But * * * * keen, with eye serene,
Decides her hapless fate."
Inserted between the issue of a later copy of the same paper was a reprint of the conditions of the Treaty of Paris which had just been signed by the Allies, and a triumphant leading article on the "Great Tyrant's" downfall. We dared not linger any longer, as the custodian of the library was becoming impatient, and evidently suspicious of the copious extracts we were making. I resigned it with a sigh, guessing how much more of interest we might have found with a longer perusal.
We had a pleasant drive in the evening to the outskirts of Batavia, passing country-houses, which I suppose called themselves so because they stood in their own grounds, with some attempt at an avenue or drive up to the house. It was our last evening in Batavia, and we were regretfully sad.
December 25th.—A delicate rosy flushing sunrise, with saffron and pale green tints on an orange sea, where the sun was presently to rise in the majesty of tropical heat, was the strange sight which greeted us on this Christmas morning; for we were getting up at 5 a.m., and, leaving the hotel wrapped in slumber, were driving through the already busy streets of China Camp to the Heimraden Plein Station.
A gay scene met us there, for a company of soldiers in marching array and some officers were being sent off to reinforce the army at Acheen, in the north of Sumatra, where the Dutch have a war of some years' standing. A crowd of officers in their pretty dark blue uniform, with orange scarves, the stars on their collars denoting the rank, had come to see their comrades off, and the general himself was superintending their embarkation. A file of convicts, in their prison dress, under the charge of their jailors, were being taken in the train to work on the line. The carriages, that hold eighty-seven even under ordinary circumstance, were crowded beyond that number, and the heat and fumes of tobacco were very trying. We altogether had a weary waiting of nearly two hours in them, standing stationary at the terminus.
A still gayer scene was awaiting us on arrival at Tandjong Priok, for crowds of natives were sauntering about under the bamboo station; and a ship, moored alongside the wharf, was swarming with soldiers, European and native, who had just arrived from the west coast of Borneo; their band was playing on the deck in honour of the general. The Governor-General Meyer, the mail of the Netherlands India Company, lay anchored further away. Whilst we were waiting to start my thoughts recurred to Christmas morning and church, with snow on the ground at home, but it was hard to keep up any semblance of recollection among the strange surroundings. Four natives, such weak specimens of humanity, coming along staggering under the weight of my Saratoga trunk, which one man had always shouldered before; officers were having a last bottle of champagne with their departing comrades, the treble shriek of the warning whistles, the bright medley of Malays, Javanese, Soudanese, Hindus, and Chinese, all rendered it impossible, and Christmas Day this year will only be remembered by us by the inconvenience occasioned by the uncertainty of the vessel starting at all on that day, and the Sunday train not leaving the station nearest the hotel as usual.
The flat coast-line was behind us by 9 a.m., and we were passing the sandy dots upon the ocean of the 1000 islands of the Eastern Archipelago. We came upon a bed of scoria ashes, stretching for about a mile on either side of us. It is still the remains of the great volcanic eruption on the island of Krakatau, in the Straits of Sunda, eighteen months ago. The island was totally destroyed, and 70,000 lives were lost. On the 20th of August, 1883, total darkness reigned in Batavia, though 2000 miles distant from Krakatau, from the density of the shower of ashes falling, and terrific claps of thunder from the cracking of the explosion. Ships had to alter their course after the eruption, and even a year afterwards passed through a thick sea of pumice ashes stretching as far as the eye could reach. When five days out from Java, in the Merkara, it was this pumice ash floating by on the sea that made the captain think there had been a fresh eruption.
A most interesting phenomenon is now in process at Merapi, a mountain in Central Java. Government surveyors are there watching the rise of the lava in a volcano from day to day, and it is calculated that in about three months from now it must burst. Should it be a powerful eruption, it is feared it will divide the Island of Java into two parts.
Merapi is in the same volcanic range that extends through Sumatra, Krakatau, Java, Lombok, and Bali. It will be very curious to see what really happens.