A river, that rises in the mountains to the south, flows through the city and canal, and empties into the bay. Many bridges are thrown over this river and its branches, and beautiful shade-trees are planted along its banks.
All the houses in these Eastern lands are low, rarely more than one story, for fear of earthquakes, which, however, occur in this part of the island at long intervals. The walls are of bricks, or fragments of coral rock covered with layers of plaster. The roof is of tiles, or atap, a kind of thatching of palm-leaves. A common plan is, a house part parallel to the street, and behind this and at right angles to it an L or porch, the whole building being nearly in the form of a cross.
In front is a broad veranda, where the inmates sit in the cool evening and receive the calls of their friends. This opens into a front parlor, which, with a few sleeping-rooms, occupies the whole house part. The L, when there is one, usually has only a low wall around it, and a roof resting on pillars. It is therefore open on three sides to the air, unless shutters are placed between the pillars. This is usually the dining-room. Back of the house is a square, open area, enclosed on the remaining three sides by a row of low, shed-roofed houses. Here are extra bedrooms, servants’ quarters, cook-rooms, bath-rooms, and stables. Within this area is usually a well, surrounded with shade-trees. The water from this well is poured into a thick urn-shaped vessel of coral rock, and slowly filters through into an earthen pot beneath; it is then cooled with ice from our own New-England ponds. Thus the cold of our temperate zone is made to allay the heat of the tropics. Several shiploads of ice come from Boston to this port every year. At Surabaya and Singapore large quantities are manufactured, but it is as soft as ice in ice-cream. When one is accustomed to drinking ice-water, there is no danger of any ill effect; but, on returning from the eastern part of the archipelago where they never have ice, to Surabaya, I suffered severely for a time, and, as I believe, from no other cause. In the frequent cases of fever in the East it is a luxury, and indeed a medicine, which can only be appreciated by one who has himself endured that indescribable burning.
The cook-room, as already noticed, is some distance from the dining-room, but this inconvenience is of little importance in those hot lands. The Malays are the only cooks, and I do not think that cooking as an art is carried to the highest perfection in that part of the world, though I must add, that I soon became quite partial to many of their dishes, which are especially adapted for that climate. The kitchen is not provided with stoves or cooking-ranges, as in the Western world, but on one side of the room there is a raised platform, and on this is a series of small arches, which answer the same purpose. Fires are made in these arches with small pieces of wood, and the food is therefore more commonly fried or boiled, than baked. There is no chimney, and the smoke, after filling the room, finally escapes through a place in the roof which is slightly raised above the parts around it.
As I am often questioned about the mode of living in the East, I may add that always once a day, and generally for dinner, rice and curry appear, and to these are added, for dinner, potatoes, fried and boiled; steak, fried and broiled; fried bananas (the choicest of all delicacies), various kinds of greens, and many sorts of pickles and sambal, or vegetables mixed with red peppers. The next course is salad, and then are brought on bananas of three or four kinds, at all seasons; and, at certain times, oranges, pompelmuses, mangoes, mangostins, and rambutans; and as this is but such a bill of fare as every man of moderate means expects to provide, the people of the West can see that their friends in the East, as well as themselves, believe in the motto, “Carpe diem.” A cigar, or pipe, and a small glass of gin, are generally regarded as indispensable things to perfect happiness by my good Dutch friends, and they all seemed to wonder that I could be a traveller and never touch either. It is generally supposed, in Europe and America, that housekeepers here, in the East, have little care or vexation, where every family employs so many servants; but, on the contrary, their troubles seem to multiply in direct ratio to the number of servants employed. No servant there will do more than one thing. If engaged as a nurse, it is only to care for one child; if as a groom, it is only to care for one horse, or, at most, one span of horses; and as all these Malays are bent on doing every thing in the easiest way, it is almost as much trouble to watch them as to do their work.
JAVANESE AND FAMILY.
The total population of the Residency of Batavia is 517,762. Of these, 5,576 are Europeans; 47,570 Chinese; 463,591 native; 684 Arabs; and 341 of other Eastern nations.
All the natives are remarkably short in stature, the male sex averaging not more than five feet three inches in height, or four inches less than that of Europeans. The face is somewhat lozenge-shaped, the cheekbones high and prominent, the mouth wide, and the nose short—not flat as in the negroes, or prominent as in Europeans. They are generally of a mild disposition, except the wild tribes in the mountainous parts of Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, Timor, Ceram, and a few other large islands. The coast people are invariably hospitable and trustworthy. They are usually quiet, and extremely indolent. They all have an insatiable passion for gambling, which no restrictive or prohibitory laws can eradicate.
They are nominally Mohammedans, but have none of the fanaticism of that sect in Arabia. They still retain many of their previous Hindu notions, and their belief may be properly defined as a mixture of Hinduism and Mohammedanism. A few are “Christians,” that is, they attend the service of the Dutch Church, and do not shave their heads or file their teeth. They are cleanly in their habits, and scores of all ages may be seen in the rivers and canals of every city and village, especially in the morning and evening. The sarong, their universal dress, is peculiarly fitted for this habit. When they have finished their baths, a dry one is drawn on over the head, and the wet one is slipped off beneath without exposing the person in the least. The females wear the sarong long, and generally twist it tightly round the body, just under the arms. Occasionally it is made with sleeves, like a loose gown. A close-fitting jacket or baju is worn with it.