Facts and fancies about Java

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AUGUSTA DE WIT

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Facts and Fancies about Java.

When the Lady Dolly van der Deeken, in answer to questions anent her legendary husband's whereabouts, murmured something vague about ‘Java, Japan, or Jupiter,’ she had Java in her mind as the most ‘impossible’ of those impossible places. And, indeed, every schoolboy points the finger of unceremonious acquaintance at Jupiter: and Japan lies transparent on the egg-shell porcelain of many an elegant teatable. But Java? What far forlorn shore may it be that owns the strange-sounding name; and in what sail-less seas may this other Ultima Thule be

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fancied to float? Time was when I never saw a globe - all spun about with net of parallels and degrees, as with some vast spider's web - without a little shock of surprise at finding ‘Java’ hanging in the meshes. How could there be latitude and longitude to such a thing of dreams and fancies? An attempt at determining the acreage of the rainbow, or the geological strata of a Fata Morgana, would hardly have seemed less absurd. I would have none of such vain exactitude: but still chose to think of Java as situate in the same region with the Island of Avallon, the Land of the Lotos-Eaters, palm-shaded Bohemia by the sea, and the Forest of Broceliand, Merlin's melodious grave. And it seemed to me that the very seas which girt those magic shores - still keeping their golden sands undefiled from the gross clay of the outer world - must be unlike all other water - tranquil ever, crystalline, with a seven-tinted glow of strange sea-

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flowers, and the flash of jewel-like fishes gleaming up from the unsounded deeps. And higher than elsewhere, surely, the skies, blessed with the sign of the Southern Cross, must rise above those woods where the Birds of Paradise nestle.

Where is it now, the glory and the dream? The soil of Java is hot under my feet. I know - to my cost - that, if the surrounding seas be different from any other body of water, they are chiefly so in being more subject to tempest, turmoil, and sudden squalls. I find the benign influences of the Southern Cross - not a very brilliant constellation by the way - utterly undone by the fiery fury of the noonday-sun: and have learnt to appreciate the find irony of the inherited style and title, as compared with the present habitat of the said Birds of Paradise. And yet - all chagrining experience notwithstanding, and maugre the deadly dullness of so many days, the fever of so many sultry nights, and the

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home-sickness of all hours - I have still some of the old love for this country left: and I begin to understand something of the fascination by which it holds the Northerner who has breathed its adour-laden air for too long a time. So that, forgetting his home, his friends, and his kindred in the gray North, he is content to live on dreamily by some lotos-overstarred lake: and, dying, be buried under the palm-trees.

No. 1 - arrival.

My first impression of Java was not the one of effulgent light and overpowering magnificence of colour, generally experienced at the first sight of a tropical country: but, on the contrary, of something unspeakably tender, ethereal, and soft. It was in the beginning of the rainy season. Under a sky filmy with diaphanous white clouds, or, rather, cloud - one continuous fleecy texture, in which a tinge of the hidden blue was felt rather than seen - the sea had a pearly sheen, with here and there changefully

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flickering white lights, and wind-ruffled streaks of a pale violet. The slight haziness in the air somewhat dulled the vivid green of innumerable islets and thickly-wooded reefs, scattered all over the sea; and, blurring their outlines, seemed to lift them until they grew vague and airy as the little clouds of a mackerel sky, wafted hither and thither by the faintest wind. And even the block of square white buildings on the landing-place - pointed out as the railway station and the custom houses - stood mellow and softly outlined against a background of whitish-grey sky and mist-blurred trees. Slowly the steamer glided on. And, as we now approached the roadstead of Batavia, there came swimming towards the ship numbers of native boats, darting out from between the islets, and diving up out of the shadows along the wooded shore, like so many waterfowl. Swiftest of all were the ‘wing-praos'’ very slight hulls, almost

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disappearing under their one enormous whitish-brown sail, tapering like a bird's wing, and thrown back with just the same impatient fling - as if poised for a swoop and rake - so exactly resembling sea-gulls skimming along, as to render the comparison almost a description. On they came, drawing purplish furrows through the pearly greys and whites of the sea. And, in their wake, darting hither and thither with the jerky movements of water-spiders, quite a swarm of little black canoes - hollowed-out tree-trunks, kept in balance by a framework of long bamboo-staves, which spread on either side like sprawling, scurrying legs. As they approached, we saw that the boats were piled with many tinted fruit, above which the naked bodies of the oarsmen rose, brown and shiny, and the wet paddle gleamed in its leisurely-seeming dip and rise, which yet sent the small skiff bounding and darting onward. They were

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alongside soon, and the natives clambered on board, laden with fragrant wares. They did not take the trouble of hawking it about though, agile as they had proved themselves, but calmly squatted down amid their piled-up baskets of yellow, scarlet, crimson, and orange fruits - a medley of colours almost barbarie in its magnificence, notwithstanding the soberer tints of blackening purple, and cool, reposeful green - and calmly awaited customers. Under their gaudy kerchiefs picturesquely framing the dark brows, their brown eyes had that look of thoughtful - or is it all thoughtless? - contentment, which we of the North know only in the eyes of babies, crooning in their mother's lap. And, as they answered our questions, their speech had something childlike too, with its soft consonants and clear vowels, long-drawn-out on a musical modulation that glided all up and down the gamut. They had a great charm for me, their flatness of features and

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meagreness of limbs notwithstanding: and I thought that, if not quite the fairies, they might well be the ‘brownies’ of that enchanted garden that men call Java.

But - alas! for day-dreaming - the gruff authoritative voice of the quartermaster was heard on deck: and - after the manner of goblins at the approach of the Philistine - all the little brownies vanished. They were gone in an instant; and, in their pretty stead, came porters, cabin-stewards with trunks, and passengers in very new clothes. For we were fast approaching: and, presently, with a big sigh of relief, the steamer lay still, and we trod the quay of Tanjong Priok. It would seem as if the first half-hour of arrival must be the same everywhere, all the world over: but here, even in the initial scramble for the train, one notices a difference. There is a crowd; and there is no noise. No scuffling and stamping, no cries, no shouting, no gruff-voiced altercations. all but inau-

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dibly the barefooted coolies trot on, big steamer-trunks on their shoulders: they do not hustle, each patiently awaiting his turn at the office and on the platform; and, as they stand aside for some hurrying, pushing European, their else impassible faces assume a look of almost contemptuous amazement. Why should the “orang blanda’^* thus discourteously jostle them? Are there not many hours in a day, and many days to come after this? And do they not know that ‘Haste cometh of the evil’? The train has started at last, and is hurrying through a wild, dreary country; half jungle, half marshland. From the rank undergrowth of brushwood and bulrushes, rise clumps of coconut-palms, their dark shaggy crowns strangely massive above the meagre stems through which the distant horizon gleams palely. In open spaces,

* (‘People from Holland:’ the name for Europeans generally.)

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young trees stand out here and there, half strangled in the dangling festoons of a purple-blossomed liana that trails its tendrilled length all over the lower shrubwood. Thickets of bamboo bend and sway in the evening wind.

To the right stretches a long straight canal, dull as lead under the lustreless sky; the breeze, in passing, blackens the motionless water, and a shiver runs through the dense vegetation along the edge-broad-leaved bananas, the spreading fronds of the palmetto, and mimosas of feathery leafage, above which the silver-grey tufts of bulrushes rise. After a while the jungle diminishes and ceases; and a vast reach of marshy country stretches away to the horizon. We neared it as the sun was setting: and, though it had not broken through the clouds, the fiery globe had suffused their whiteness with a deep, dull purple as of smouldering flames. A tremulous splendour suddenly shot over the rushbeds and rank waving grasses

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of the marshy land; the shining reedpricked sheets of water crimsoned; and along the canal moving like an incandescent lava-stream, the broadly-curving banana leaves seemed fountains of purple light, and the palmetto and delicate mimosa fronds grew transparent in the all-pervading rosiness - almost immaterial. Even after the burning edge of the sun, perceived for a brief moment, had sunk away, these marvellous colours did not fade, but, softly shining on, seemed to be the natural tint of this wonderful land - independent of sunsand seasons. Then, all at once, they were extinguished by the rapidly-fallen dusk, as a fire might be under a shower of ashes: and, a few minutes after, it was night.

At the lamplit station of Batavia, I hailed one of the vehicles waiting outside - a curious little two-wheeled conveyance, which, with its enormons lanterus, airily supported roof, and long shafts between which a diminutive

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pony trotted, looked like a fiery-eyed cockchafer that darts about, moving its long antennae. I hoisted myself on to the sloping seat, and, for some time was driven through an avenue, the trees on either side of which made a cloudy darkness against the pale strip of sky overhead. There was an incessant high-pitched twittering of birds among the leaves; and, every now and then, a fragrance of invisible flowers came floating out on the windless air. We passed a tall building, shimmering white through the darkness - the Governor-General's palace I was told. Then the horse's hoofs clattered over a bridge, and, past the turn of the road, a long row of brilliant windows flashed up, with a while blaze of electric light in the distance.

Past the resplendent shop-windows on the left side of the street - the other remaining dark, featureless - a leisurely crowd moved; open carriages, bearing light-dressed women to some evening

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entertainment, bowled along: a manywindowed club blazed up: a canal shone with a hundred slender spears of reflected light - I had reached my destination, the suburb of Rijswijk.