Upon that advice we proceeded on our journey, crossed the Preangers, saw the plain of Leles, and made our brief visit to Tissak Malaya. We rode for a long, hot day across the swamps and low-lying jungles of the terra ingrata of Middle Java, and just before sunset we reached Djokjakarta, a provincial capital, where the native sultan resides in great state, but poor imitation of independent rulership. We had tea served us under the great portico of the Hotel Toegoe, our every movement followed by the uncivilized piazza stare of some Dutch residents—that gaze of the summer hotel that has no geographic or racial limit, which even occurs on the American littoral, and in Java has a fixedness born of stolid Dutch ancestry, and an intensity due to the tropical fervor of the thermometer, that put it far beyond all other species of unwinking scrutiny. The bovine, ruminant gaze of those stout women, continued and continued past all provincial-colonial curiosity as to the cut and stuff of our gowns, drove us to the garden paths, already twinkling with fireflies. The landlord joined us there, and strolled with us out to the street and along a line of torch-lighted booths and shops, where native products and native life were most picturesquely presented. Our landlord made himself very agreeable in explaining it all, walked on as far as the gates of the sultan’s palace, plying us with the most point-blank personal questions, our whence, whither, why, for how long, etc.; but we did not mind that in a land of stares and interrogative English. He showed us the carriage we could have for the next day’s twenty-five-mile drive to Boro Boedor—“if you go,” with quite unnecessary emphasis on the phrase of doubt. He finally brought us back to the portico, disappeared for a time, and returning, said: “Ladies, the assistant resident wishes to meet you. Will you come this way?” And the courteous one conducted us through lofty halls and porticos to his own half-office parlor, all of us pleased at this unexpected attention from the provincial official.
A tall, grim, severe man in the dark cloth clothes of ceremony, with uniform buttons, waved a semi-military cap, and said curtly: “Ladies, it is my duty to inform you that you have no permission to visit Djokja.”
It took some repetitions for us to get the whole sensation of the heavens suddenly falling on us, to learn that a telegram had come from official headquarters at Buitenzorg to warn him that three American ladies would arrive that afternoon, without passports, to visit Djokja.
“Certainly not, because those Buitenzorg officials told us not to wait for the passports—that they would mail them after us.” Then ensued the most farcical scene, a grand burlesque rendering of the act of apprehending criminals, or rather political suspects. The assistant resident tried to maintain the stern, judicial manner of a police-court magistrate, cross-examining us as closely as if it were testimony in a murder trial we were giving, and was not at all inclined to admit that there could be any mistake in the elaborately perfect system of Dutch colonial government. Magnificently he told us that we could not remain in Djokja, and we assured him that we had no wish to do so, that we were leaving for Boro Boedor in the morning. The Pickwickian message from Buitenzorg had not given any instructions. It merely related that we should arrive. We had arrived, and the assistant resident evidently did not know just what to do next. At any rate, he intended that we should stand in awe of him and the government of Netherlands India. He “supposed” that it was intended that we should be sent straight back to Buitenzorg. We demurred, in fact refused—the two inflammable, impolitic ones of us, who paid no heed to the gentle, gray-haired elder member of our party, who was all resignation and humility before the terrible official. We produced our United States passports, and quite as much as told him that he and the noble army of Dutch officials might finish the discussion with the American consul; we had other affairs, and were bound for Boro Boedor. He waved the United States passports aside, curtly said they were of “no account,” examined the letters of credit with a shade more of interest, and gave his whole attention to my “Smithsonian passport,” or general letter “to all friends of science.” That beautifully written document, with its measured phrases, many polysyllabic words in capital letters, and the big gold seal of Saint-Gaudens’s designing, worked a spell; and after slowly reading all the commendatory sentences of that great American institution “for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men,” he read it again:
“Hum-m-m! Hum-m-m! The Smithsonian Institution of Washington—National Geographic Society—scientific observation and study—anthropology—photography—G. Brown Goode, acting secretary! Ah, ladies, since you have such credentials as this,”—evidently the Smithsonian Institution has better standing abroad than the Department of State, and G. Brown Goode, acting secretary of the one, was a better name to conjure with away from home than Walter Q. Gresham, actual secretary of the other,—“since you come so highly commended to us, I will allow you to proceed to Boro Boedor, and remain there while I report to Buitenzorg and ask for instructions. You will go to Boro Boedor as early as possible in the morning,” he commanded, and then asked, “How long had you intended to remain there?”
“That depends. If it is comfortable, and the rains keep off, we may stay several days. If not, we return to-morrow evening.”
“No, no, no!” he cried in alarm; “you must stay there at Boro Boedor. You have no permission to visit Djokja, and I cannot let you stay in my residency. You must stay at Boro Boedor or go back to Buitenzorg.”
To be ordered off to the Buddhist shrine at sunrise put the pilgrimage in quite another light; to be sentenced to Nirvana by a local magistrate in brass buttons was not like arriving there by slow stages—meditation and reincarnation; but as the assistant resident seemed to be on the point of repenting his clemency, we acquiesced, and the great man and his minions drove away, the bearer of the pajong, or official umbrella of his rank, testifying to the formal character of the visit he had been paying. The landlord mopped his brow, sighed, and looked like one who had survived great perils; and we then saw that his sightseeing stroll down the street with us had been a ruse, a little clever scouting, a preliminary reconnaissance for the benefit of the puzzled magistrate.
We left Djokja at sunrise, with enthusiasm somewhat dampened from former anticipations of that twenty-five-mile drive to Boro Boedor, “the aged thing” in the Boro district of Kedu Residency, or Bára Budha, “Great Buddha.” We had expected to realize a little of the pleasure of travel during the barely ended posting days on this garden island, networked over with smooth park drives all shaded with tamarind-, kanari-, teak-, and waringen-trees, and it proved a half-day of the greatest interest and enjoyment. Our canopied carriage was drawn by four little rats of ponies, driven by a serious old coachman in a gay sarong and military jacket, with a huge lacquered vizor or crownless hat tied on over his battek turban, like a student’s exaggerated eye-shade. This gave the shadow of great dignity and owlish wisdom to his wrinkled face, ornamented by a mustache as sparsely and symmetrically planted as walrus whiskers. He held the reins and said nothing. When there was anything to do, the running footman did it—a lithe little creature who clung to a rear step, and took to his heels every few minutes to crack the whip over the ponies’ heads, and with a frenzied “Gree! G-r-r-ee! Gr-r-r-e-e-e!” urge the mites to a more breakneck gallop in harness. He steered them by the traces as he galloped beside them, guided them over bridges, around corners, past other vehicles, and through crowds, while the driver held the reins and chewed betel tobacco in unconcerned state. We rocked and rolled through beautiful arched avenues, with this bare-legged boy in gay petticoat “gr-r-ree-ing” us along like mad, people scattering aside like frightened chickens, and kneeling as we passed by. The way was fenced and hedged and finished, to each blade of grass, like some aristocratic suburb of a great capital, an endless park, or continuous estate, where fancy farming and landscape-gardening had gone their most extravagant lengths. There was not a neglected acre on either side for all the twenty-five miles; every field was cultivated like a tulip-bed; every plant was as green and perfect as if entered in a horticultural show. Streams, ravines, and ditches were solidly bridged, each with its white cement parapet and smooth concrete flooring, and each numbered and marked with Dutch preciseness; and along every bit of the road were posted the names of the kampongs and estates charged to maintain the highway in its perfect condition. Telegraph- and telephone-wires were strung on the rigid arms of cotton-trees, and giant creepers wove solid fences as they were trained from tree-trunk to tree-trunk—the tropics tamed, combed, and curbed, hitched to the cart of commerce and made man’s abject servant.