The other passengers were mostly officials and merchants going to Samarang, Surabaya, or Macassar, and I found that I was the only one travelling to Amboina. The general commanding the Dutch army in the East was on board. He was a very polite, unassuming gentleman, and manifested much interest in a Sharpe’s breech-loader I had brought from America, and regarded it the most effective army rifle of any he had seen up to that time. He was going to the headquarters of the army, which is a strongly-fortified place back of Samarang. It was described to me as located on a mountain or high plateau with steep sides—a perfect Gibraltar, which they boasted a small army could maintain for an indefinite length of time against any force that might be brought against it. About five months later, however, it was nearly destroyed by a violent earthquake, but has since been completely rebuilt.
One genial acquaintance I soon found in a young man who had just come from Sumatra. He had travelled far among the high mountains and deep gorges in the interior of that almost unexplored island, and his vivid descriptions gave me an indescribable longing to behold such magnificent scenery—a pleasure I did not fancy at that time it would be my good fortune to enjoy before I left the archipelago.
All day the sky was very hazy, but we obtained several grand views of high volcanoes, especially two steep cones that can be seen in the west from the road at Batavia. A light, but steady breeze came from the east, for it was as yet only the early part of the eastern monsoon. When the sun sank in the west, the full moon rose in the east, and spread out a broad band of silver over the sea. The air was so soft and balmy, and the whole sky and sea so enchanting, that to recall it this day seems like fancying anew a part of some fascinating dream.
This word monsoon is only a corruption of the Arabic word musim, “season,” which the Portuguese learned from the Arabians and their descendants, who were then navigating these seas. It first occurs in the writings of De Barros, where he speaks of a famine that occurred at Malacca, because the usual quantity of rice had not been brought from Java; and “the mução” being adverse, it was not possible to obtain a sufficient supply. The Malays have a peculiar manner of always speaking of any region to the west as being “above the wind,” and any region to the east as being “below the wind.”
June 8th.—Went on deck early this morning to look at the mountains which we might be passing; and, while I was absorbed in viewing a fine headland, the captain asked me if I had seen that gigantic peak, pointing upward, as he spoke, to a mountain-top, rising out of such high clouds that I had not noticed it. It was Mount Slamat, which attains an elevation of eleven thousand three hundred and thirty English feet above the sea—the highest peak but one among the many lofty mountains on Java, and, like most of them, an active volcano. The upper limit of vegetation on it is three thousand feet below its crest. The northern coast of Java is so low here that this mountain, instead of appearing to rise up, as it does, from the interior of the island, seemed close by the shore—an effect which occurs in viewing nearly all these lofty peaks while the observer is sailing on the Java Sea. M. Zollinger, a Swiss, says that at sunrise the tops of these loftiest peaks are brightened with the same rose-red glow that is seen on Monte Rosa and Mont Blanc when the sun is setting, and once or twice I thought I observed the same charming phenomenon. The lowlands and the lower declivities of all the mountains seen to-day are under the highest state of cultivation. Indeed, this part of Java may be correctly described as one magnificent garden, divided into small lots by lines of thick evergreens, and tall, feathery palm-trees. This afternoon we steamed into the open roadstead of Samarang during a heavy rain-squall; for though the “western monsoon,” or “rainy season,” is past, yet nearly every afternoon we have a heavy shower, and every one is speaking of the great damage it is likely to do to the rice and sugar crops which are just now ripening. The heavy rain-squall cleared away the thick haze that filled the sky, and the next morning I went on shore to see the city. A few miles directly back of it rises the sharp peak of Ungarung to a height of some five thousand feet, its flanks highly cultivated in fields, and its upper region devoted to coffee-trees. Somewhat west of this, near the shore, I noticed a small naked cone, apparently of brown, volcanic ashes, and of so recent an origin that the vigorous vegetation of these tropical lands had not had time to spread over its surface. Back of Ungarung rise three lofty peaks in a line northwest and southeast. The northernmost and nearest is Mount Prau; the central, Mount Sumbing; and the southern one, Mount Sindoro.
Mount Prau receives its name from its shape, which has been fancied to be like that of a “prau,” or native boat, turned upside down. It was the supposed residence of the gods and demigods of the Javanese in ancient times, and now it abounds in the ruins of many temples; some partially covered with lava, showing that earthquakes and eruptions have done their share in causing this destruction. Many images of these ancient gods in metal have been found on this mountain. Ruins of enormous temples of those olden times are yet to be seen at Boro Bodo, in the province of Kedu, and at Brambanan, in the province of Matarem. At Boro Bodo a hill-top has been changed into a low pyramid, one hundred feet high, and having a base of six hundred and twenty feet on a side. Its sides are formed into five terraces, and the perpendicular faces of these terraces contain many niches, in each of which was once an image of Buddha. On the level area at the summit of the pyramid is a large dome-shaped building, surrounded by seventy-two smaller ones of the same general form. According to the chronology of the Javanese, it was built in A. D. 1344.
At Brambanan are seen extensive ruins of several groups of temples, built of huge blocks of trachyte, carefully hewn and put together without any kind of cement. The most wonderful of those groups is that of “The Thousand Temples.” They actually number two hundred and ninety-six, and are situated on a low, rectangular terrace, measuring five hundred and forty by five hundred and ten feet, in five rows, one within another; a large central building, on a second terrace, overlooks the whole. This was elaborately ornamented, and, before it began to decay, probably formed, with those around it, one of the most imposing temples ever reared in all the East. According to the traditions of the Javanese, these buildings were erected between A. D. 1266 and 1296.
These structures were doubtless planned and superintended by natives of India. They were dedicated to Hindu worship, and here the Brahmins and Buddhists appear to have forgotten their bitter hostility, and in some cases to have even worshipped in the same temple. The Indian origin of these works is further proved by images of the zebu, or humped ox, which have been found here and elsewhere in Java, but it does not now exist, and probably never did, in any part of the archipelago.
As two Malays rowed me rapidly along in a narrow, canoe-like boat, I watched the clouds gather and embrace the high head of Mount Prau. Only thin and fibrous cumuli covered the other lofty peaks, but a thick cloud wrapped itself around the crest of this mountain and many small ones gathered on its dark sides, which occasionally could be seen through the partings in its white fleecy shroud. The form of the whole was just that of the mountain, except at its top, where for a time the clouds rose like a gigantic, circular castle, the square openings in their dense mass exactly resembling the windows in such thick walls.
Eastward of Ungarung are seen the lofty summits of Merbabu and Mérapi, and east from the anchorage rises Mount Japara, forming, with the low lands at its feet, almost an island, on Java’s north coast.