The Country For Many Miles
Behind Sourabaya Is Perfectly Flat And Everywhere Cultivated;
Being A Delta Or Alluvial Plain, Watered By Many Branching
Streams.
Immediately around the town the evident signs of wealth
and of an industrious population were very pleasing; but as we
went on, the constant succession of open fields skirted by rows
of bamboos, with here and there the white buildings and a tall
chimney of a sugar-mill, became monotonous.
The roads run in
straight lines for several miles at a stretch, and are bordered
by rows of dusty tamarind-trees. At each mile there are little
guardhouses, where a policeman is stationed; and there is a
wooden gong, which by means of concerted signals may be made to
convey information over the country with great rapidity. About
every six or seven miles is the post-house, where the horses are
changed as quickly as were those of the mail in the old coaching
days in England.
I stopped at Modjokerto, a small town about forty miles south of
Sourabaya, and the nearest point on the high road to the district
I wished to visit. I had a letter of introduction to Mr. Ball, an
Englishman, long resident in Java and married to a Dutch lady;
and he kindly invited me to stay with him until I could fix on a
place to suit me. A Dutch Assistant Resident as well as a Regent
or native Javanese prince lived here. The town was neat, and had
a nice open grassy space like a village green, on which stood a
magnificent fig-tree (allied to the Banyan of India, but more
lofty), under whose shade a kind of market is continually held,
and where the inhabitants meet together to lounge and chat.
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