BATAVIA TO BUITENZORG.—TROPICAL SCENES.—BIRDS OF PARADISE.
As their time in Java was limited, our friends determined to cut short their stay in Batavia, and go at once to the interior. Accordingly, the morning following the day whose history was narrated in the last chapter saw them leaving the city by railway for Buitenzorg.
Buitenzorg is about forty miles from Batavia, and the summer residence of the Governor-general of Java; as it is summer all the year round in Java, he spends most of his time at this country-seat, and rarely visits Batavia except when business calls him there. The name is of Dutch origin, and signifies "without care," in imitation of the French Sans Souci. It is about one thousand feet above the level of the sea, and much cooler than Batavia; and the surrounding region is one of great natural beauty.
SOME OF THE THIRD-CLASS PASSENGERS.
Doctor Bronson and his young companions were early at the railway-station, and purchased their tickets for the journey. They found three classes of carriages on the road; the first and second being patronized by foreigners, and the third class exclusively by natives and Chinese. For their first-class tickets they paid six florins and thirty cents—equal to two dollars and a half of our money. The second-class ticket costs half as much as the first, and the third half as much as the second, so that the natives are able to ride for about a cent and a half per mile. The third-class carriages were crowded to such an extent that Frank and Fred both remarked that the Javanese were as prompt as the Japanese to recognize the value of the railway. Men and women were closely packed on the rough seats of the carriages of the third class, while those in the first and second, especially the former, had plenty of room.
"I suppose this is so the world over," said Fred, as he contemplated the difference between the accommodations of the various classes on the train.
"Everywhere we have been, at any rate," responded Frank.
"Whatever accommodations you wish and can pay for," said the Doctor, "you can have. If you want a special train at the price they demand, you can have it by paying in advance."
"It is the same in Java as in Europe, and, to a certain extent, we have similar arrangements in America. We are more democratic in our ways than any other country of importance, and consequently have been slower to make the distinctions in railway travel that exist in other parts of the world. But we are steadily moving in that direction, and in time we will have all the distinctions of classes—special trains and all. In fact, we have them already."
"Aren't you mistaken, Doctor?" said Fred. "Surely we do not have three classes on our railways at home."
"Stop and think a moment," answered the Doctor, while there was a suggestion of a smile about his face. "We have the ordinary railway carriage and the Pullman car, have we not?"
"Certainly," was the reply; "and they are virtually two classes."
"Quite right. Then, on the principal lines of railway there are the emigrant trains, are there not?"
Fred acknowledged that the Doctor had the best of the argument, and the conversation came to an abrupt termination, as it was time for them to take their places in the carriage.
Away they started for their first ride on a railway-train south of the equator. The suburbs of the city were speedily passed, and then the train plunged into a tropical forest. The grade became steep as the hilly ground was reached, and two locomotives were necessary for a part of the way to pull the train up the heavy incline. Frank observed that the carriages were quite narrow, and he found by measuring, at the first station where they stopped, that the rails were only three and a half feet apart. The present terminus of the line is at Buitenzorg; but surveys have been made, and it is the intention to push the line forward and form a connection with the system of railway in the eastern part of the island. When this is done, a stranger will be able to travel the whole length of Java by rail, as he can now travel by wagon road.
VIEW IN A PRIVATE GARDEN.
Since the railway from Batavia to Buitenzorg was opened several villages have sprung into existence along the line, and some of them are quite pretty. They contain the residences of gentlemen whose business is at Batavia, and are generally arranged with excellent taste. The gardens are luxuriant, like nearly all gardens in the tropics; and some of the owners delight in adding wild animals to their collections of trees and plants.
NATIVE VILLAGE NEAR THE RAILWAY.
Then there are native villages in considerable number, some of them concealed in the forest, and others standing in little clearings, where the trees form an agreeable background. The train stopped frequently, and did not seem to be in a hurry, although it was called an express, and was the fastest on the line. Frank said that probably the heat of the tropics had the same influence on a locomotive as on a man, and prevented its going rapidly. Fred said that Frank's reasoning reminded him of the boy at school, who was asked to give an illustration of the expanding power of heat, and the contracting power of cold.
"What did he do?" Frank inquired.
"Why," responded Fred, "he thought for some minutes over the matter, and finally answered that the days in winter were not nearly as long as those in summer, and it must be the cold that contracted them."
TROPICAL GROWTHS ALONG THE LINE.
The boys observed that the trees in some instances grew quite close to the track. Doctor Bronson explained to them that in the tropics it was no small matter to keep a railway-line clear of trees and vines, and sometimes the vines would grow over the track in a single night. It was necessary to keep men at work along the track, to cut away the vegetation where it threatened to interfere with the trains, and in the rainy season the force of men was sometimes doubled. "There is one good effect," said he, "of this luxuriant growth. The roots of the vines and trees become interlaced in the embankment on which the road is built, and prevent its being washed away by heavy rains. So you see there is, after all, a saving in keeping the railway in repair."
Frank noticed that some of the telegraph-poles had little branches growing from them; and at one place he saw a man near the top of a pole engaged in cutting the limbs away. He called the attention of his companions to the novel sight.
"You will see more of those trees as you go into the interior," said the Doctor. "They grow with great rapidity; and unless the wood is thoroughly seasoned before the poles are set in the ground, they speedily take root and become trees again. They are more pertinacious than our American water-willows, as they will grow in any soil, wet or dry. Wherever a clearing is made in the forest these trees spring up as if by magic; and they run up so tall and straight as to be just what is wanted for telegraph uses."
"MANGOSTEENS!"
At several of the stations the natives offered fruit of different kinds, and nearly all new to our young friends. They had been told that they would probably find the mangosteen for sale along the road; they had inquired for it in Singapore, but it was not in season there, and now their thoughts were bent upon discovering it between Batavia and Buitenzorg. Two or three times they were disappointed when they asked for it; but finally, at one of the stations, when Fred pronounced the word "mangosteen," a native held up a bunch of fruit and nodded. The Doctor looked at the bunch, and nodded likewise, and Fred speedily paid for the prize.
Perhaps we had best let Fred tell the story of the mangosteen, which he did in his first letter from Buitenzorg:
"We have found the prince of fruits, and its name is mangosteen. It is about the size of a pippin apple, and of a purple color—a very dark purple, too. The husk, or rind, is about half an inch thick, and contains a bitter juice, which is used in the preparation of dye; it stains the fingers like aniline ink, and is not easy to wash off. Nature has wisely provided this protection for the fruit; if it had no more covering than the ordinary skin of an apple, the birds would eat it all up as soon as it was ripe. If I were a bird, and had a bill that would open the mangosteen, I would eat nothing else as long as I could get at it.
"You cut this husk with a sharp knife right across the centre, and then you open it in two parts. Out comes a lump of pulp as white as snow, and about the size of a small peach. It is divided into sections like the interior of an orange, and there is a sort of star on the outside that tells you, before you cut the husk, exactly how many of these sections there are. Having got at the pulp, you proceed to take the lump into your mouth and eat it; and you will be too busy for the next quarter of a minute to say anything.
"Hip! hip! hurrah! It melts away in your mouth like an over-ripe peach or strawberry; it has a taste that is slightly acid—very slightly, too—but you can no more describe all the flavor of it than you can describe how a canary sings, or a violet smells. There is no other fruit I ever tasted that begins to compare with it, though I hesitate to admit that there is anything to surpass our American strawberry in its perfection, or the American peach. If you could get all the flavors of our best fruits in one, and then give that one the 'meltingness' of the mangosteen, perhaps you might equal it; but till you can do so, there is no use denying that the tropics have the prince of fruits.
"Everybody tells us we can eat all the mangosteens we wish to, without the slightest fear of ill results. Perhaps one might get weary of them in time, but at present we are unable to find enough of them. If anything would reconcile me to a permanent residence in the tropics, it would be the hope of always having plenty of mangosteens at my command.
"You may think," Fred added, "that I have taken a good deal of space for describing this fruit, but I assure you I have not occupied half what it deserves. And if you were here you would agree with me, and be willing to give it all the space at your command—in and beyond your mouth. But be careful and have it fully ripe; green mangosteens are apt to produce colic, as Frank can tell you of his own knowledge."
VERANDA OF THE HOTEL BELLEVUE.
The train reached Buitenzorg, and deposited our three travellers at the station. They had been recommended to the Hotel Bellevue, and were soon whirling along the road to that establishment. It proved a sort of pocket edition of the hotel at Batavia, as it was scattered over a considerable area; and they had to go out-of-doors to pass from their rooms to the dining-hall, but they found it had a delightful situation, as it was on the slope of a hill overlooking a thickly-wooded valley.
VIEW FROM THE VERANDA AT BUITENZORG.
In describing the scene from the veranda in front of his rooms, Frank wrote as follows:
"Our vision sweeps an area of several miles, beginning with a valley, and ending with a high mountain that was once an active volcano. There are all the tropical trees imaginable in the valley before me. Without changing my position in my chair, I can see cocoa-palms with their clusters of fruit, betel-palms with tufts of green at the ends of tall trunks like flag-staffs, banana, bread-fruit, plantain, mangosteen, durian, and many other kinds of trees whose names I have not yet learned. It is the richest tropical scene that has yet come under my eyes.
A BAD ROAD.
"And, as if they were not rich enough in leafy decorations, the trees are adorned with numerous parasites, some in the form of creeping vines, and others in clusters and tufts springing from the crevices in the bark, where the winds and birds have deposited the seeds. Nourishment for these parasites come from the air, or from the trees to which they cling; sometimes the vines send down long threads which reach the ground, where they attach themselves and throw out roots. At a little distance they look like ropes, and you gaze at them in wonder. I have seen some of them more than fifty feet long, and about the size of my wrist; sometimes they are very thick and closely interlaced, so that it is no easy matter to ride or walk in a forest where they abound.
"As in Siam and Cochin China, the parasites frequently cause the death of the trees to which they cling; but the growth of trees is so rapid, and there is such an abundance of them, that nobody seems to have any sympathy for the victims in this matter of vegetable murder.
THE VANDA LOWII.
"Orchids are in great variety, and some of them are exceedingly beautiful. There is one known as the Vanda Lowii, which is described by Mr. Wallace in his account of the Malay Archipelago. It grows on the lower branches of trees, and its threads are often six or eight feet long, and strung with flowers that vary in color from orange to red. These flowers are often three inches across, and their brilliancy is increased by the gloominess of the forests where they are found. Sometimes twenty or thirty flowers may be found on a single thread, and they form a regular spiral, as though strung there by hand.
"In other places you will see orchids like bright tufts of green clinging to the bark of the trees, and apparently forming a part of it. The botanists have found more than twenty varieties of this strange production of nature in Java alone, and probably a more careful examination will reveal many more.
"Some of the trees throw out shoots from their limbs, which ultimately take root and form separate trunks. The most notable example of this is the verengen: there is one of these trees in the governor's park, which has thrown out so many roots that it forms of itself quite a grove. It belongs, I presume, to the same family of tree as the famous banian of India, and to trees of other name but similar characteristics in other parts of the world.
"One of the most remarkable trees in the Malay Archipelago is said to begin its growth in mid-air. Can you guess how it does so?
A TREE GROWING IN MID-AIR.
"Originally the birds carry the seed of a certain parasite and drop it in the fork of a tall tree. The parasite throws out its branches into the air like other trees, and sends its roots downwards till they reach the ground. They spread as they descend, and form a sort of pyramid fifty or sixty feet high, and so shaped that you can often stand inside and have the body of the tree directly over your head. As the parasite grows it wraps itself around the parent tree, and ultimately kills it; and in this moist climate the dead trunk decays so rapidly that in a few years there is hardly a trace of it left. The branches of the new tree throw out roots of their own that go down to the ground and fasten themselves, and every year sees several new ones. We have no tree like this in the United States, at least none that I know of.
"There is a small river flowing through the valley in front of where I am writing; it comes from the mountains several miles away, and we can trace its course by the little openings it makes in the forest. For a few hundred yards we have it in full view, and then it makes a bend right at the foot of the hill where the hotel stands, and disappears among the tropical trees. Where it first comes into our range of vision there is a bridge thrown across it, and every little while, we can see the natives passing and repassing to and from a village that is concealed under the trees. Very often we see them bathing in the stream, or washing clothes there; when the bathers are a group of boys there is a great deal of fun and laughter, and the scene is quite as jolly when there is a lot of girls in the water. They can swim like ducks, and are constantly playing harmless little tricks on each other, and sometimes in the afternoon their laughter is steadily ringing in our ears. The Javanese Malays are a happy people, if I may judge by the inhabitants of this little village, and they are as fond of the water as so many beavers.
"Before we left Batavia we were told that we should have rain here every afternoon at three o'clock. Fred and I laughed at the suggestion, but the Doctor did not; and we found, on arriving, that we had laughed too soon. Really it rains every afternoon, and it does not vary twenty minutes either way from three o'clock. The clouds form over the mountain in the distance, and then they come sweeping on and on till they reach this spot. The rain comes down first in a sprinkle, then in a shower, and then in a pour, as though some great flood-gates in the sky had been opened as wide as possible, to give the water a chance. The rain lasts from one to three hours, and then the clouds go away and the sky is clear. Sometimes there is a chance for a promenade just about sunset, and sometimes not; in any event, the grass is so wet that we can only follow the roads if we would avoid coming home with our feet soaked.
"We have arranged our plans in such a way as to do our sight-seeing in the forenoon, and devote the afternoon to writing and sleeping.
GROUP OF BIRDS IN THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.
"We have visited the remarkable garden attached to the governor's residence, and seen the rare collection of specimens of the animal and vegetable life of the Malay Archipelago; and the more we see of it, the more do we wish to see. There are tigers and other animals, that it is better to see in cages than to meet at home in the forest; there are snakes in good variety; there are tanks containing a great number of fresh-water fishes; and last, but not least, there is a splendid collection of birds. I never knew what a variety of birds and what curious ones there are in the islands of the Java Sea, till I saw this collection here.
"You have heard of the birds of paradise, haven't you? They have some of them here, but not all the different kinds, as they are difficult to capture, and very difficult to keep alive after they have been taken.
"These birds are not natives of Java, but come from the Moluccas and other islands farther to the east. They were first called paradise birds by the writers of three hundred years ago, and some of the Portuguese and Dutch travellers told a good many fables about them. John Van Linschoten, who wrote in 1598, says that 'no one has seen these birds alive, for they live in the air, always turning towards the sun, and never lighting on the earth till they die; for they have neither feet nor wings, as may be seen by the birds carried to India, and sometimes to Holland.' More than a hundred years later, an English writer, who saw some specimens at Amboyna, was told that they came to Banda to eat nutmegs, by which they became intoxicated and fell down senseless.
"We were disappointed in the size of the birds in the governor's garden, as we had supposed that the bird of paradise was very large. But we found they were only moderate-sized, and resembled crows and ravens in their general appearance and habits, but not at all in their plumage. Instead of being of a solemn black, like their cousins I have mentioned, they have the most extraordinary arrangement of feathers that any bird can boast. Mr. Wallace says that several species have large tufts of delicate, bright-colored feathers springing from each side of the body beneath the wings, forming trains, or fans, or shields; and the middle feathers of the tail are often elongated into wires, twisted into fantastic shapes, or adorned with the most brilliant metallic tints. In another set of species these plumes spring from the head, the back, or the shoulders; while the intensity of color and of metallic lustre displayed by their plumage is not to be equalled by any other birds except, perhaps, the humming-birds, and is not surpassed by these.
"The largest of these birds is known as the Great Bird of Paradise, and is seventeen or eighteen inches from the point of the beak to the end of his tail. There is nothing remarkable about his body, wings, and tail, which are of a deep brown color, varying somewhat in shade, while the head and neck are of a pale yellow. The wonderful things are the plumes that spring from each side beneath the wings; they are sometimes two feet long, and of a bright orange-color tinged with gold; and they can be raised and spread out at the pleasure of the owner like the tail of a peacock. When they are thus extended you can hardly see the body of the bird, as they seem to envelop it completely; and if you are hunting him, and ready for a shot, you must guess how much of what you see is bird and how much feathers. It is only the male bird that gets himself up so gorgeously; the female is a plain-looking creature, of a uniform brown color, without a bit of ornament anywhere. She might be mistaken for a crow that had been left overnight in a coffee-pot.
MAGNIFICENT BIRD OF PARADISE.
SUPERB BIRD OF PARADISE.
"Then there is the Red Bird of Paradise, which is somewhat smaller than the one I have just described, and comes from a small island off the coast of New Guinea. There is the Magnificent Bird of Paradise, from the main-land of New Guinea, which has a tuft or fan of yellow feathers springing from the back of his neck, and shading his shoulders; and his tail contains two long feathers, each curving outwards, so that it forms a circle. Fred said that these tail-feathers looked like the handles of a pair of scissors, and he wondered if the bird could be taken up by them. The Superb Bird of Paradise has a plumage of glossy black, and is not unlike a crow, so far as his body is concerned; but he has a remarkable shield on his breast of stiff, narrow feathers, very glossy, and of a bright tinge of bluish green. On his head he has another and larger shield, of a velvety black color, and tinged with purple and bronze. This shield is longer than the wings, and gives the bird a most extraordinary appearance.
SIX-SHAFTED BIRD OF PARADISE.
LONG-TAILED BIRD OF PARADISE.
"Mr. Wallace mentions no less than eighteen varieties of the birds of paradise. I have not time to describe all of them, and believe I have told you of those that are the most remarkable. All of them are very pretty, and would be a fine addition to a public or private museum. There is one known as the Six-shafted Bird of Paradise that has six little wires springing from the forehead, and extending over the body to the tip of the tail. These wires have little tufts at the ends, but for the rest of the way they are as bare as knitting-needles. There is another, called the Long-tailed Bird of Paradise, and it is partially described by its name, as its tail is very long, and of the most brilliant colors. Then it has a tuft of blue and green plumes springing from each side of the breast in such a way that when the bird is standing on a tree the position of the wings is entirely concealed.
"Perhaps you have heard enough about the birds of the Malay Archipelago for the present. The rain promises to be over in a little while, and we may be able to take a sunset walk. Of one thing we are certain: there will be no dust on the road, and the grass will be beautifully green."