Botanist's Paradise at Buitenzorg.
To the Singaporean visitor to Java there is a melancholy interest in the little monument erected in the Garden at Buitenzorg by Sir Stamford Raffles to the memory of his wife, who died during his residence there.
In the conditions under which the island was restored to Holland, it was stipulated that the monument, in the form of a little Greek temple, should be cared for by the Dutch. The trust has been fulfilled, and those of us who take interest in the historic chances and changes of Britain's possessions in the Far East and the personal influence of the builders of the Empire, can find food for reflection in the sacrifices made by those men and women who are ever found on the Empire's frontiers. The sight of this memorial among the kanari trees in the tropical island of Java makes us think of the tablet in the little parish church on the hill at Hendon, near which this woman's husband lies buried.
The inscription runs as follows:—
"Sacred to the memory of Olivia Marianne, wife of Thomas Stamford Raffles, Lieutenant-Governor of Java and its dependencies, who died at Buitenzorg on the 26th November, 1814.
"Oh thou whom ne'er my constant heart
One moment hath forgot.
Tho' fate severe hath bid us part
Yet still—forget me not."
The traveller who has only a fortnight or three weeks to devote to Java must awake betimes. In any event, he must needs be early to take advantage of the express trains, and in our case we had only a day to devote to Buitenzorg, where the Governor-General of the Netherland Indies has his palace.
With the exception of the short run from Tandjong Priok, it was our first acquaintance with the railway service, and when we saw the crowd awaiting to entrain at Weltervreden Station we decided to travel first-class, contrary to the advice of our friends. It was well we did so on this occasion, for the train was overcrowded; but afterwards we travelled only by the second-class, and found it as comfortable as one could wish. Indeed, so few persons travel in the first-class compartments of the trains that we are astonished that any are retained by the management. Throughout Java we found the railway service excellent in every respect. The carriages are comfortable. Ample accommodation is given for each person. It is possible to stow away a considerable amount of barang or baggage in the carriages, and full advantage is taken of this facility by the Dutch and native travellers. The lavatory accommodation is better than we have seen it in the fast expresses on the principal lines in England, and on the through service expresses there are restaurant cars where meals may be partaken of at a moderate tariff. We cannot say we always found the food palatable, for the Chinamen who are in charge appear to have a fixed idea that the "beef-stuk," which is the pièce de resistance, should be served up raw. In course of time, doubtless, the railway management will be able to turn its attention to the commissariat arrangements, with a view to their improvement, and, when they do so, we hope they will leave out the beefsteak altogether and provide more variety and daintier, more inviting, and more palatable viands.
A fair rate of speed is maintained, and it is possible to go from Batavia to Sourabaya, at the other end of the island, in two days. The trains, of course, as in the Federated Malay States, run only from sunrise to sundown, and the through traveller between the two principal towns must sleep the night at Maos, where a commodious pasanggrahan or rest-house provides clean, comfortable accommodation and wholesome food. Only on two occasions were we belated on the railway, and both instances were due to the one cause,—a wash-out on the line at Moentilan, the result of a severe thunder and rain storm on the previous day and night. The train was run down cautiously to the gap, passengers crossed over on a temporary bridge to the train waiting on the other side, and the baggage was transferred by a host of coolies. All this had to be done in a torrential rain-storm, but the railway officials did all in their power to make the conditions as little disagreeable as possible, and the only inconvenience was the late arrival of some of the baggage at Djocjakarta.
There was not much of interest on the morning run to Buitenzorg, but the Dutch lady who carried on an animated conversation with four gentlemen for the whole of the hour and a half introduced to us the possibilities for expression in the Dutch equivalents of "Yes" and "No."
We had been prepared by Miss Scidmore's book for the beauties of Buitenzorg, and for once expectation was more than realised.
The Dutch Governor-General van Imhoff was certainly well advised when he selected this position as the official residence of the Governor-General, and the Dutch horticulturists, than whom there are probably none better, deserve to be congratulated upon the garden city they have created out of the primeval jungle.
Part of the old palace was built by Governor-General Mossel, one hundred and fifty years ago, and the original received additions during the reigns of Daendels and Raffles. This structure was destroyed by an earthquake in 1834, and the new palace, the first glimpse of which one receives across an artificial lake, is a worthy residence for the administrator of the Dutch Indies. The surface of the lake is studded with lotus flowers and victoria regia, and the little island in the centre displays a wealth of the red or rajah palm, feathery yellow bamboo, and dark-green foliage which the lake mirrors in ever-changing pictures.
An Alma Tadema or a Marcus Stone would revel in the flowers and marbles of the palace, with its broad stairs and corridors and fine Ionian columns and cornices; and a Landseer or a MacWhirter might find endless subjects in the deer park by which it is surrounded.
The garden is a botanist's paradise. Tropical treasures from Nature's storehouse, collected by successive Directors, are arranged with care and precision characteristically Dutch. It was established in 1817 by Professor Reinwardt, and many distinguished botanists who have left their mark in the scientific world studied here and added to the collections. As may be imagined, the Dutch were not content with a mere show place for tropical specimens, and they established five mountain gardens where experiments are conducted, for practical and scientific purposes, in the cultivation of flowers, plants, vegetables and trees usually found in temperate regions. These gardens are situated in the mountains to the south—at Tjipanas, Tjibodas, Tjibeureum, Kadang Badoh, and on the top of Mount Pangerango, that is to say, at heights ranging from 3,500 ft. to 10,000 ft. The garden at Tjibodas remains, and at the Governor-General's summer villa at Tjipanas one might imagine one's-self in a private garden in Surrey or Kent.
In the buildings at Buitenzorg, facilities are afforded for foreign students, and at the time of our visit a Japanese Professor, from the Tokio University, who had studied for three and a half years in Berlin, was making an exhaustive investigation on scientific lines. Everything that can be of service to students of botany is to be found here in the museum, herbarium and library.
The general herbarium has been arranged on the Kew model. Besides a large collection of plants made by Zollinger between 1845 and 1858, it contains the valuable collections gathered by Teysmann, between 1854 and 1870, throughout the Malay Archipelago. Specimens by Kurz and Scheffer are also found, together with other recent collections of plants from Borneo and adjacent islands. Duplicates from the Herbarium at Kew Gardens and from several of the more famous European herbaria are to be found here, as well as numerous specimens from the botanical institutions of the British Colonies.
The Herbarium Horti contains the necessary materials for the compilation of the new catalogue of the Botanic Gardens, and the Herbarium Bogoriense contains plants to be found in the neighbourhood of Buitenzorg.
Besides specimens of fruits, there is a comprehensive technical collection in the Botanical Museum—fibres, commercial specimens of rattan, india-rubber, and gutta-percha, barks for tanning purposes, Peruvian barks, vegetable oils, indigo samples, various kinds of meal, resins and damars. There is also a section devoted to forest and staple produce.
Fuller details of the gardens and environs of Buitenzorg may be found in the handbook published by Messrs. G. Kolff and Co., Batavia.
One need not be wholly a scientific investigator to appreciate the beauties of Buitenzorg. There is here one view which has been described over and over again, oftentimes in the language of hyperbole—the view of the Tjidani Valley from the verandah of Bellevue Hotel. It is, indeed, difficult to avoid the use of extravagant language in the attempt to describe this beauty spot of Nature.
Though he was writing of a beautiful woman, F. Marion Crawford might have been describing some beautiful landscape when he wrote in his own exquisite style:—
"I think that true beauty is beyond description; you may describe the changeless faultless outlines of a statue to a man who has seen good statues and can recall them; you can, perhaps, find words to describe the glow and warmth and deep texture of a famous picture, and what you write will mean something to those who know the master's work; you may even conjure up an image before untutored eyes. But neither minute description nor well-turned phrase, neither sensuous adjective nor spiritual smile can tell half the truth of a beautiful living thing."
The noble Roman, prompted to exclaim "Behold the Tiber" as he stood on the summit of Kinnoull Hill and gazed upon the fertile valley of Scotland's noblest stream, saw no fairer sight than this veritable Garden of Eden in Equatorial Java.
Seen in the afternoon when the setting sun is casting long shadows over the landscape, the scene in the Tjidani Valley is calculated to arouse the artistic senses of the most insusceptible. Miles away, the Salak raises his majestic cone against the blue sky. In the distance, the mountain forms a purple background for the picture, purple flecked with soft white patches of floating cloud. Beneath his massive form, colour is lost in shadowy but closer at hand are the dark pervading greens of the trees and vegetation, palms and tree ferns and banana trees helping by their graceful form to provide the truely tropical features, while the equally graceful clumps of bamboo sway and creak in the light breeze, their pointed leaves supplying that perpetual flutter and movement which one associates with the birches and beeches of one's native land. The cultivated patches on hillside and valley are rich in colour. Here, the yellow paddy is ripening for the sickle; there, it is bright green; alongside, the patient buffaloes are dragging a clumsy wooden plough through water-covered soil to prepare for the next crop. The lake-like patches reflect weird outlines, and one almost imagines that they catch the brilliant colours from the sun-painted clouds.
Down the valley, crossing the picture from left to right is the river—the Tjidani,—a broad shallow stream when we saw it, in which men, women and children are constantly bathing. From the compact kampong nestling among the trees, the native women, clad in bright coloured sarongs, came with babies, who take to the water as if it were their natural element. Merry shouts of laughter ascend from the valley as the youngsters splash about and chase each other. Everything suggests beauty and peace and contentment, and as one drinks in the scene it is borne in upon one that the comparison with the Garden of Eden is not inapt. What could one wish for more than a beautiful, bounteous land and a happy, contented people!