PREFACE
In presenting this account of a visit to one of the most beautiful countries of the world, I shall hope that many will be induced to follow there, and that my record may assist them to avoid certain things and to take advantage of others that will add to their enjoyment of the island where nature has been so prodigal with beauties and wonders.
After the body of this work had gone to press, the first copies of a small, compact, and most admirable “Guide to the Dutch East Indies,” written by Dr. J. F. Van Bemmelen and Colonel J. B. Hoover, by invitation of the Royal Steam Packet Company, Amsterdam, and translated into English by the Rev. B. J. Berrington, reached this country, and to this work I hasten to extend my salutations, since my own pages contain so many plaints for some such guide. It treats of all the islands under Dutch rule, turning especial light upon the so little-known Sumatra, where many attractions and possible resorts will invite pleasure-travel; and, leading one from end to end of Java, it more than supplements what Captain Schulze’s little guide had done for Batavia and the west end of the island. Translating so much of local and special lore hitherto locked away from the alien visitor in Dutch texts, it at last fairly opens Java to the tourist world, and excites my keen regret that its earlier publication had not lighted my way.
In preparing these pages every effort has been made to avoid errors, and I invite other corrections, and acknowledge here with great appreciation those suggested by Dutch readers, and at once made in certain chapters that originally appeared in the “Century Magazine.” In the varied English, French, and Dutch spelling of many words, in drawing statistics from works in as many languages, and in accepting as facts things verbally communicated to me by seemingly responsible people, there were chances of error; but one can only beg to be set right. In this connection I hasten to state that under the liberal policy of recent years the Dutch government has withdrawn its prohibition of the pilgrimage to Mecca, and more than six thousand of its Mohammedan subjects have availed themselves of the privilege in one year. It should also be noted that the Ashantee prince has not availed himself of the privilege of living and dying under the British flag in South Africa, and the pathetic tale of that exile, as told by Britons, lacks that completing touch of fact. For these suggestions in particular, others concerning Sumatra, and still others which had been anticipated, I thank Mr. R. A. Van Sandick of Amsterdam, with appreciation of the spirit and the loyalty to his own people which prompted his making them. Myths and legends and fairy tales grow with tropic rankness in those far ends of earth even to-day, and gravitate inevitably to the stranger’s ear.
E. R. S.
Washington, D. C., October 1, 1897.