their bare feet decorated with magnificent dling in the water, the tufts of water-lilies spurs. There, numbers of itinerant mer- blooming there. To the right-through clumps chants, adorned with "langoutis of the of coffee trees, nutmeg trees, vanilla trees, most vivid colours, traverse the streets at the and tamarinds-we catch glimpses of lawns, peculiar trotting pace common to Indians; in fairy-like gardens; and in the distance the gesticulating, apostrophising the passer-by, white palaces and green verandahs of the and laughing loudly. It is the most bewil- European nabobs. I had seen nothing but dering, the most picturesque, the liveliest these avenues and villas, and fancied myself crowd I ever saw. It would take me hours in some delightful suburb of the city, when to describe its thousand colours, the incon- we found ourselves at the hotel, "der Nederceivable specimens of humanity that compose landen," which, it appears, is in the centre it, its noisy pantomimic animation. But of Batavia; so that this blossoming wood is soon we cross a bridge, and enter the new the town itself! I am in such ecstacies with town. Oh, what a garden of fairyland, what it, I can hardly believe my eyes. By the a verdant paradise this is! Literally speak- beard of all the monkeys with long tails or ing, there are no streets in Batavia; there short that I have yet seen, I swear that it is are only splendid avenues, shaded by the impossible to describe to you my amazement most beautiful and luxuriant trees, which and admiration. Our new dwelling is situform immense long bowers, such as in Europe ated in the midst of a garden, and sheltered are only seen in a scene at the opera. The by large trees. The principal building, which fiery rays of a pitiless sun can only at inter- is of marble, is supported by an airy colonvals penetrate this shade, but they deck all nade, into which it opens on all sides; on the that forms it with marvellous hues: the side of the street and the canal is a circular many plumes of the cocoa-nut tree; the verandah, where officers, grown thin from the slender branches of the tulip tree, which are heat, are lounging in cane rocking-chairs. all flower, and scarlet flower; bananas with On the opposite side a great oval-shaped their green leaves as large as a man; cotton | kiosk, open to all the winds, but protected by trees, covered with snow white tufts; the a light roof from the sun, serves as a diningtravellers' palm, great fans of the most ex-room. Some sixty Malay servants are swarmquisite grace, from which a stream of a milky ing like ants to lay the table there. Nothing fluid springs, if you pierce the trunk; finally, can be prettier than their long robes, made of immense banyan trees, from which hundreds red cotton or silk, their blue turbans, and of creepers fall straight down, and taking yellow sashes, set off by the whiteness of the root almost as soon as they touch the ground, balconies and the pavement. Two long climb again to the summit of the tree, twin-wings, of one story only, with verandahs and ing round it in knotted garlands, only to fall again! One of these trees alone forms a forest surrounded by a curtain, a network of interlaced foliage and flowers, through which children in a state of nature, putting on one side the hundreds of creepers waving in the wind, can look at the boats and the swimmers passing along the canal. The greater part of these bowers of the tropical Babylon are, in fact, only the footpaths to the "arroyos," the greater waterways, which the Dutch would certainly have formed by hundreds, in recollection of their mother-country, if the Malays had not already made them in thousands. Thus the instincts of the white race from the north and the yellow race of the equator coincided. The greatest navigators and the greatest pirates in the world cut up their soil into innumerable islets, and the canals in this town are the veins by which circulates their whole commercial life. Another many-coloured bower therefore, to our left, shades the arroyo on whose opposite shore we are driving. I cannot take my eyes from the innumerable vessels 4hat traverse it; the laughing groups pad colonnades, enclose the gardens commanded by the kiosk. Here are our rooms, and on entering them we feel a real sensation of freshness, a delicious temperature compared to that outside; there, in fact, the thermometer is at 114°, and here it is kind enough to go down to 102°. It is five o'clock in the afternoon; good heavens! what will it be tomorrow at noon? We had hardly begun to unpack our boxes when a man presented himself. He was a native, half bailiff, half policeman, with bare feet and a sword at his side, and made us write down, according to police regulations, our names and qualities in a register, which he appeared to hold in great veneration, demanding a legal and minute account for every column. I complied very willingly with the regulations of the colonial "Pietri," but when my august travelling companion was called upon to write down his domicile, he was tempted to put "Batavia itself;" is not every land which is not the beloved country an equally transitory domicile to the exile? If the flowering trees of this terrestrial paradise are the most characteristic beauties enne pepper sauce, constitutes the celebrated curry; an absence of all meat that can be cut with an ordinary knife; an abundance of bamboo salads and chutnee; there is a local flavour about this much appreciated by amateurs, but which in palates and digestions unaccustomed to Javanese cooking raises fiery torments, which are only increased by drink of the town, the marble basins for bathing In the evening we dined in the kiosk; round us a many-coloured noisy crowd danced under the big trees, from which hung Venetian lanterns. From time to time, amongst the red vests and green robes, a wealthy Dutchman passes languidly along in loose white garments, preceded by the light of an immensely long cigar. We are waited upon by the whole troop of Orientals of whom I spoke just now. I have a Malay to supply me with iced water, which he pours out at arm's length; there are two to change my plate; three to bring round the dishes; one carves; another is awaiting the moment for coffee. I believe if I wished for a dozen dishes, and particularly if I could call for them in the native dialect, I should give employment to the twelve men in red who stand behind my chair! What a charming effect all this variety of colours has on this beautiful evening, with a bright light shining upon them! And when, lazily stretched under the verandah, enjoying the balmy evening breeze, I call "Sapada, cassi api!" immediately one of these Arabian Nights figures, whom one is tempted to call slaves, advances from the column, at the foot of which he has been silently crouching like a statue of Buddha, and brings me to light my cigar a long match of which he has the constant care. It is made of sandal wood saw-dust glued together, and burns night and day with the most delicious perfume. I feel as if I were turning into a pasha! As regards the dinner itself, as a Northman I must make some reservation: eight and forty different kinds of capsicums, a mountain of rice covering a microscopic atom of chicken (the anti-type of the fragment of the Australian Dinornis), which with a Cay 11th November, 1866.-As I lay down last night on a bed already possessing the peculiarity of being made with mats instead of sheets, I was greatly surprised to find, besides the innumerable gnats imprisoned behind the mosquito net, a companion quite as remarkable. This was a long roll made of grass matting, about two yards long, and the thickness of an ordinary bolster, which awaited me laid lengthwise on the bed. It was obligingly explained to me that no inhabitant of Java will sleep without this vegetable production, which must be kept between the legs to cool the body. I was very much amused with this specimen of manners and customs; but if it soothes the creoles with a refreshing slumber, it rouses Europeans incontrollably to a bolstering match. Besides the swarms of buzzing mosquitoes, with their impertinent stings, exasperated us by whistling their Javanese airs in our ears; but as the capsicums, the grass bolsters, and the mosquitoes are necessary features of the locality, I intend in a few days to make friends with them all. Very different from Paris.customs, fashionable life begins here at half-past four in the morning. As soon as the first mists of a tropical dawn appear, old and young begin to be heard moving over the tiled floors in slippers, and, wrapped in floating cotton garments, hasten to the pools to enjoy the icecold waves. As I left them, I met a real odalisque, with jet black eyes, and of the most foreign appearance; she glided between the columns, throwing back masses of black hair which fell to the ground, and classically draped like Stratonice in rose-coloured cashmere. She seemed to us really an apparition, with her sudden changing glances, the wild swiftness of her movements, her air as of a lioness surprised, and that Indian fire in her veins which always gives so fascinating a charm. We were told that she was the daughter of a Dutch officer and of a native of Borneo. The half-caste beauties bloom wonderfully under the sun of Java, while the unhappy Europeans, enfeebled and worn out by the heat, look pale and ghastly, and inspire one with the most profound pity. Such was my first impression, while taking my walk between four and six in the morning, the especially fashionable hour. But what particularly struck me was a military post: twenty Malays were on guard, armed with pikes and pitchforks more than nine feet long. It was explained to us that in this country there are a good many natives suffering from mental disease: over-excited by opium, they wander over the island armed with a sword, and run through the body the first man they fall in with, in honour of the Koran. This is called running a muck. As soon as one of these men appears, the guard gives chase, encloses him between three pitchforks, and the corporal, whose rank may easily be recognized from the fact of his wearing shoes, has the honour of running through with a javelin the terrible madman. First insight into the internal government. A morning at Batavia consists of a walk, five or six baths running, and an appetizing breakfast. In the afternoon every one sleeps. Towards six o'clock in the evening a little stir begins to be felt: hundreds of open carriages drive about. The European population, lounging bare-headed, wends its way to the Waterloo plain, where a military band is playing. We follow the stream, still delighted by the enchanting avenues and brilliant dresses. This "Longchamps" partakes completely of the character of the colony; the garrison, nine thousand men strong, is its principal ornament; more than three hundred carriages stand in the shade of the great trees; the national airs, very well played, echo loudly; and officers gallop about amongst the myriads of Javanese in holiday dress, glittering in the most brilliant Eastern finery. Imagine a tall, fine-looking man, in a blue tunic, loose white trousers, high boots, large spurs, and big sword. Suppose that he will kindly open his legs to admit between them a superbly caparisoned pony, about the size of a Newfoundland dog, and you have a truthful picture of the Javanese representatives of the armed force of all the Netherlands. The small size of the horse detracts in no wise from the greatest military virtues, and Heaven knows that the fame of this army is beyond all praise; but when a troop of Lilliputian horses, mounted by worthy companions of Gulliver, charge the enemy, it is impossible to help laughing with all one's heart. We dined this evening with our friend M. Van Delden, the president of the Chamber of Commerce. Our agreeable companion in the stifling cabin of the 'Hero' had resumed his princely existence in his palace, amidst the peaceful charms of his delightful family circle. Luxurious pools, gardens of Armida, a verandah dining-room amidst the luxuriant foliage of blooming thickets, swarms of Indian servants in their most splendid national dress, nothing is wanting of all that can be imagined as the regal reward of industry, probity, and talent. How is it possible after the well-earned delights of such a paradise to return to a muddy, foggy street in Holland, and live there without twenty horses or four score servants? Holland is but a name to be passionately loved by these patriotic hearts; from time to time they return to see it, and to re-invigorate themselves on their native soil; but space, wealth, sunshine, authority, are wanting there to the happy inhabitants of Java, whom monopoly has here made pashas and kings, and who feel little inclined to become subjects, rate-payers, and tenants on lease again, at home! 12th November, 1866.-We follow the fashion and take an airing at five o'clock in the morning on M. Van Delden's skittish ponies. Still the same bowers, the same marvels of verdure and bloom, of perfume and foliage; still the same numbers of villas scattered about in gardens, the same movement on a hundred different canals, the same brilliant colours in this human ant-hill which moves busily about, screaming noisily like a flight of cockatoos. At nine o'clock we have already reached our fifth bath. This torrid temperature of 104° in the shade would really, I believe, burst any thermometer that was put into the sun. I braved it nevertheless with a pyramidal white cotton helmet on my head, which made me look like a white-washed fireman. I was much puzzled with the narrow winding lanes of the old town, where the inhabitants pack themselves into their bamboo huts as we should pile up sacks of wheat in a corn market. The Malay shops are filled with calico goods and sticky eatables; the Chinese shops are of a superior kind. for example, is the stall of a Chinese watchmaker. The proprietor's plaited tail is the sole garment which appears on his immensely fat body. He holds a magnifying glass in his left eye by a contraction of the eyebrow which contorts his features into a horrible grimace, and this semi-nude jeweller is audaciously handling a Breguet watch, and seems very proud of being able to take the Paris workmanship so cleverly to pieces. His neighbour sells monkeys, his opposite neighbour innumerable preparations of capsicum in innumerable saucers piled one upon another. Everywhere a putrid and disgusting smell reigns. The sea breeze brings Here, great whiffs of it, exhaled from the mangrove trees and poisonous shrubs which cover the shore. The advancing tide swells their knotted, twisted, porous roots; in a few hours they increase some inches in diameter; then the ebb leaves them exposed on the unhealthy mud; the sun pours down, evaporates and dries them up; a line of yellowish clouds, of pestilential mists, forms itself, and remains for a moment suspended, waiting to be carried off by the wind, and then, woe to the coast where the caprice of the atmosphere may direct it! but now, It is these deadly miasmas which have given to the old town of Batavia that general reputation for unhealthiness which made you fear for us when we left home. And in fact, it is impossible to count the numbers who have fallen victims there since the occupation of the place. I was speaking of this subject with an agreeable acquaintance. "Oh!" said he, "before the period when we retreated from the shores to found the new town, people died like flies in old Batavia, it was actual poisoning for every human being; what does it signify? no one lives there but Chinese or Malays!" This saying, anything but philanthropic, recalled to my mind a certain correspondence in the last Mexican war. Having enumerated the disasters from yellow fever on the coast, and given an account of the movement of the troops into the interior, the letter said: "But families may feel re-assured now, there are none but sailors on the coast!" The families of the French sailors must have been about as much comforted as those of the natives are here. Notwithstanding the pure air of the new town, we have just had a terrible example of the consequence of imprudence. One of our neighbours at table, who had eaten too freely of the juicy pine-apples at dessert yesterday evening, looked a little pale at the mid-day breakfast at three o'clock, he was dead! It is the only thing which is done quickly in these tropical latitudes! Hardly is the hour of our siesta over before we sit down to write under our verandah. Immediately we are besieged by some fifty Chinese or Malays, wanting to sell us neckties or handkerchiefs, French photographs and military sketches. I drive them away, they return; I threaten them, they spread out a hundred new things, this one crying up his trousers, another his eau de Cologne, a third his monkeys. Determined to await the end of my letter, they are at this moment crouching down in the full sun ten paces from us, evidently hoping that I shall be in a more conciliatory disposition presently. In the evening we were roused by a fire. A hun dred and eighty houses-reed huts-in the old town were blazing like a lot of lucifer matches. What quantities of vermin must have been roasted! 13th November, 1866.-We might have expected this! The captain of the Hero,' our neighbour in this corridor, turned pale yesterday evening, and passed the night prostrate on the ground very sick, and groaning. We ourselves have paid the necessary tribute of new arrivals, and our interiors are in a pitiable state. If we can preserve our cheerfulness, we are safe from that phantom of cholera—and Javanese cholera-which takes fright if it does not inspire it. Here, too, is something to restore us-the pure air of the mountains inland. A charming letter from the Governor-General for the time being informs us that, "political considerations not permitting him to offer to a prince in exile the honours due to a French prince, he yet begs to be allowed to treat him as the grandson of a king." He sends us a circular passport, a most rare and valuable favour, for the whole island, and even for the so-called imperial territories, where, under Dutch protection, the Sultans of Sourakarta and Djokjokarta reign; notice is given to all the residents and native princes in the island, and the government post horses are put at the Prince's service gratuitously. This is a piece of good fortune which delights us and fills us with the most lively gratitude. Change being recommended for those who feel the enervating effect of this fiery climate, we have not refused the Resident of Batavia, M. Hoogeveen's, kind invitation. At six o'clock in the evening his state carriage came to fetch us. Four outrunners, all dressed in white, carry long white horses' tails with which they flick away the flies from our team; they make good use of their legs, each running by the side of his pony and effectually chasing the flies. We gallop and they run, such is the custom here. In half an hour we arrive at the palace. A regiment of servants are on the steps, turbans, sashes, arms, all the splendid figures of Oriental scenery stand out brilliantly on the marble. The Resident receives the Prince most cordially; then come the general in command, the colonels of artillery, the civil engineers, and, finally, the sultan and sultana of one of the principalities of Borneo. The husband is a stunted little old man, wrinkled and rheumatic, furiously chewing a paste made of lime and betel nut, which blackens the teeth and makes the gums bleed, and which, stuck between the teeth and the lower lip, swells the latter, by nature hanging, and so increases a hideous and deformed swelling. But the sultana is charming. She is a little person, young, and with bright eyes, and returns the greeting of the young Europeans with perfect grace. Her dress consists of a mantle of blue and yellow silk. A red and white scarf, passed across her shoulder, covers her bosom, and is kept in its place by a brooch of twelve intertwined crescents made of diamonds of the island. It is the prettiest jewel I ever saw. A red turban with a diamond ornament at the side, frames the smiling expressive bronze head. As for us, whilst sauntering amongst the white arcades, amongst strange groups of soldiers, servants, incense burners, and cigar lighters, we had the pleasure of arranging a crocodile hunt with the good-natured resident. 13th November, 1866.-Beyond the repeated siestas which are the great secret of happiness when one is so near the line; beyond the lounging and bathing, and the delicious cups of coffee, everything is a labour under this sun! All the same, I have closed my mail-bag for Europe and paid the postage on it; no mere form of politeness, I assure you. Seven-and-twenty shillings for postage have I paid this morning. I had almost forgotten our visit to the museum, of which the Resident did the honours to the Prince. Besides the fly-flagging outrunners, M. Hoogeveen is accompanied by the gilt-umbrella-bearing outrunner, and two cigar lighters, who trot behind us brandishing the sandal-wood match, that Vestal fire always kept up for the official "manillas." The museum is magnificent, and so curious as to be quite unintelligible to the traveller who is not well versed in Sanscrit, Javanese, Sunda, Bali, and Hindoo divinities, their big stomachs, slits of eyes, and humped backs, with double faces and half a dozen arms and legs kicking about, silver chickens with five legs, ancient lamps and tom-toms, with which we produced the most astonishing noises, and I know not what besides. It is a perfect nightmare. The Hero' starts to-day for our dear Australia; and we intend, when we confide our letters to her, to wish her a fair wind, and take the customary farewell breakfast on board. Poor ship, in which we had run so many risks! I see it still clearing by a few yards only the coral reef on which we threatened a thousand times to go to pieces! I see it lost for fifteen hours after passing Bali, when a dangerous current carried us to the north-east, while we were steering west-northwest. And she is getting her steam up to start again, and put to flight the flotillas of pi rogues manned by cannibals! Whatever happens, her last deed here is a good one, for she is carrying off a poor invalid dying under the tropical sun; a mere skeleton from consumption, the poor man is going to seek for health amongst the beauties of New South Wales, or the cool breezes of Tasmania. If he lands alive, the marks of sympathy and cordiality which all strangers there receive will surely save him. From the Marquis de Beauvoir's Voyage Around the World. THE WEDDING OF SHON MACLEAN. At the wedding of Shon Maclean Came in the wind and the rain Bonnet, and blackcock feather, He's but a Sassenach blind and vain All in the wind and the rain; At the wedding of Shon Maclean, 'Twas wet and windy weather! Yet, thro' the wind and the rain Came twenty Pipers together! |