With the upas-tree, the great snakes, the tigers, the pirates, and the good coffee exposed as myths; the white ants never eating out the contents of a trunk overnight; mildew ignoring the luggage left for over a fortnight at Buitenzorg; and the trunks left at Singapore for more than a month equally innocent of fungus-mold, I felt that the tropics had defrauded me a bit—or else that I had lent too willing an ear to returned travelers’ imaginations. Taking my own experience as proof, there might be written a brief chapter about snakes to match that famous one in Horrebow’s “History of Iceland.” But the disillusionment of disillusionments awaited us on the borders of Bantam, when the last Batavian day brought information that our so-called tiny bantam cock is not from Bantam at all. It was first seen on board a Japanese junk trading at Bantam in the long ago, and the Malays, who are natural and long-descended cock-fighters, saw in these little fowls combatants more spirited than any of their own breed, and of more manageable size. The true bantam cocks to the province born are nearly as large as turkeys; long ago Dr. Marsden told of their being as large as Norfolk bustards, and of their standing high enough to peck off the dinner-table, and said that when they sat down on the first joint of the leg they were taller than any common fowls. The introduction of the pretty Japanese fowls revolutionized cock-fighting, and the Dutch imported them through their Nagasaki factory, and introduced them to Europe.
The equator was proved not such a terrible thing as it had been made out to be—a thing that might be spoken of very disrespectfully because of that misplaced awe and veneration; and the tropics not at all as astonishing as they used to be, when illustrated books of travel, museum collections and models, and exposition villages had not made their life and scenery so familiar; when hothouses had not brought even orchids to common acquaintance, and Northern markets to displaying oranges and bananas as commonly and regularly as apples or potatoes.
With the other India—the whole continent of the real, the greater, or British India—before us, we could not delay on the Netherlands isle; and that strange, haunting, indefinite fear, the dread of some unknown, undefinable evil, that shadows and oppresses one so in the tropics, asserted itself more strongly as we approached Batavia. One is not sure whether this vague fear which possesses one under the line is due to the sense of extreme distance, to dread of the many diseases that lie in wait, to fear of the sudden deaths of so many kinds that may snatch one in the lands where the sun swings nearest, or to the peril of volcanic forces that may instantly overwhelm one in some disaster like that of Krakatau. At least, there was always a sensation of oppression, a dread of some impending danger in the midst of one’s enjoyment, and an unconscious looking-forward to free breathing and the sensation of safety, when once across the line again, back to the grand route and the world again, safe under the British flag at friendly Singapore, at home again with the English language.
Yet Java, the peerless gem in “that magnificent empire of Insul-Inde which winds about the equator like a garland of emeralds,” is the ideal tropical island, the greenest, the most beautiful, and the most exquisitely cultivated spot in the East, the most picturesque and satisfactory bit of the tropics anywhere near the world’s great routes of travel. Now that the dark days of Dutch rule are ended and enlightened modes prevail; now that the culture system has developed the island’s resources and made it all one exquisite, fruitful garden, and the colonists have begun to take an interest in uncovering and protecting the ancient monuments, the interest and attractions of Java are greater each year. It is alike the scientist’s greatest storehouse and the traveler’s unequaled tropical pleasure-resort and playground in the East. The antiquities have been merely scratched, explorations in that line are only well begun, leaving to archæologists and anthropologists a field of incalculable richness—more especially to those bent upon arriving at some solution of the great puzzle, some proof of Asiatic and American contact in pre-Columbian times. The puzzling resemblance of the older Javanese ruins to those of Central America has yet to be explained, and the alluring theory of migration from the rich “food-ponds” of the waters within the archipelago to other and farther inclosed seas teeming with fishes, until the Malays had followed with the great currents up one shore of the Pacific Ocean and down the other, must be proved. Dutch scientists naturally desire to explore and exploit this treasure-house of Java for themselves; but with a questioning world and many eager inquirers bent on solving all the mysteries and problems of race origin and migrations, the prize must be won by the swiftest.
If Baedeker or Murray would only go to Java and kindly light the tourist’s way; if the Dutch government would relax the useless vexations of the toelatings-kaart system, and the colonists welcome the visitor in more kindly spirit, Java would rank, as it deserves to, as a close second to Japan, an oasis in travel, an island of beauty and delight to the increasing number of round-the-world travelers, who each year are discouraged from visiting the country by less heedful ones who have ventured there.
Whether, as pessimists foretell, a Mohammedan rebellion shall desolate the isle; whether it remains in Dutch leading-strings, arrives at even the limited independence of a British colony, or succumbs to Germany’s colonial ambitions, as the French so freely prophesy, Java is certain soon to loom larger in the world’s view, and for a time at least to occupy the stage.
FOOTNOTES
[1] See Sir Stamford Raffles’s “History of Java,” Appendix A.
[2] “Max Havelaar,” by Edouard Douwes Dekker (Multatuli); translation by Baron Nahuys (Edinburgh, 1868).
[3] See “A Visit to Java,” W. Basil Worsfold, London, 1893.