PAINTING SARONGS.
Peddlers bring to one’s doorway fine Bantam basketry and bales of the native cotton cloth, or battek, patterned in curious designs that have been in use from time out of mind. These native art fabrics are sold at the passers also, and one soon recognizes the conventional designs, and distinguishes the qualities and merits of these hand-patterned cottons that constitute the native dress. The sarong, or skirt, worn by men and women alike, is a strip of cotton two yards long and one yard deep, which is drawn tightly around the hips, the fullness gathered in front, and by an adroit twist made so firm that a belt is not necessary to native wearers. The sarong has always one formal panel design, which is worn at the front or side, and the rest of the surface is covered with the intricate ornaments in which native fancy runs riot. There are geometrical and line combinations, in which appear the swastika and the curious latticings of central Asia; others are as bold and natural as anything Japanese; and in others still, the palm-leaves and quaint animal forms of India and Persia attest the rival art influences that have swept over these refined, adaptive, assimilative people. One favorite serpentine pattern running in diagonal lines does not need explanation in this land of gigantic worms and writhing crawlers; nor that other pattern where centipedes and insect forms cover the ground; nor that where the fronds of cocoa-palm wave, and the strange shapes of mangos, jacks, and breadfruit are interwoven. The deer and tapir, and the “hunting-scene” patterns are reserved for native royalty’s exclusive wear. In village and wayside cottages up-country we afterward watched men and women painting these cloths, tracing a first outline in a rich brown waxy dye, which is the foundation and dominant color in all these batteks. The parts which are to be left white are covered with wax, and the cloth is dipped in or brushed over with the dye. This resist, or mordant, must be applied for each color, and the wax afterwards steamed out in hot water, so that a sarong goes through many processes and handlings, and is often the work of weeks. The dyes are applied hot through a little tin funnel of an implement tapering down to a thin point, which is used like a painter’s brush, but will give the fine line- and dot-work of a pen-and-ink drawing. The sarong’s value depends upon the fineness of the drawing, the elaborateness of the design, and the number of colors employed; and beginning as low as one dollar, these brilliant cottons, or hand-painted calico sarongs, increase in price to even twenty or thirty dollars. The Dutch ladies vie with one another in their sarongs as much as native women, and their dishabille dress of the early hours has not always economy to recommend it. The battek also appears in the slandang, or long shoulder-scarf, which used to match the sarong and complete the native costume when passed under the arms and crossed at the back, thus covering the body from the armpits to the waist. It is still worn knotted over the mother’s shoulder as a sling or hammock for a child; but Dutch fashion has imposed the same narrow, tight-sleeved kabaia, the baju, or jacket, that Dutch women wear with the sarong. The kam kapala, a square handkerchief tied around men’s heads as a variant of the turban, is of the same figured battek, and, with the slandang, often exhibits charming color combinations and intricate Persian designs. When one conquers his prejudices and associated ideas enough to pay seemingly fancy prices for these examples of free-hand calico printing, the taste grows, and he soon shares the native longing for a sarong of every standard and novel design.
The native silversmiths hammer out good designs in silver relief for betel- and tobacco-boxes, and exhibit great taste and invention in belt- and jacket-clasps, and in heavy knobs of hairpins and ear-rings, that are often made of gold and incrusted over with gems for richer folk.
There are no historic spots nor show-places of native creation in Batavia; no kratons, or aloon-aloons, as their palaces and courtyards are called; and only a sentimental interest for a virtual exile pining in his own country is attached to the villa of Raden Saleh. This son of the regent of Samarang was educated in Europe, and lived there for twenty-three years, developing decided talents as an artist, and enjoying the friendship of many men of rank and genius on the Continent, among the latter being Eugène Sue, who is said to have taken Raden Saleh as model for the Eastern Prince in “The Wandering Jew.” In Java he found himself sadly isolated from his own people by his European tastes and habits; and he had little in common with the coarse, rapacious mynheers whose sole thoughts were of crops and gulden. “Coffee and sugar, sugar and coffee, are all that is talked here. It is a dreary atmosphere for an artist,” said Raden Saleh to D’Almeida, who visited him at Batavia sixty odd years ago. He has left a monument of his taste in this charming villa, in a park whose land is now a vegetable-patch, its shady pleasance a beer-garden and exposition-ground, and the sign “Tu Huur” (“To Hire”) hung from the royal entrance. The exposition of arts and industries in these grounds in 1893 was a great event in Java, the governor-general Van der Wyk opening and closing the fair by electric signal, and the natives making a particularly interesting display of their products and crafts.
V
TO THE HILLS
One’s most earnest desire, in the scorch of Batavian noondays and stifling Batavian nights, is to seek refuge in “the hills”—in the dark-green groves and forests of the Blue Mountains, that are ranged with such admirable effect as background when one steams in from the Java Sea. At Buitenzorg, only forty miles away and seven hundred and fifty feet above the sea, heat-worn people find refuge in an entirely different climate, an atmosphere of bracing clearness tempered to moderate summer’s warmth. Buitenzorg (“without care”), the Dutch Sans Souci, has been a general refuge and sanitarium for Europeans, the real seat of government, and the home of the governor-general for more than a century. It is the pride and show-place of Java, the great center of its social life, leisure interests, and attractions. The higher officials and many Batavian merchants and bankers have homes at Buitenzorg, and residents from other parts of the island make it their place of recreation and goal of holiday trips.