[Sidenote: Bantong.]
[Sidenote: Javanese soirée.]
February 11th.—Bantong.—About 120 miles from Batavia, on a plain about 3,000 feet above the level of the sea. The weather comparatively cool, though this is the hot season. I have just (10 P.M.) returned from a Javanese soirée. The Regent (a sort of native lord- lieutenant) invited me to his house to see some dancing. This Regent is very rich, about £12,000 a year, which he receives from a tithe paid to him by all producers in his regency. The dancing was performed by four girls wearing strange helmet-shaped head-dresses, and garments of a close-fitting stiff character reaching to the ground. They swayed their bodies to and fro in a melancholy way to a very monotonous plaintive sort of music, but their chief art consisted in the wonderful success with which they twisted their arms and fingers. In a second dance they carried bows and arrows, and went through a kind of pantomimic fight. After this was over, as I had expressed a wish to see more of his house, I was taken across a court to another ground- floor room, and was startled by finding myself suddenly introduced to Madame la Régente, an odd little woman, with a wizened face, and mouth and teeth blackened by betel nut. I was rather put into a difficulty in finding conversation for her, for I did not know whether she would like being complimented on the ballet we had just seen. I then went to look at the musicians and their instruments, the latter consisting chiefly of coffee canes struck by a sort of gong-sticks. The sound at a distance was bell-like and not unpleasing. I was informed that the Regent had paid £500 for his set of instruments. After this I returned to my inn in my carriage. How I got to this place I shall tell later. I must now go to bed, as we start at 5 A.M. on an expedition to see an active crater.
[Sidenote: A crater.]
February 12th.—Six P.M.—We started nearly as early as was proposed. Two hours of carriage work along a road made heavy by rain, and about two hours more of riding up a steep mountain side, covered with tall trees sinking under a load of creepers and orchideous plants, not so wild and bold as the mountain scenery of Jamaica, but with somewhat of the same character. We ascended about 4,300 feet from our starting-point, so that when we reached our goal we were 6,500 feet above the sea. Our goal was a covered shed overlooking a crater, not in a very active state, but puffing sulphurous smoke from numerous chinks and chasms. Beyond this first crater was a second very similar to it; and beyond both, far below, the plain of Bantong, where we now are, lay green and smiling. We could not see a great extent of it, for the heavy clouds were already mustering for the rain which at this season falls always in the afternoon. (It is now pouring, with thunder and lightning.) But the scene was very striking, and the clouds added to the mystery. We returned through a quinine plantation, which is an experiment, and promises to be a successful one, and then through a coffee plantation, different, and much prettier to look at than those of Ceylon and Jamaica, for here the bushes are allowed to grow to their full height (about twenty feet), and have a graceful pyramid- like shape; whereas there they are all pruned down to about five feet in height. There are also here some large trees left to give shade to the coffee bushes. I can conceive nothing more lovely than these plantations must be at the time of flowering. We got back to our hotel at 2 P.M., since when I have had breakfast, hath, and reading, and am now preparing for dinner.
[Sidenote: A second soirée.]
Ten P.M.—Another Javanese soirée. No ladies this time. To begin with: two kinds of marionettes; the first behind a kind of crape screen,—strange figures cut very beautifully out of buffalo hide, and jumping about to a very noisy vocal and instrumental accompaniment. The second, something like Italian marionettes, worked by a man's fingers, but without any attempt to conceal the operator. Both sets, I believe, represented historical subjects. When we had had enough of these, we went into another room, where were assembled a priest, and a whole lot of followers from a mosque. The amusement here consisted in seeing boys from the mosque stick into their cheeks, &c., daggers and pointed weapons, which the priest blessed, and which were therefore innocuous; a milder specimen of the supernatural I certainly never witnessed. All took place at the Regent's palace, from which I have just returned. His son, a boy of about fourteen, was present to-night and last night. A rather nice-looking boy. He never came near his father without crouching on his heels or knees, and putting his hands up to his face in an attitude of submission, if spoken to by him.
[Sidenote: Chipana.]
February 13th.—Ten P.M.—Chipana.—(The place we slept at on the night of the 10th.) On this, as on the former occasion, the population make a sort of festival of my visit, and turn out to perform dances, &c. The performances are not so refined as at the Regent's, but they are more picturesque and lively. The ladies move about in the same dreamy way about lamps, or rather torches, but here they have partners to dance with them. The noise is tremendous, and has not yet ceased, although I have retired, on the understanding that the entertainment is to come to an end, as we again start to-morrow at 6 A.M. To-night, all the dancing has been in the open air. It was a wild, barbarous- looking scene; but I do not know that I should much care to see it again. We started this morning at six, and travelled, as we have always done, at full gallop on the level or down hill, and with the aid of four buffalos in front of our six ponies when we came to mount steep hills, of which there are many. The roads are excellent. They are made by forced labour, and, what seems rather hard, the natives with their carts, &c., are not allowed to use them. I found here a bath formed by a hot iron or sulphur spring, into which I plunged before dinner. These Javanese seem the most timorous of mankind. A11, men and women, crouch on their heels and knees when our carriage approaches; and they do this, I believe, to all white people, as well as to their own chiefs. But it is not only this crouching; they have, moreover (especially the women), a way of turning their heads aside, as if they were afraid to look at one. The natives of the eastern part of the island are said not to be so timid.
Starting from Chipana early on the following morning, they continued their rapid descent by Buitenzorg to Batavia; and on the 16th embarked again on board the 'Ferooz,' for Ceylon, where he expected to find an accumulation of four mails. 'Two months of news!' (he wrote). 'I always feel nervous as to what so long an interval may bring forth.'
[Sidenote: Strait of Sunda.]