HAVING made a very fine and interesting collection of the birds
of Labuan Tring, I took leave of my kind host, Inchi Daud, and
returned to Ampanam to await an opportunity to reach Macassar. As
no vessel had arrived bound for that port, I determined to make
an excursion into the interior of the island, accompanied by Mr.
Ross, an Englishman born in the Keeling Islands, and now employed
by the Dutch Government to settle the affairs of a missionary who
had unfortunately become bankrupt here. Mr. Carter kindly lent me
a horse, and Mr. Ross took his native groom.
Our route for some distance lay along a perfectly level country
bearing ample crops of rice. The road was straight and generally
bordered with lofty trees forming a due avenue. It was at first
sandy, afterwards grassy, with occasional streams and mudholes.
At a distance about four miles we reached Mataram, the capital of
the island and the residence of the Rajah. It is a large village
with wide streets bordered by a magnificent avenue of trees, and
low houses concealed behind mud walls. Within this royal city no
native of the lower orders is allowed to ride, and our attendant,
a Javanese, was obliged to dismount and lead his horse while we
rode slowly through. The abodes of the Rajah and of the High
Priest are distinguished by pillars of red brick constructed with
much taste; but the palace itself seemed to differ but little
from the ordinary houses of the country. Beyond Mataram and close
to it is Karangassam, the ancient residence of the native or
Sassak Rajahs before the conquest of the island by the Balinese.
Soon after passing Mataram the country began gradually to rise in
gentle undulations, swelling occasionally into low hills towards
the two mountainous tracts in the northern and southern parts of
the island. It was now that I first obtained an adequate idea of
one of the most wonderful systems of cultivation in the world,
equalling all that is related of Chinese industry, and as far as
I know surpassing in the labour that has been bestowed upon it
any tract of equal extent in the most civilized countries of
Europe. I rode through this strange garden utterly amazed and
hardly able to realize the fact that in this remote and little
known island, from which all Europeans except a few traders at
the port are jealously excluded, many hundreds of square miles of
irregularly undulating country have been so skillfully terraced
and levelled, and so permeated by artificial channels, that every
portion of it can be irrigated and dried at pleasure. According
as the slope of the ground is more or less rapid, each terraced
plot consists in some places of many acres, in others of a few
square yards. We saw them in every state of cultivation; some in
stubble, some being ploughed, some with rice-crops in various
stages of growth.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 118 of 219
Words from 61197 to 61697
of 114260
