The Dutch Mail Steamer Brought Me From Ternate To Sourabaya, The
Chief Town And Port In The Eastern Part Of
Java, and after a
fortnight spent in packing up and sending off my last
collections, I started on a short
Journey into the interior.
Travelling in Java is very luxurious but very expensive, the only
way being to hire or borrow a carriage, and then pay half a crown
a mile for post-horses, which are changed at regular posts every
six miles, and will carry you at the rate of ten miles an hour
from one end of the island to the other. Bullock carts or coolies
are required to carry all extra baggage. As this kind of
travelling world not suit my means, I determined on making only a
short journey to the district at the foot of Mount Arjuna, where
I was told there were extensive forests, and where I hoped to be
able to make some good collections. 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. The
day after my arrival, Mr. Ball drove me over to the village of
Modjo-agong, where he was building a house and premises for the
tobacco trade, which is carried on here by a system of native
cultivation and advance purchase, somewhat similar to the indigo
trade in British India.
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