and ornamented with porcelain flowers of
blue and green, and made to look as attractive as possible. We saw, too,
the vague, dark interiors of several joss-houses. Numbers of mangy dogs
were snuffing about, and bantam-cocks were plentiful, for cock-fighting
is a favourite amusement with the Chinese.
The lower end of the town seemed consecrated to the undertakers, for the
curious wooden coffins, copies of the ancient sarcophagi of the Greeks,
were lying in piles before the doors. The Chinese devote a great deal
of thought and attention to their coffins, and keep them in readiness
for years in their houses. Forges abounded too, for the Chinese are
celebrated as the best blacksmiths of the world.
The Javanese are distinguished from the Malays by the black locks of
matted hair escaping from under the turban; but both Javanese and Malay
dress in the same fashion. The bright-coloured sarong is the only garment
worn, or sometimes only a short pair of "inexpressibles," when the large
bamboo "soup-plate" hat looks ridiculously large by comparison with the
slim brown figure beneath its mighty shade. Sometimes the bamboo hat is
replaced by an oval piece of wood, with a rim fitting the head inside,
and the colouring of these wooden hats is most fanciful, red and green,
or bronze with yellow stripes. A Malay of higher rank would add to the
sarong a loose white jacket, and a turban. These turbans are formed of a
gay pocket-handkerchief cleverly wound to the shape of the head, with two
corners twisted in front to form a pair of horns. You hardly see a Malay
without the pole slung across the shoulder, with the two plaited bamboo
baskets or trays, containing anything and everything, suspended at the
end. The butcher goes about from door to door with his meat and chopper
in them; the baker with his bread; more often you see the bright scarlet
of the chili on the tray; and all the marketing is done with these bamboo
baskets.
They stagger along, with their long legs bending under the weight of
the baskets, always appearing on the point of sinking, and yet managing
to struggle on yet a little further, and they really go like this for
miles. But the natural walk of the natives, how splendidly free and easy
it is, as they swing along the street with limbs unconfined, and free
play given to their bare feet! Many of the faces we saw were seamed and
wrinkled with such characteristic lines and marks, and all have rather a
wild, fierce look. What wonderful combinations of colour, too, we saw
in the streets--such daring blendings of sage green with orange, pink
with crimson, scarlet with purple; and I see that after all our latest
fashionable colour, "crushed strawberry," has long been a prevailing hue
with the Javanese.
There were the bright sarongs of the Malays, with the dark indigo-blue
workaday suit of active John Chinaman, the long robe of bright green
or blue of the Armenians (for there are many of them here), with the
delicate pink and green of the Chinese ladies daintily picking their way
along shaded with their paper umbrellas.
The Malanese and Javanese women wear the sarong equally with the men. A
loose calico jacket of bright colours (cherry and pink being preferred)
is worn over it, open at the throat and waist. They are small of stature,
and have a nut-brown skin, with almond-shaped eyes, black and twinkling.
Their shining black hair is worn in the smooth knot at the back, that is
deftly twisted in such a way that no hair-pins are required to secure it.
Many of the married women have their front teeth cut off at the roots,
and this is done by a careful husband when his wife is inclined to become
"fast," to remind every one that she is a married woman.
Men and women alike have the disgusting habit of chewing and spitting
betel-nut, which dyes their teeth and lips a bright vermillion. This
explained to us the red marks on the tiled pavement, which at first we
thought was blood. This habit is not confined to the lower classes, the
native princes and nobles are addicted to it, when it is rendered none
the less repulsive by the use of golden spittoons.
The Dutch use the Malays exclusively for their servants. They are very
patient, waiting outside their masters' doors for hours, squatting in the
peculiar manner habitual to them, and which was formerly the attitude
of respect they adopted when in the presence of a superior. Even now in
the interior of the country the natives come and squat before you as you
pass along. I never saw a Malay or Javanese sit; they always crouch or
lie. They make by no means faithful servants, appearing to possess no
feelings of attachment; after ten years' service they leave you without
an emotion. Their pay is from twelve to twenty guilders a month, and
the custom is for their families to live in the courtyard which usually
surround the houses. The master does not concern himself about their
maintenance, but then any native can live comfortably on a penny a day.
Since the evacuation of the English, in 1813, Java has remained
stationary as regards the progress of civilization. The Netherlands
Government discourages education, and prevents the natives from learning
Dutch. A policy of reducing the natives to a nonentity as regards
having a voice in the government of their country has been successfully
followed. They are a happy, ignorant people, but a conquered race,
governed with a hand of iron as regards the payment of taxes and levies
of contributions. To such an extent is this repressing policy pursued,
that should any native official or prince learn Dutch, the Government
official is strictly forbidden to speak any other language but Malay.
Thus it follows as a natural consequence that before receiving any Civil
Service appointment, however low, the Dutch official must have passed the
examination in Malay, which is part of the accepted curriculum of Breda
College in Holland. The Malay spoken here is a different dialect to that
in use in the Straits Settlements.
Afterwards when we came to visit India, it was most curious and
interesting to see the results of the different policies pursued by the
two nations towards the conquered race. Ours, the enlightened policy--the
education of the native, raising him to a state fit to govern or
participate in the government of his country. That of the Dutch, a policy
of repression, reducing the native to the part of the hired labourer,
making themselves into simple tax-gatherers.
It is to Governor-General van Bosch that Java owes its great prosperity.
He it was who developed the magnificent resources of the rich island
by the introduction of the culture system. I would refer any who are
interested in this subject to Mr. Money's excellent book, "Java; or, How
to govern a Colony."
We suffered much in Java from the inconvenience of Dutch and Malay being
the only two languages spoken. No interpreter was obtainable, and even at
the booksellers which we went to in the afternoon there was no guidebook
to be found in English, French, or German.
Sauntering along the canal, we saw the primitive mode they have here of
watering the streets. A man with two large watering-pots slung over each
shoulder runs along with the rose inclined forwards. I need not say that
the watering-pots are soon exhausted, though the supply is always at
hand in the canal; but it struck us that the man spent most of his time
in running up and down the steps to the water. It must be so pleasant
to have a bath whenever you feel inclined, as the Malay women do by
stripping off the loose jacket and plunging in, washing the sarong at the
same time as themselves in the stream. When we got home, "Ali," the old
Malay servant assigned to us, with his cock-eye and pleased grin, brought
us five o'clock tea--as great an institution in Java as England. The
cups and saucers stand always ready in each bedroom, and the water and
milk (for it is always hot milk) are boiled at the cooking-stove, round
which the "boys" are busy in the passage. Ali does not know one word of
English, but quickly guesses our signs, and with the Malays in making
oneself understood it is more often than not a question that "there are
none so deaf as those who won't hear."
The Governor-General, Herr von Rees, gave us an audience at the Palace
in the evening. The Palace gives us an idea of oriental magnificence,
with marble halls and galleries, and reception-rooms hung with costly
upholstery. The balcony is lighted with crystal chandeliers, and crowds
of servants in the scarlet uniform of the Government are waiting about
within call. The Governor-General is an exceedingly shrewd, clever man,
who has raised himself from the lowest position in the Civil Service. The
salary is 14,000_l._ a year, and the position of Governor of such great
possessions as the Netherlands Indies is one of so much importance that
it may be compared to the Vice-royalty of Hindoostan. Java alone sends
home a surplus revenue of 3,000,000_l._ yearly to the mother country,
or has done so, I ought to say, until now, for the interminable war in
Acheen has swallowed up her surplus this year, and bids fair to do so for
many more. The interior of the country is governed by Dutch residents,
who give their instructions to a native prince or regent, who carries
out the details. Coffee, tea, cochineal, and sugar are the chief produce
and exports, though there has been great depression in the latter trade
during the last year, which has given rise to a commercial crisis, when
several very old-established houses have been included in the general
crash. Cinchona calisaya, or quinine, is also largely exported.
We dined with Mr. MacNeill, the English Consul, in his pretty house.
We had not been seated at dinner above a few minutes before the white
tablecloth was covered with every species of insect in the animal
world--moths with yellow wings, ants, mosquitoes, beetles great and
beetles small. Tortoiseshell covers were provided to keep them out of the
wine-glasses, and many green lizards capered on the white wall opposite.
Blessed above other countries is England in this much, that with her cold
moist atmosphere, one is not troubled with the invasion of a plague of
insects. It surely is the great drawback to the charms of tropical life,
enjoyed mostly in the cool of the evening, when the insects are also most
actively enjoying themselves.
We tasted a mangosteen for the first time this evening. It is a dark
purple fruit with a thick rind, the size of an apple. The fruit inside
is white, and has the most delicate flavour. I should call it an
insidious flavour, for you hardly know in what it consists, but it is
most delicious. Better than the mangosteen I like the mango, a long
pear-shaped fruit with a yellow skin, full of juice, and most luscious.
The taste reminded me of the fruit of the passion-creeper, which when
ripe and shrivelled is excellent, only much more acrid than the mango.
Another fruit which is very common here has brilliant red hairy bristles,
and contains inside a white fruit, the size of a plover's egg, but I
am ashamed to say I never mastered its name. Pine-apples, cut into
lumps, and bananas, very different in their size and taste to the little
shrivelled bananas of export we are accustomed to at home, are served at
every meal.
Mr. MacNeill after dinner took us to a representation of "Il Barbière"
by an Italian opera company subsidized from Italy with Government help.
The Governor came in state, and on his entrance the Dutch national anthem
was played. The doors of the theatre stand open on to the broad piazza,
where people promenade between the acts, and some have their servants
waiting with wine and refreshments. Ladies wear morning dress, but with
the gentlemen a black coat is _de rigueur_, though "ducks" may be worn
underneath. The galleries were full of half-castes, who here take a good
position, the Javanese still continuing to wear the native costume.
Beginning at 8 p.m., it was eleven before the ballet was over.
_Tuesday, December 23rd._--We left the Weltervreden Station on
the Königsplein at ten in the morning. The stations are large and
whitewashed, tiled in blocks of wood, since tiling of some sort the
Dutch must have. The carriages are on the American plan, save that the
first-class have morocco-covered armchairs. We passed through a portion
of the native quarter on the outskirts of the town. The mat huts are
made of plaited palm branches, and thatched with the same unplaited.
Bamboo poles form the framework and support the projecting roof, which
gives shade to the house. These huts lay hidden in a jungle formed of
bamboo groves, whose straight spiky branches look like the fingers of
an outstretched hand pointing downwards. Banana-trees there were, whose
palm leaves, fringed and jagged, are only distinguished by this from
the ordinary palm, and cocoa-nut groves. These had their golden halo of
fruit under the shade of their fringing, feathery arms, and notches cut
in their slender stems by the natives, who climb up by them to gather the
fruit.
The country we passed through was under cultivation for rice-fields,
which we saw in their different stages of development. The ground is made
into terraces, every one a little lower than the other, and carefully
fenced round with earthwork. Each one is a bed of water, in which the
rice is growing, some already coming up in tender green shoots, and
others like a field of grass growing some feet high. The water is kept
trickling over from each little dyke into the next bed. Some we saw
being ploughed by dun and smoke-coloured buffaloes, with their humps and
straight black horns turned back, that gives such a blank and idiotic
look to their faces. The colour of the earth was in some parts such a
brilliant red, that in California it would be said to denote the presence
of gold.
We arrived at Buitenzorg at noon. This place is noted for the Botanical
Gardens, which are thought to be the finest in the world. It is the
mountain resort of the Batavians, but is really only 300 feet higher than
the town. One of the high two-wheeled carts drawn by one pony, whilst
another is roped outside the shafts to help in pulling, took us up to the
Bellevue Hotel.
At the Bellevue from the verandah at the back there is a celebrated view.
It _is_ certainly one of the most enchanting and superb views possible to
imagine. I will try to describe it.
The mountains are in the distance, tropical jungle creeping to their very
summits, though always hidden during the rainy seasons by clouds. Jungle,
jungle, varying only in depth and shade, till we begin to distinguish yet
in the far distance some of the bananas and palms which form its densest
undergrowth. Then tall palms raise up their graceful heads quite near,
swaying them gently in answer to the soft summer breeze. Away over there
in the corner there are red-tiled roofs, in the midst of the cocoa-nut
grove, with dots of colour flitting about. In front of us the muddy yet
silvery waters of the Tjidani River come flowing straight towards us,
till the stream suddenly turns at right angles to itself, and hurries
away in its changed course. A little bamboo house, belonging to the
cultivators of the cocoa-nut grove, forms the apex of the triangle.
Shouts and merry laughter come up all day from the brown figures who
swim, and dive, and duck about in the shallow water beneath.
It was very beautiful, and we sat out in the verandah all the afternoon,
talking with an old Dutch naturalist, who was delighted with his bottles
containing a lovely chameleon and some scorpions newly captured.
Meanwhile the strange afternoon stillness reigned round the lifeless
courtyard.
In the evening we had a lovely drive in the Botanical, or Palace Gardens,
as they are now called. We drove into the shade of a mighty avenue, the
trees meeting at the top, and leaving us a perspective vista that faded
into green dimness. The stems of the trees were not seen, for ferns
and creepers grew up them, and tropical parasites circled and hung in
festoons from the branches of one tree to another. We came unexpectedly
at the end to the palace and the lake.
The palace with its little squat dome and turrets, produces a general
effect of black and white. How fond the Dutch are of black and white,
whether in their marble pavements, or in the stripes on the wooden
flower-pots in the garden, whether in the shutters of the houses, or in
the lines on the sashes and skirtings of their houses. At the side of
the palace we left the carriage, and were told to wander through the
bamboo grove. Here we found hidden away in a garden some old monuments,
weather-beaten and stained, of an English officer and one or two of the
Governors, it seemed a strange little burying-ground.
[Illustration: Banyan-trees, Buitenzorg, Java.
Page 227.]
A Malay boy hovered around us, and offered by signs to climb a tree,
as we thought, taking us for that purpose down a secluded path. At
length, after much fruitless gesticulating, he took the petal of a
leaf I had picked up, from my hand and laid it against a tree. Then we
understood. It was the famous orchids of Buitenzorg Gardens that he was
offering to show us. He led us to a retired spot where there were some
leafless stumps of shrubs, and on to these, after careful examination,
we discovered, engrafted and growing in bamboo baskets, about 4000 of
the finest specimens of orchids. True that few were in flower, but those
few we should have treasured under glass cases at home. We came back to
the carriage by a bye-way where there was a fountain playing over a pool
of water-lilies in the midst of a green thicket. And so it is at these
Buitenzorg Gardens, one beautiful spot after another, unsuspected before,
can be discovered in lengthened wanderings.
A broad park, bordered by a curious row of palm-trees that grow in a
descending and ascending scale, forming a perfect zig-zag, surrounds
the front of the palace, and here there were a treasured herd of deer
feeding. By the park-gates are a group of marvellous banyan-trees.
Branches were growing down from them like the stem of another tree, or
clustering like a ring of small trees around the trunk, and swelling it
to enormous dimensions. In other trees we saw the roots hanging down from
the branches like a network of fibres or strings that reached to the
ground. Again we saw the roots of the same trees grown outwards from the
ground, and forming a rocky network round the base of the trunk.
Another magnificent avenue tapers away from the entrance of the park,
ending in a black and white marble obelisk, with the Netherlands arms
upon it, and the mystifying initials of T. T.
We drove past the barracks and officers' quarters, and stopped at the
Roman Catholic Cemetery, where the handsome monuments are all protected
by zinc covers.
We noticed that many of the houses, with their neatly-clipped hybiscus
hedge, had the stable as part of the house, the two or three stalls being
open along the front. Crossing over the bridge, we looked down into a
scene of great beauty, the jungle closing in the banks of the howling
river, and then we came back to the gardens once more.
How utterly impossible it is to describe "tropical vegetation." A string
of names (even if I knew them) conveys no idea of the extraordinary
beauty and curiosity of the many new-shaped leaves, and plants, and
shrubs, and trees, and parasites of a jungle. I know we wished the drive
could have lasted very much longer than it did, for we were amid the
scenes read of in all books of travels--groves of cocoa-nut palms and
pomegranates, of sago and betel-nut palms, with the meliosnea, and every
other species of tropical beauty. With the exception of some roses, with
the outside petals a dark crimson, shaded to pale pink inside, there are
no beds of flowers in these gardens. There are plenty of brilliant shrub
flowers like the crimson hibiscus (which when crushed yields a kind of
blacking I am told), but no garden or cultivated flowers. It is the same
throughout Java, no flowers, only tropical creepers and shrubs.
I tried to do some writing after dinner, but the insects forbad it; an
ant, a large animal with gauzy wings, being particularly troublesome.
This is really the white ant grown to a harmless size. In its earlier
stages (when it is eaten by the black ant) the destruction it works in a
single night is terrible. Literally it "eats you out of house and home"
by perforating the timbers of the house with holes till they become
rotten. It eats through a box, and leaves no trace of any clothes ever
having been in it, or penetrates through the corks and drinks up a
cellarful of wine. There is no finality to the mischief the white ant can
and does work in a house. Safety against it is only obtained by a daily
inspection and airing of anything and everything.
A very curious custom prevails throughout Java, which we only found out
this evening. We frequently passed gardos, or watch-houses, a white
building by the roadside, open on all sides. From the centre of the house
hangs a billet of wood partially hollowed out, which, when struck, gives
forth a piercing, mournful sound. Day and night a watchman is stationed
here, sounding the watches every hour. It is a wonderful thought that
throughout an island as large as England and Wales, these watches are
re-echoed throughout the country every mile, and every hour becoming
later and later as it reaches the interior of the country. It is cheering
in the stillness of the night, hearing the sound of the watch struck
from the gardo nearest the station, taken up by the next one, and so on
all through the town, spreading and dying away into the country. The
Malays and Javanese are not allowed to be in the streets between the
hours of 8 p.m. and 5 a.m. without a passport to show to the watchman,
who calls and demands it as they pass. The watchman is provided with
a two-pronged, upward-toothed fork, with which he can "run in" any
refractory member of society by the neck; and he has the power to detain
any one not giving satisfactory reasons for being about at that hour.
If a robbery or crime occurs, the first thing is to give notice at the
nearest guard-house, which, by a code of signals, is able to pass on the
news to the next guard-house, and so it spreads through the country.
Each watchman knows what passports and on what business every one has
passed during the night, and suspicion thus often falls on the right
person. The services of these watchmen are unpaid, it being the duty of
each village-chief to allot the hours to each member of the community,
who may provide a substitute if he please. Java is divided into campos
or villages, governed by chiefs who are responsible for the good conduct
of each individual of their division: any complaint of man, woman, or
child is referred to the chief of the campo. Thus the government of the
people is done by themselves, and there are but a very few native police,
irregularly parading the streets in their blue and orange uniforms.
_Wednesday, December 24th._--We got up very early in the morning, not
from compulsion, but for pleasure, to enjoy to our utmost the delicious
first freshness of the morning air; but early as it was, blue as the mist
lay over our glorious view of the valley, ladies in their sarongas were
coming in from their morning walk. I went down to the bath, or rather
the well, where you throw the bucket of cold water over you, picking
a purple gloxinia from the hedge close by. Alas! it was like too many
of the tropical beauties in flowers and plants, spoilt by the nest of
insects hidden in the delicate waxwork of its recesses. Breakfast is
always going from the very early hour of 6 a.m., so we had no need to
order it specially, and at 8 a.m. we were in the hotel break, driving
past the gardens to the station. We felt very much tempted then to wait
a week for the French mail, instead of taking the Dutch boat to-morrow,
and making an expedition up into the interior of the country to Samarang
or Soerbaja.
By 10 a.m. we were back in Batavia, and we drove from the Weltervreden
Station to the Museum.
The green lawn in the front of the Museum is ornamented with a white
pedestal, on which stands a black marble elephant. The circular temple,
barricaded with black and gold gates, that faces us as we enter, contains
a grotesque collection of Hindu gods found in the island, for the natives
were formerly Hindus; now they are Mussulmans. Other rooms are full of
Borneo and Sumatra weapons, collections from the South Sea Islands,
of medals and signet rings, Chinese earrings and images. There is the
model of a curious saddle covered with black cloth, formerly in use in
Java; and musical instruments of all sorts, including tom-toms, cymbals,
&c.; but the two things that interested us most were a guillotine and
a Chinese chair of torture. The framework of the latter was of scarlet
wood, but the back was formed of three swords with the edges placed
outwards; three more of the same formed the seat, and three were
placed at each elbow, and three for the footboard; and the victim was
strapped into this chair, sitting on the blades of the swords, being
cut deeper with every movement. It was in the library that we came upon
some curiously interesting documents, copies of the _Java Government
Gazette_, an English newspaper brought out during our four years'
(1811-15) occupation of Java before its restoration to the Dutch. We very
cautiously opened the ant-eaten pages, which are nearly destroyed in
some places, and a few years hence will have disappeared entirely unless
some precautions are taken against their ravages. On the first page that
we opened on by chance I read the following, dated from London, July
6th, 1814: "The _Gazette_ of yesterday announced the appointment of the
Duke of Wellington as Ambassador to France, and Lord Fitzroy Somerset as
Secretary of the Legation." A following paragraph contained the account
of the Duke's formal farewell to the House of Commons previous to his
departure for Paris, and tells "how the members remained standing, with
their hats off, and cheered whilst he left the house." The news then took
seven months to reach Java, whereas now the mail arrives in twenty-six
days. Further on the _Gazette_ had an account of the discussion before
the House on the Princess of Wales' letter, asking that her Royal
Highness' allowance might be reduced from 50,000_l._ to 34,000_l._, "in
order that the burdens of the people may not be increased," as she says;
and again, "The Emperor of Russia, previous to his quitting London,
wished that Dr. Jenner should visit him. His Majesty presented him to
his family and made him a present, styling him the benefactor of Russia,
for vaccination has produced the most happy results in the empire, where
small-pox has often made great havoc."
In the poet's corner, for even a Government _Gazette_ in 1815 was
allowed that interesting journalistic feature, we found a little poem
by Mrs. Opie, on "The Death of a Hero who died in Action;" in another a
poem by Lord Byron on the death of a Sir Peter Parker. One verse from
an anonymous writer I cannot resist giving, prefaced by the following
letter:--
"MR. EDITOR,--Should you deem the following effusion on shooting a
brace of ring-necked doves worthy a place in your paper, you will
greatly oblige
COMICUS."
It began as follows:--
"The amorous dove, with ardent love,
Expects her gentle mate;
But * * * * keen, with eye serene,
Decides her hapless fate."
Inserted between the issue of a later copy of the same paper was a
reprint of the conditions of the Treaty of Paris which had just been
signed by the Allies, and a triumphant leading article on the "Great
Tyrant's" downfall. We dared not linger any longer, as the custodian
of the library was becoming impatient, and evidently suspicious of the
copious extracts we were making. I resigned it with a sigh, guessing how
much more of interest we might have found with a longer perusal.
We had a pleasant drive in the evening to the outskirts of Batavia,
passing country-houses, which I suppose called themselves so because they
stood in their own grounds, with some attempt at an avenue or drive up to
the house. It was our last evening in Batavia, and we were regretfully
sad.
_December 25th._--A delicate rosy flushing sunrise, with saffron and pale
green tints on an orange sea, where the sun was presently to rise in the
majesty of tropical heat, was the strange sight which greeted us on this
Christmas morning; for we were getting up at 5 a.m., and, leaving the
hotel wrapped in slumber, were driving through the already busy streets
of China Camp to the Heimraden Plein Station.
A gay scene met us there, for a company of soldiers in marching array
and some officers were being sent off to reinforce the army at Acheen,
in the north of Sumatra, where the Dutch have a war of some years'
standing. A crowd of officers in their pretty dark blue uniform, with
orange scarves, the stars on their collars denoting the rank, had come to
see their comrades off, and the general himself was superintending their
embarkation. A file of convicts, in their prison dress, under the charge
of their jailors, were being taken in the train to work on the line. The
carriages, that hold eighty-seven even under ordinary circumstance, were
crowded beyond that number, and the heat and fumes of tobacco were very
trying. We altogether had a weary waiting of nearly two hours in them,
standing stationary at the terminus.
A still gayer scene was awaiting us on arrival at Tandjong Priok, for
crowds of natives were sauntering about under the bamboo station;
and a ship, moored alongside the wharf, was swarming with soldiers,
European and native, who had just arrived from the west coast of Borneo;
their band was playing on the deck in honour of the general. The
_Governor-General Meyer_, the mail of the Netherlands India Company,
lay anchored further away. Whilst we were waiting to start my thoughts
recurred to Christmas morning and church, with snow on the ground at
home, but it was hard to keep up any semblance of recollection among the
strange surroundings. Four natives, such weak specimens of humanity,
coming along staggering under the weight of my Saratoga trunk, which one
man had always shouldered before; officers were having a last bottle of
champagne with their departing comrades, the treble shriek of the warning
whistles, the bright medley of Malays, Javanese, Soudanese, Hindus,
and Chinese, all rendered it impossible, and Christmas Day this year
will only be remembered by us by the inconvenience occasioned by the
uncertainty of the vessel starting at all on that day, and the Sunday
train not leaving the station nearest the hotel as usual.
The flat coast-line was behind us by 9 a.m., and we were passing the
sandy dots upon the ocean of the 1000 islands of the Eastern Archipelago.
We came upon a bed of scoria ashes, stretching for about a mile on either
side of us. It is still the remains of the great volcanic eruption on the
island of Krakatau, in the Straits of Sunda, eighteen months ago. The
island was totally destroyed, and 70,000 lives were lost. On the 20th
of August, 1883, total darkness reigned in Batavia, though 2000 miles
distant from Krakatau, from the density of the shower of ashes falling,
and terrific claps of thunder from the cracking of the explosion. Ships
had to alter their course after the eruption, and even a year afterwards
passed through a thick sea of pumice ashes stretching as far as the eye
could reach. When five days out from Java, in the _Merkara_, it was this
pumice ash floating by on the sea that made the captain think there had
been a fresh eruption.
A most interesting phenomenon is now in process at Merapi, a mountain in
Central Java. Government surveyors are there watching the rise of the
lava in a volcano from day to day, and it is calculated that in about
three months from now it must burst. Should it be a powerful eruption, it
is feared it will divide the Island of Java into two parts.
Merapi is in the same volcanic range that extends through Sumatra,
Krakatau, Java, Lombok, and Bali. It will be very curious to see what
really happens.
After passing the Island of Lucepara we left the Sea of Java, and were
for a short time in the Straits of Sunda.
The _Governor-General Meyer_ is very slow, only going between six and
eight knots an hour. The foredeck is curtained off, leaving an archway in
the canvas through which we get a picturesque glimpse of the Malay and
Chinese passengers, the latter always alternately sleeping and eating
rice with their chopsticks. The Dutch officers are our only companions,
and two of them speak a little English. Most amusing instructions are
hung up in the saloon as to the wearing of the sarong and kabaya. A
literal translation from the Dutch says: "It is allowed to the ladies
to wear them at breakfast and the 'reis tag,' but after 5.30 p.m. it is
requested that they will be dressed till after dinner." Certainly the
Dutch hours of seven o'clock dinner on board ship is a great improvement
on the six o'clock English one. I slept the afternoon away, and a
Christmas cake and some mummying among the Dutch sailors gave us a final
reminder of Christmas evening.
_Friday, December 26th._--We are coasting along by Sumatra, which looks
a very flat island. Sumatra is celebrated for its tobacco plantations,
which supply the outer leaf for Havana cigars, being of very fine
quality, and burning white and clean. The tobacco is exported to
Amsterdam, which is one of the greatest emporiums in the world for this
article. We enter the Straits of Banka, which are formed by the island of
this name (belonging to the Dutch) and the Island of Sumatra. The water
here is a curious colour, olive-green, growing more muddy as we approach
the entrance of the Talemjan River, on the Sumatra coast. We reached
Muntok, the chief town of Banka, at night, where we had some cargo to put
off. Muntok is the centre of a great tin track, worked by Chinese, who
are brought there under contract.
_Saturday, December 27th._--Last night we were stationary by the
lighthouse for three hours, the _Governor-General_ being unable to make
headway with full steam against the tremendously strong current running
there, and this morning we are catching a breeze from the north-east
monsoon which prevails at this time of the year in the China Sea, and
are being further delayed. In the Indian Ocean and China Sea the monsoon
or strong trade wind usually blows from the south-west from April to
October, and from the north-east from October to April. Typhoons and
cyclones, or circular hurricanes are frequent during the former in the
Indian Ocean, and during the latter in the China Sea.
We crossed the equator this afternoon. The novelty of this feat has
passed away after the first performance of it in the Pacific. How strange
it must be living in a town like Pontianak, in West Borneo, where the
equator passes through the main street! "The house on the line" must be
quite a show place to the inhabitants. The heat on the afternoon was very
great.
_Sunday, December 28th._--We were at anchor before Rhio (or Riow in
Dutch spelling), a settlement among the palm-trees. Rhio is a port of
some importance, the Dutch having made it a free port, contrary to their
principles, when Singapore was thrown open by the English, hoping thus to
attract some part of the commerce of the Eastern Archipelago.
We are passing through the pretty Straits of Rhio, with its wooded banks
and straggling cocoa-palms. A terribly dangerous reef is marked by a curl
of foam. The date of our arrival in Singapore has been growing steadily
later, but we shall really be there this afternoon, landing on the Sunday
as usual.