THE DUTCH EAST INDIES—SUMATRA AND CELEBES
Two lofty mountain ranges with a deep valley between them lie at the eastern side of the Indian Ocean. The Malay Peninsula is one range; the island of Sumatra is the other. The floor of the valley between them is covered by the sea and forms the Strait of Malacca.
As islands go, Sumatra is of goodly size—larger than New York, Pennsylvania, and the New England States together. From end to end its length is about the distance between Boston and Chicago. Greenland, Borneo, New Guinea, and Madagascar are each larger. The equator crosses Sumatra at its central part.
Sumatra is also a possession of the Dutch East Indies, but it is not very important as compared with Java. Although it is three times as large as Java, it has scarcely one-tenth the population. There is a pretty good reason for this. In the first place, the mountainous region is very rugged and much of it is covered with jungle; therefore, it is neither habitable nor productive for mankind. In the second place, the broad plain on the east side of the island is not well adapted to cultivation; it is cut by deep river valleys in the higher parts, swampy in the middle part, and covered with water next the coast during a part of the year.
Rather singularly the lakes—and there are many—are not in the low, swampy lands; most of them are high in the mountains. What is still more singular, these lakes are the craters of inactive volcanoes. But Sumatra, like Java, has many active volcanoes. One of these, Dempo, is almost constantly active. Every now and then it discharges great quantities of sulphur gases; these are caught by the rain and, falling on the cultivated lands, kill pretty nearly everything touched.
In the jungles nature has been very lavish with life. The forests contain more than four hundred kinds of trees—among them teak, ebony, camphor, and even good pine. Sumatra is also the home of several trees and plants from which gutta-percha is obtained. Railroads to connect the forest belts to the coast are the one thing needed to make Sumatra a lumber-producing country.
For some reason or other many of the wild animals that crossed the shallow water between the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra did not cross the Sunda Strait to Java. There are many more kinds of animals in Sumatra than in Java; indeed, nearly all the larger species of wild animals of southern Asia are found in Sumatra, and only a few are in Java. There are many elephants in the uplands; the rhinoceros lives in the lowlands; the tiger lives in the jungle, as in India. The flying "fox" is one of the curiosities of Sumatra. So much for a name, however, for the animal is not a fox but a very large bat. Its wings are membranes that connect the limbs corresponding to one's fingers. Like other bats, it hangs from the limb of a tree, head down, in the daytime, and goes to business at night. Its body is not much larger than that of a hare, but when in flight it is four or five feet from tip to tip.
Natives in the jungle, Sumatra
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The flying "cat" is likewise a misnamed animal that bears no relationship to pussy, but is a kind of lemur. The wild dog, however, is very much dog and nuisance at the same time—as much of a nuisance as the coyote of the western United States, and far more numerous. The "coffee" rat is likewise a great nuisance wherever found; unfortunately it is found almost everywhere. Monkeys are also numerous.
The natives of Sumatra, like those of Java, are Malays. Unlike them, however, they are difficult to govern; some of the interior tribes are fierce and warlike. Near the coast, and in places controlled by the Dutch, the native ruler is subject to an "elder brother" or Dutch commissioner. Most of the tribes of the interior are Muhammadans; they believe that they will be blessed if they are killed in war, and, therefore, they take every opportunity to make war. The natives of Acheen, a province in the northwestern part of the island, have always given the Dutch a great deal of trouble, and they are not fully conquered, even after a hundred years of warfare.
One of the interior tribes, it is thought, came from India several hundred years ago, for their religion and customs are much the same as those of the Hindus. Although they are surrounded by savage tribes, and far removed from the civilization, both of India and Europe, they have reached a remarkable condition of civilization of their own. They are excellent farmers and stockmen; they also make firearms, cloth, and jewelry which they sell to the Malay peoples about them.
Throughout the island the houses are much like those of Malay peoples elsewhere, with timber frames and thatched roofs. As in the other islands, they are set on posts wherever floods are likely to occur. The larger timbers of many houses are beautifully carved, although many of the designs are grotesque and even hideous. All the houses are clustered in villages. This is done partly for protection against man-eating tigers, and partly because the people are inclined to social life. The club-house is usually to be found in the villages. It is the town hall, bazaar, market, lounging place, and social club combined. Perhaps a wedding and a funeral may be going on there at the same time. Men gamble, and women gossip and chew betel-nut; the peddler likewise shows his bargain-counter wares at the club-house.
The great plantations of sugar, coffee, and tobacco are managed much the same as in Java. The rice-fields are cultivated usually by the Chinese, and they have much of the trade in the rice. Sumatra is famous for its tobacco. The plants grow larger and higher than those cultivated in the United States. The leaves are large and the best of them are used as "wrappers," or outer coverings for fine cigars. Sumatra leaf commands a high price, and a considerable amount of the best tobacco is shipped to Cuba and the United States.
The coffee crop is also of excellent quality. Some of it reaches the market as "Java" coffee; and, indeed, it is equal to the best coffee grown in Java. The beans are large, light in color, and of fine flavor. Carefully sorted Palembang coffee commands a high price.
Sumatra is famous for its pepper, and not far from one-half the world's product of pepper comes from this island. The plant producing pepper is not the pepper-tree so commonly grown for its beautiful foliage and bright red berries in California and Mexico; it is a vine or climbing bush. It is commonly planted near to a sapling, around which it twines; but in many plantations the plants are pruned and trimmed so that they grow unsupported. The pepper of commerce consists of the dried berries or fruit of the vine. It is the custom to pick the berries as they turn red. The berries shrivel and turn black as they dry. These, when ground, are the black pepper of commerce. When fully ripe the color of the berry turns to a pale yellow and the outer skin is easily removed. The "husked" berries are used for making the white pepper of commerce.
Sago is also an important product of Sumatra. It is the starchy pith of a kind of palm-tree—the sago-palm. The pith is dried, ground to a powder and washed in order to remove the stringy fibre. In the process of washing, the starchy granules sink to the bottom, while the woody fibre floats off.
A jungle, scene in Sumatra
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There are several large towns in Sumatra—Siboga, Padang, Benkulen, Telok Belong, and Palembang—but their names are rarely seen in print or spoken. The reason is not hard to find; Singapore, just across the Strait of Malacca, is a free port, with a fine harbor. Vessels from every part of the world call at Singapore, and it is much more convenient to have the Sumatra products marketed there than to send them from Sumatra ports.
A few miles to the east of Sumatra are the islands of Banka and Billiton, famous for their tin mines. These mines produce about two-thirds the world's supply of tin. It is interesting to know that the silver-white metal, with which so many of our kitchen utensils are coated, has travelled more than half-way around the world to be used, but this is probably the case.
Sunda Strait separates Sumatra from Java. In this narrow strait is situated the island of Krakatoa, remarkable for one of the most destructive volcanic eruptions that have ever occurred. The great eruption was preceded by low rumblings and slight explosions for three months before the volcano burst out in all its fury, on the night of August 26, 1883. The explosions were heard at a distance of many hundred miles and over an area equal to one-thirteenth of the earth's surface. The entire southern part of the island was blown away and the earth was shaken for thousands of miles, the shock being recorded as far as South America.
The upheaval caused a tidal wave one hundred and twenty feet high which, with the lava clots and ash ejected, destroyed all of the towns and plantations bordering on both sides of the straits. In this disaster more than forty thousand persons perished and every vestige of animal and vegetable life in the surrounding region disappeared. The only person left to look out upon the scene of destruction was the keeper of the light-house, a structure one hundred and thirty feet high, whose light the gigantic waves merely succeeded in extinguishing.
A cubic mile of material is said to have been thrown out in the form of lapilli and dust by the successive explosions. The dust, estimated to have reached the height of several miles, was disseminated by the upper currents of air and caused the brilliant sunsets seen for months in nearly every part of the civilized world.
Celebes is the most curiously shaped island in the world. It has a central body from which project four large arms, making it look like a huge starfish. These radiating peninsulas are mountain ranges, here and there peaked with volcano cinder cones. There are no low-lying marshes; the position and high surface render this one of the healthiest islands in the Malay Archipelago.
The Dutch have had settlements here for more than two centuries; and their wise and just treatment of the natives has made the island famous for peace and prosperity. Except a few tribes of the interior, all the islanders are at least partly civilized. The natives who live in the coast regions are intelligent and industrious. Paganism and corrupted Muhammadanism are the prevailing religions, but Christianity has secured a firm hold in a few places. A written language and literature have prevailed for centuries.
All able-bodied men are compelled to work and each year to give a few days' labor to keep the excellent roads in good repair; but they reap the reward of their industry and are happy and contented.
The best coffee land in the East Indies is to be found on this island. The most favorable soil for coffee is the rich, black volcanic ash that covers the mountain slopes in many parts of north Celebes.
The Menado coffee is said to be the finest the world produces.
The coffee-trees are allowed to grow to the height of six feet, when the tops are cut off, so as to strengthen the growth of the lateral branches which bear the fruit.
Besides a fungus disease, coffee has many other enemies. Both rats and mice are fond of the juicy stalks of the berries when they are nearly ripe, and they nibble at them until the berries fall. The long-haired black rat is the greatest of these pests. Cats are kept on each plantation to prey upon the animal pests; but, unfortunately, the natives are very fond of cats—not as pets, but as articles of food. This feline appetite on the part of the workmen causes the owner to keep a vigilant watch over his cat family, and to severely punish any offender. Perhaps in time they will learn to employ the python as a rat-catcher, for the python is not surpassed for this purpose.
The forest trees are much like those of the adjacent islands. There are no very large animals, those peculiar to Celebes being the tailless baboon and the "pig-deer," which has tusks and curving horns.
Parts of the interior of Celebes still remain unexplored and are said to be inhabited by cannibals and head-hunters.
Macassar is the capital and chief city. It is situated in the southern part of the southwestern peninsula, and in commerce ranks next to the largest cities of Java. Its trade totals upward of three million dollars annually.
The principal exports of the island are coffee, rice, nutmegs, cloves, dammer, copal, rattan, copra, tobacco, trepang, and tortoise-shell; coffee greatly outranking all the other products.