Travels in the East Indian archipelago

by Albert S. Bickmore

The city of Padang is situated on a small plain, whence its name; padang in Malay, meaning an open field or plain. Its population numbers about twelve thousand, and is composed of emigrants from Nias, Java, some Chinese and Arabs, and their mestizo descendants, besides the natives and Dutch. The streets are well shaded and neat. Near the centre of the city is a large, beautiful lawn, on one side of which is the residence of the governor. On the opposite side is the Club-House, a large and well-proportioned building. On the south side is a small stream where the natives haul up their boats, and here the barges take in their cargoes. This part of the city is chiefly filled with the store-houses and offices of the merchants. In front of the governor’s residence is a large common. Two of its sides are occupied by private residences and the church, the roof of which has fallen in, and indeed the whole structure is in a most dilapidated condition compared to the rich Club-House on the other side of the green. Having landed and taken up my quarters at a hotel, I called on Governor Van den Bosche, who received me politely, and said that the inspector of posts, Mr. Theben Terville, whose duty it is not only to care for transporting the mails, but also to supervise and lay out the post-roads, had just arrived from Java, and must make an overland journey to Siboga, in order to examine a route that had been proposed for a post-road to that place.

He had promised the inspector, who was an old gentleman, the use of his “American,” a light four-wheeled carriage made in Boston. There was room for two in it, and he would propose to the inspector to take me with him, and further provide me with letters to the chief officials along the way; but as it would be two or three days before Mr. Terville, who was then in the interior, would be ready to start, he proposed that I should leave the hotel and make my home with him as long as I might remain in Padang. “Besides,” he added, “I have eight good carriage-horses in the stable, and I have so much writing to do that they are spoiling for want of exercise; now, if you will come, you can ride whenever you please.” So again I found myself in the full tide of fortune. It is scarcely necessary to add that I did not fail to avail myself of such a generous offer. In the evenings, when it became cool, the governor was accustomed to ride through the city, and occasionally out a short distance into the country. Our roads were usually shaded with tall trees, frequently with palms, and to fly along beneath them in a nice carriage, drawn by a span of fleet ponies, was a royal pleasure, and one never to be forgotten. One pleasant day we drove out a few miles to a large garden where the governor formerly resided. The palace had been taken down, but a fine garden and a richly-furnished bathing-house yet remain. The road out from Padang to this place led through a series of low rice-lands, and just then the young blades were six or eight inches high, and waved charmingly in the morning breeze. The road, for a long distance, was perfectly straight and bordered by large shade-trees. It was one of the finest avenues I ever saw. Here I was reminded of the region from which I had so lately come, the Spice Islands, by a small clove-tree, well filled with fruit. Much attention was formerly given here to the culture of the clove, but for some years raising coffee has proved the most profitable mode of employing native labor. There were also some fine animals in various parts of the garden, among which was a pair of the spotted deer, Axis maculata. Thus several days glided by, and the time for me to go up into the interior and meet the inspector came almost before I was aware of it.

February 21st, 1866.—At 8 A. M. we started from Padang for Fort de Kock, sixty miles from this city. A heavy shower during the night has purified the air, and we have a clear, cool, and in its fullest sense a lovely morning. This “American” is generally drawn by two horses, but the governor has had thills put on so that one may be used, for he says, between Fort de Kock, where the present post-road ends, and Siboga, a distance of about one hundred and ninety miles, by the crooked route that we must travel, that we shall find it difficult to get one horse for a part of the way. Behind the carriage a small seat is fastened where my footman sits or stands. His duty is to help change the horses at the various stations, which are about five miles apart. When the horses are harnessed his next duty is to get them started, which is by far the most difficult, for most of those we have used to-day have been trained for the saddle, and we have not dared to put on any breeching for fear of losing our fender, these brutes are so ready to use their heels, though fortunately we have not needed any hold-back but once or twice, and then, by having the footman act as hold-back himself with a long line, I have urged on the horse, and in every case we have come down to the bottom of the hill safely. With only a weak coolie tugging behind, of course I have not been able to make these wild horses resist the temptation to go down the hill at a trot, and, after running and holding back until he was out of breath, the coolie has always let go, generally when I was half-way down; nothing of course then remained to be done but to keep the horse galloping so fast that the carriage cannot run on to him, and by the time we have come to the bottom of the hill we have been moving at a break-neck rate, which has been the more solicitous for me, as I had never been on the road, and did not know what unexpected rocks or holes there would be found round the next sharp turn.

From Padang the road led to the northwest, over the low lands between the sea and the foot of the Barizan, or coast chain of mountains. In this low region we have crossed two large streams, which come down from these elevations on the right, and are now quite swollen from the recent rains. A long and large rattan is stretched across from one bank to the other, and a path made to slip over it is fastened to one end of a rude raft. This rattan prevents us from being swept down the boiling stream, while the natives push over the raft with long poles. I began to realize what an advantage it was to ride in the carriage of the Tuan Biza, or “Great Man,” as the Malays all call the governor. As soon as those on the opposite side of the stream saw the carriage they recognized it, and at once came over by holding on to the rattan with one hand and swimming with the other. In their struggles to hasten and kindly assist, several times the heads of a number of them were beneath the water when they came to the middle of the stream, where the current was strongest and the rattan very slack; but there was very little danger of their being drowned, for they are as amphibious as alligators. I had not been riding long over these low lands before I experienced a new and unexpected pleasure in beholding by the roadside numbers of beautiful tree-ferns, which, unlike their humbler representatives in our temperate regions, grow up into trees fifteen to eighteen feet high. They are interesting, not only on account of their graceful forms and limited distribution, but because they are the living representatives of a large family of trees that flourished during the coal period.

APPROACH TO THE “CLEFT,” NEAR PADANG.

As we proceeded, our road approached the base of the Barizan chain until we were quite near them, and then curved again around some spur that projected toward the sea-shore. Late in the afternoon we came to the opening of a broad, triangular valley, and beheld on our right, and near the head of the valley, the towering peak of Singalang, whose summit is nine thousand eight hundred and eighty feet above the sea. Large numbers of natives were seen here travelling in company, returning homeward from the market at Kayu Tanam, the next village. Their holiday dress here as elsewhere is a bright red. Beyond Kayu Tanam the road ran along the side of a deep ravine, having in fact been cut in the soft rock, a narrow wall of it being left on the outer side to prevent carriages from sliding off into the deep chasm. Suddenly, as we whirled round the sharp corners while dashing through this place, we came into a deep cañon extending to the right and left, called by the Dutch the Kloof, or “Cleft,” a very proper name, for it is a great cleft in the Barizan chain. Up this cleft has been built a road by which all the rich products of the Padangsche Bovenlanden, or “Padang plateau,” are brought down to the coast. Opposite to us was a torrent pouring over the perpendicular side of the cleft, which I judge to be about seventy-five feet in height. Where it curved over the side of the precipice it was confined, but, as soon as it began to fall, it spread out and came down, not in one continuous, unvarying sheet of water, but in a series of wavelets, until the whole resembled a huge comet trying, as it were, to escape from earth up to its proper place in the pure sky above it. On either side of this pulsating fall is a sheet of green vegetation, which has gained a foothold in every crevice and on every projecting ledge in the precipice. Behind the falling water there is a wall of black, volcanic rock, and at its foot is a mass of angular débris which has broken off from the cliff above. Now we turned sharply round to the north, and began ascending to the plateau. The cleft has not been formed in a straight but in a zigzag line, so that, in looking up or down, its sides seem to meet a short distance before you and prevent any farther advance in either direction; but, as you proceed, the road suddenly opens to the right or left, and thus the effect is never wearying. It resembles some of the dark cañons in our own country between the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada, except that while their dark sides are of naked rock, the sides of this ravine are covered with a dense growth of vines, shrubs, and large trees, according to the steepness of the acclivities. Here were many trees and shrubs with very brilliantly-colored leaves. The whole scenery is so grand that no description, or even photograph, could convey an accurate idea of its magnificence. For four miles we rode up and up this chasm, and at last came on to the edge of the plateau at the village of Padang Panjang. We were then more than two thousand four hundred feet above the plain, having ascended about two thousand feet in four miles. Here the inspector left word for me to wait a couple of days for him, as he was still away to the south. Heavy showers continued the next day, so that I had little opportunity of travelling far; besides, it was very cool after coming up from the low, hot land by the shore. There is almost always a current of air either up or down this cleft, and the warm air of the coast region is brought into contact with the cool air of the plateau, and condensation and precipitation seems to occur here more abundantly than at any other place in the vicinity, the number of rainy days numbering two hundred and five. This is no doubt due to the local causes already explained. The average temperature here is 49.28° Fahrenheit. In the cleft, at one or two places, are a few houses made by the people who have moved down from the plateau. They are placed on posts two or three feet above the ground. Their walls are low, only three or four feet high, and made of a rude kind of panel-work, and painted red. Large open places are left for windows, which allow any one passing to look in. There are no partitions and no chairs nor benches, and the natives squat down on the rough floor. It requires no careful scrutiny of these hovels to see that they are vastly more filthy than the bamboo huts of the Malays who live on the low land.

In all the villages I have passed to-day, both on the low land and here on the plateau, there is a pasar, or market, and, where they have been erected by the natives, they are the most remarkable buildings I have seen in the archipelago. They are perched upon posts like the houses. The ridge-pole, instead of being horizontal, curves up so high at each end, that the roof comes to have the form of a crescent with the horns pointing upward. Sometimes a shorter roof is placed in the middle of the longer, and then the two look like a small crescent within a large one. Long before Europeans came to this land these people were accustomed to meet to barter their products, and this was their only kind of internal commerce. The next morning I rode part way down the cleft to near the place where the post-horses are changed, and found a marble that was soft, but so crystalline as to contain no fossils. I understand, however, that Mr. Van Dijk, one of the government mining engineers, discovered some pieces of this limestone which had not been crystallized, and that he considered the species of corals seen in them to be entirely of the recent period. Limestone again appears in the cleft of Paningahan, a short distance to the south. The rocks with which it is interstratified are chloritic schists, that is, layers of clay changed into hard schists by the action of heat and pressure.

February 23d.—The inspector arrived this morning, and we set out together for Fort de Kock, about twelve miles distant. From Padang Panjang the road continues to rise to the crest of a ridge or col, which crossed our road in an easterly and westerly direction, and connects Mount Singalang with Mount Mérapi. This acclivity is very nicely terraced, and the water is retained in the little plats by dikes. When any excess is poured into the uppermost in the series, it runs over into those beneath it, and thus a constant supply of water is kept over all. On looking upward we saw only the vertical sides of the little terraces covered with turf, and, in looking down, only the rice-fields. Near the crest of the col we could look down the flanks of the Mérapi to Lake Sinkara away to the south. The earth here is a tenacious red clay formed by the decomposition of the underlying volcanic rocks and volcanic ashes and sand. These are arranged in layers which have an inclination nearly parallel to the surface. The layers of ashes and sand may have been partly formed in their present position by successive eruptions in the summits of the neighboring peaks, but those of clay show that the col has been elevated somewhat since they were formed. The height of this col is three thousand seven hundred feet, and this is the highest place crossed by the road from Padang to Siboga. We now began slowly to descend, passing wide, beautifully-cultivated sawas on either hand to Fort de Kock. Here on a pretty terrace is located the house of the Resident, who has command of the adjoining elevated lands, so famous in the history of this island as the kingdom of Menangkabau, whence the Malays originally migrated, whom we have found on the shores of all the islands we have visited, and who are very distinct from the aborigines of these islands, as we have particularly noticed at Buru.