But alas! for day-dreaming—the gruff authoritative voice of the quartermaster was heard on deck; and—after the manner of goblins at the approach of the Philistine—all the little brownies vanished. They were gone in an instant: and, in their pretty stead, came porters, cabin-stewards with trunks, and passengers in very new clothes. For we were fast approaching; and, presently, with a big sigh of relief, the steamer lay still, and we trod the quay of Tanjong Priok.
It would seem as if the first half hour of arrival must be the same everywhere, all the world over; but here, even in the initial scramble for the train, one notices a difference. There is a crowd; and there is no noise. No scuffling and stamping, no cries, no shouting, no gruff-voiced altercations. All but inaudibly the barefooted coolies trot on, big steamer-trunks on their shoulders; they do not hustle, each patiently awaiting his turn at the office and on the platform; and, as they stand aside for some hurrying, pushing European, their else impassible faces assume a look of almost contemptuous amazement. Why should the "orang blanda"[A] thus discourteously jostle them? Are there not many hours in a day, and many days to come after this? And do they not know that "Haste cometh of the evil?"
The train has started at last, and is hurrying through a wild, dreary country, half jungle, half marshland. From the rank undergrowth of brushwood and bulrushes rise clumps of cocoanut palms, their dark shaggy crowns strangely massive above the meagre stems through which the distant horizon gleams palely. In open spaces young trees stand out here and there, half strangled in the festoons of a purple-blossomed liana that trails its tendrilled length all over the lower shrub-wood. Thickets of bamboo bend and sway in the evening wind.
To the right stretches a long straight canal, dull as lead under the lustreless sky; the breeze, in passing, blackens the motionless water, and a shiver runs through the dense vegetation along the edge—broad-leaved bananas, the spreading fronds of the palmetto, and mimosas of feathery leafage, above which the silver-grey tufts of bulrushes rise. After a while the jungle diminishes and ceases; and a vast reach of marshy country stretches away to the horizon. We neared it as the sun was setting. Though it had not broken through the clouds, the fiery globe had suffused their whiteness with a deep, dull purple as of smouldering flames. A tremulous splendour suddenly shot over the rush-beds and rank waving grasses of the marshy land; the shining reed-pricked sheets of water crimsoned; and along the canal moving like an incandescent lava stream, the broadly curving banana leaves seemed fountains of purple light, and the palmetto and delicate mimosa fronds grew transparent in the all-pervading rosiness—almost immaterial. Even after the burning edge of the sun, perceived for a brief moment, had sunk away, these marvellous colours did not fade; softly shining on they seemed to be the natural tint of this wonderful land—independent of suns and seasons. Then, all at once, they were extinguished by the rapidly-fallen dusk, as a fire might be under a shower of ashes; and, a few minutes after, it was night.
At the lamplit station of Batavia I hailed one of the vehicles waiting outside—a curious little two-wheeled conveyance, which, with its enormous lanterns, airily supported roof, and long shafts between which a diminutive pony trotted, looked like a fiery-eyed cockchafer that darts about, moving its long antennae. I hoisted myself on to the sloping seat, and, for some time was driven through an avenue, the trees on either side of which made a cloudy darkness against the pale strip of sky overhead. There was an incessant high-pitched twittering of birds among the leaves; and, every now and then, a fragrance of invisible flowers came floating out on the windless air. We passed a tall building, shimmering white through the darkness—the Governor-General's palace I was told. Then the horse's hoofs clattered over a bridge, and, past the turn of the road, a long row of brilliant windows flashed up, with a white blaze of electric light in the distance.
Past the resplendent shop-windows on the left side of the street—the other remaining dark, featureless—a leisurely crowd moved; open carriages, bearing ladies to some evening entertainment, bowled along; a many-windowed club-building blazed out; a canal shone with a hundred slender spears of reflected light—I had reached my destination, the suburb of Rijswijk.
[A] "People from Holland" the name for Europeans generally.
