Carriers walking by the side of their lumbering, bullock-drawn "pedati," which creaks so leisurely along the sun-scorched roads; labourers on their way to the rice fields, the light wooden ploughshare across their shoulders, driving the patient yoke of oxen before them; women from the hill-villages around, who come to the Bogor market in holiday attire, a chaplet of jessamine blossoms twisted into their "kondeh"—all turn aside from the road, to murmur a short prayer, and offer a handful of flowers, of frankincense and yellow boreh unguent, or even Chinese joss-sticks and small paper lanterns on the consecrated spot. Whether this be an act of homage to those ancient kings and heroes, whose rude effigies adorn the stones, and whose spirits are believed still to haunt the spot; or simply a fetishistic adoration of these blocks of granite and the curious signs engraved thereon, it is difficult to decide; the worshippers themselves hardly seem to know. When asked, they reply that they do as their fathers did before them, and so, therefore, must be right; unless, indeed, they merely smile, and offer the somewhat irrelevant remark that they are true Moslemin. This, indeed, every native of Java (save such few as have been converted to the Christian religion) professes himself to be. And, in a measure, the Javanese are Mohammedans; they recite the Mohammedan prayers and Confession of Faith, go to the Messigit—which is Javanese for mosque—when it suits them, keep the Ramadan very strictly; also, if they can afford it, they perform that most sacred duty of the Mohammedan, the Mecca pilgrimage, and, returning thence, live for ever on the purses of their admiring co-religionists. But for the rest, one may apply to them Napoleon's dictum concerning the Russians—mutatis mutandis. Scratch the Muslim, and you will find the Hindoo; scratch the Hindoo, and you will find the fetish-adoring Pagan. In the same way, too, as they confuse religious beliefs, they distort historical facts and traditions so as to make them tally with the prevalent opinions of the day. This Batu Tulis, for instance; though they venerate it as a record of the Hindoo empire, they yet, at the same time, honour it as a monument of the Mohammedan conquest. According to them, these roughly-fashioned stones, of which, they say, there are over eight hundred dispersed throughout the neighbourhood, are the transformed shapes of Siliwangi, last King of Padjadjaran, and his followers, who, in this spot, their last refuge on flight from the victorious Muslim hosts, were turned into stones by Tuan Allah, as a punishment for their persistent refusal to embrace El-Islam; and the superscription celebrating the Hindoo prince they make out to be the record of this miracle. A touch of romance clings to the grim legend like a tender-petalled flower to a rock. It concerns the impress of a foot, visible on one of the slabs, and a fair princess who left it there, many centuries ago. Alone of all that multitude that fled with Siliwangi, she, the consort of valiant Poerwakali, his son, escaped the general doom, through the influence of an Arab priest who had converted her to the true religion. She could not, however save her husband, whom, before her very eyes, she saw turned into a stone. But, in her faithful heart, love could not die, though the loved one was dead. The victor, vanquished in his turn by her incomparable beauty, implored her in vain. She would not be separated from her husband's inanimate shape, and, building herself a little hut under the waringin trees, she still, day by day, repaired to the stone, which bore Poerwakali's semblance, with sacrifices and prayers, and tears. And, often, in a transport of love and grief, she would throw her arms about the inert mass, closely embracing it, and, into its deaf ear, murmur soft words, and vows of eternal loyalty, and bitter-sweet memories of the days that were no more. Her tears, still flowing, fell on the stone underfoot, day by day, month by month, year by year, until at last it became soft and yielding as clay, and received and retained the impress of those tender feet, which for so long had known no other resting place.
Bamboo bridge near Batu Tulis.
Bamboo bridge across the Tji-taroon.
Bamboo bridge across the Tji-taroon.
From these memories of an empire overthrown, a religion smitten with the edge of the sword, and a love stronger than death—"old unhappy far off things and battles long ago"—suggested by Batu Tulis, to the gaiety of the Buitenzorg races is a wide step. But our modern souls have grown accustomed to these sudden transitions. In Java, more than in any other country, one must be prepared at any moment to pass from the fairy lands forlorn of history, to contemporary Philistia. Let me hasten to add, in justice, that I found that high festival of Philistinism in Java, the Buitenzorg races, both amusing and full of interest. The crowded Stands gave one an "impression d'ensemble" of society in the colony, such as would be expected in vain on any other occasion—formal functionaries and business men from the hot towns with their exquisitely dressed, palefaced wives and daughters, mingling with sunburnt planters from the interior, and rosy-cheeked girls from the neighbouring hill-stations, in white muslin frocks, brightened up by flowers such as those grown at home. And the spectacle of the races, exciting in itself, is rendered the more interesting by the changes and transformations which an essentially northern sport has suffered under the sun of the tropics—by the substitution of Sandalwood and Battak ponies for horses, of native syces, who clutch the stirrup with bare toes, for jockeys, and of silent multitudes brightly garbed, for the black-coated crowds that shout and huzza at Epsom or Longchamps.
[A] Buitenzorg, literally translated, means "away from sorrow or care."
