Travels in the East Indian archipelago

by Albert S. Bickmore

When the mountain could be ascended, a great valley was found, which Dr. Junghuhn considers analogous to the “Val del Bove” on the flanks of Ætna, except that a great depression among these movable materials could not have such high, precipitous walls as are seen in that deep gulf. This eruption was quite like that of Papandayang, except that there was a lake in the bottom of this crater which supplied the hot water and the mud, while all the materials thrown out by the former volcano were in a dry state. In a similar way it is supposed the great crater and the “Sandy Sea” of the Tenger Mountains were formed in ancient times. On these Tenger Mountains live a peculiar people, who speak a dialect of the Javanese, and, despite the zealous efforts of the Mohammedan priests, still retain their ancient Hindu religion.

In the evening, fires appeared on the hills near the sea. This was the last we saw of Java, which, though but one-sixth of the area of Borneo, and one-third that of Sumatra, is by far the most important island in the archipelago. It is to the East Indies what Cuba is to the West Indies. In each there is a great central chain of mountains. Both shores of Cuba are opposite small bodies of water, and are continuously low and swampy for miles, but in Java only the north coast borders on a small sea. This shore is low, but the southern coast, on the margin of the wide Indian Ocean that stretches away to the Antarctic lands, is high and bold, an exception which is in accordance with the rule that the higher elevations are opposite the greater oceans, or, more properly, that they stand along the borders of the ocean-beds or greatest depressions on the surface of our globe. In Java, where the coast is rocky, the rocks are hard volcanic basalts and trachytes, which resist the action of the sea, and the shore-line is therefore quite regular; but in Cuba there is a fringing of soft coral rock, which the waves quickly wear away into hundreds of little projecting headlands and bays, and on the map the island has a ragged border. In its geological structure, Cuba, with its central axis of mica slates, granitic rocks, serpentines, and marbles, has a more perfect analogue in Sumatra; for in Java the mountains, instead of being formed by elevations of preëxisting strata, are merely heaps of scoriæ, ashes, sand, and rock, once fluid, which have all been ejected out of separate and distinct vents. The area of Java is estimated at 38,250 square geographical miles; that of Cuba at about 45,000. The length of Java is 575 geographical or 666 statute miles; that of Cuba 750 statute miles. But while the total population of Cuba is estimated only at a million and a half, the total population of Java and Madura is now (1865), according to official statements, 13,917,368.[11] In 1755, after fifteen years of civil war, the total population of Java and Madura was but 2,001,911. In a single century, therefore, it has increased more than sixfold. This is one of the beneficial effects of a government that can put down rebellions and all internal wars, and encourage industry. In Cuba, of a total area of thirty million acres, it was estimated, in 1857, that only 48,572 were under cultivation, or, including pasturage, 218,161 acres. In Java and Madura, last year (1864), the cultivated fields and the groves of cocoa-nut palms covered an area of 2,437,037 acres. In Cuba, from 1853 to 1858, the yearly exports were from 27,000,000 to 32,000,000 of dollars, and the imports of about the same value. In Java, last year, the imports amounted to 66,846,412 guilders (26,738,565 dollars); and the exports to the enormous sum of 123,094,798 guilders (49,237,919 dollars). During 1864 twenty-four ships arrived from the United States, of 12,610 tons’ capacity, and three sailed for our country, of a united capacity of 2,258 tons.[12]

Both of these great islands abound in forests, that yield large quantities of valuable timber. Java furnishes the indestructible teak, from which the Malays and Javanese fitted out a fleet of three hundred vessels that besieged Malacca, two years after it had fallen into the hands of the Portuguese. In like manner the Spaniards, between 1724 and 1796, built with timber from the forests of Cuba an armada that numbered one hundred and fourteen vessels, carrying more than four thousand guns. From the Cuban forests come the indestructible lignum-vitæ, and the beautiful mahogany. Those jungles shelter no wild animals larger than dogs, but these in Java are the haunts of wild oxen, tigers, one large and two small species of leopard, the rhinoceros, two wild species of hog, and five species of weasel. Two of the latter yield musk; and one, the Viverra musanga, of the size of a cat, is also found in the Philippines. Six species of deer are found on this island, and two of them, the Cervus rufa and Cervus mantjac, are sometimes domesticated.[13] The elephant is not found in Java, though it lives in Sumatra, Borneo, and the peninsula. Also the wild horse of Sumatra or Celebes does not exist in Java.

Among the more noticeable birds of Java is a beautiful species of peacock, the Pavo spicifer. It was represented to me as quite abundant in some places along the south coast. The natives make very beautiful cigar-holders from fine strips of its quills. In Sumatra it is not found, but is represented by an allied species. Of pigeons, Java has no less than ten species. The web-footed birds are remarkably few in species and numbers. A single duck, a teal, and two pelicans, are said to comprise the whole number. The white heron has already been noticed, and besides this, ten other species have been described. One of the smallest birds in Java, and yet, perhaps, the most important, from its great numbers, is the rice-eater, Fringilla oryzivora, a kind of sparrow. Great flocks of these birds are continually annoying the Malays as soon as the rice is nearly grown. The natives have a very simple and effective mode of driving them away. In the midst of a field a little bamboo house, sufficient to shelter its occupant from the rain and scorching sunshine, is perched high up on poles above the rice-stalks. Around each field are placed rows of tall, flexible stakes, which are connected together by a string. Many radiating lines of such stakes extend from the house to those along the borders, and the child or old person on watch has simply to pull any set of these lines in order to frighten away the birds from any part of the field. There are seven species of owls, and when the hooting of one is heard near any house, many of the natives believe that sickness or some other misfortune will certainly come to the inmates of that dwelling. Of eagles and falcons, or kites, eight species are mentioned. One of the kites is very abundant at all the anchorages, and so tame as to light on the rigging of a ship quite near where the sailors are working. When it has caught any offal in its long talons, it does not fly away at once to a perch to consume the delicious morsel at its leisure, like many birds of prey, but is so extremely greedy that it tears off pieces with its beak and swallows them as it slowly sails along in the air.

When we begin to examine the luxuriant flora of these tropical islands, almost the first tree that we notice by the shore is the tall, graceful cocoa-nut palm. Occasionally it is found in small clumps, far from the abode of man, for instead of being reared by his care, it often comes to maturity alone, and then invites him to take up his abode beneath its shade, by offering him at the same time its fruit for food, and its leaves as ample thatching for the only kind of a hut which he thinks he needs in an unchanging, tropical climate.

As it stands along the shore, it invariably inclines toward its parent, the sea, for borne on the waves came the nut from which it sprang, and now fully grown, it seeks to make a due return to its ancestor by leaning over the shore and dropping into the ocean’s bosom rich clusters of its golden fruit. Here, buoyed up by a thick husk which is covered with a water-tight skin, the living kernel safely floats over the calm and the stormy sea, until some friendly wave casts it high up on a distant beach. The hot sun then quickly enables it to thrust out its rootlets into the genial soil of coral sand and fragments of shells, and in a few years it too is seen tossing its crest of plumes high over the white surf, which in these sunny climes everywhere forms the margin of the deep-blue ocean.

When the nut is young, the shell is soft and not separate from the husk. In a short time it turns from a pale green to a light yellow. The shell is now formed, and on its inner side is a thin layer, so soft that it can be cut with a spoon. The natives now call it klapa muda, or the young cocoa-nut, and they rarely eat it except in this condition. As it grows older, the exterior becomes of a wood-color, the husk is dry, and the shell hard and surrounded on the inside with a thick, tough, oily, and most indigestible layer, popularly known as “the meat” of the nut. This is the condition in which it is brought to our markets, but the Malays seldom or never think of eating it in this condition, and only value it for its oil. To obtain this the nut is broken, and the meat scraped out with a knife. This pulp is then boiled in a large pan, when the oil separates, floats on the top, and is skimmed off. This oil is almost the only substance used for lighting in the East, where far more lights are kept burning, in proportion to the foreign population, than in our own temperate zone, notwithstanding our long winter evenings, it being the custom there for each man to light his house and veranda very brilliantly every evening; and, if it is a festive occasion, rows of lamps must be placed throughout his grounds.

The natives also are fond of such display. The common lamp which they have for burning cocoa-nut oil is nothing but a glass tumbler. This is partly filled with water, a small quantity of oil is then poured in, and on this float two small splints that support a piece of pith in a vertical position for a wick. When the oil is first made, it has a sweet, rich taste, but in such a hot climate it soon becomes extremely rancid, and that used for cooking should not be more than two or three days old. The cool, clear water which the young nuts contain is a most refreshing drink in those hot climates, far preferable, according to my taste, to the warm, muddy water usually found in all low lands within the tropics. Especially can one appreciate it when, exposed to the burning sun on a low coral island, he longs for a single draught from the cold sparkling streams among his native New-England hills. He looks around him and realizes that he is surrounded by the salt waters of the ocean—then one of his dark attendants, divining his desire, climbs the smooth trunk of a lofty palm, and brings down, apparently from the sky, a nectar delicious enough for the gods.

This tree is of such importance to the natives that the Dutch officials are required to ascertain as nearly as possible the number of them in their several districts. In 1861 there were in Java and Madura nearly twenty millions of these trees, or more than three to every two natives.

Near the cocoa-nut grows the Pandanus, or “screw-pine,” which may be correctly described as a trunk with branches at both ends. There are two species of it widely distributed over the archipelago. The flowers of one, the P. odoratissimus, are very fragrant and highly prized among the Malays. In some places mats and baskets are made from its leaves. Its woody fruit is of a spherical form, from four to six inches in diameter, and its surface is divided with geometrical precision by projections of a pointed pyramidal or diamond shape.