On the Road to Sindanglaya
Long before sunrise, the sound of merry voices arose from the valley. Already the natives were bathing in the Tjidani, and, when the light came, the primeval life on which the sun had gone down was reproduced in the model-like scene spread out before us. Our kreta for the journey over the Poentjak Pass had been ordered for six o'clock, but with un-Oriental punctuality it was a quarter-past live when the sound of carriage wheels broke in upon our dreams.
While we sipped our morning coffee,—Java hotel coffee has improved since Miss Scidmore anathematised it in 1899,—the sun's rays began to peep over the shoulder of the Salak, and dispelled the morning mists on river and valley. The Salak's fretwork crater stood out entirely clear—his form a purple background to the picture gradually unfolding itself. Nature was everywhere awake. Children's voices in play blended with the songs of early workers proceeding to the fields. Butterflies flitted and floated like detached petals from the flowers. Distance converted human figures into larger butterflies, yellow and orange, pink and blue and red. If it were beautiful in the evening, the scene was enchanting in the morning, and it was with reluctance that we obeyed the summons to early breakfast, and followed our barang into the kreta to begin the journey to Sindanglaya.
It was half-past six o'clock when we were salaamed out of the courtyard of the Bellevue by the hotel "boys."
The kreta was not a handsome affair. In fact it was one of the most disreputable vehicles it has ever been our misfortune to travel in, and when we made acquaintance of the road it had to travel over we must give the owner credit for an abundant faith in the toughness of the kreta. It was a cross between the carromata of the Philippines and a covered dog-cart. There was no aid to mount. By a series of gymnastics we managed to get into the driver's seat—our own was behind his but also facing to the front. In attempting to get there, a sudden movement of the team sent us plunging into the barang, and, in extricating ourselves, head came in contact with the roof and hat went overboard.
Eventually we went off with a bound along the main street of Buitenzorg, scattering the fowls obtaining a precarious living in the roadway, and sending cats and dogs and goats flying for safety into the houses.
We had now time to examine the points of our team. It was composed of three tiny Battak ponies. Two were brown, and one a piebald in which a dingy chestnut strove for mastery with a dingier white. No two ponies were the same in size. One was in the shafts; the other two were in traces alongside. They tapered in size from right to left—the piebald on the left. The giant of the group had a nasty temper, and when lashed, as he was frequently during the drive, vented his anger upon the patient brute doing the lion's share of the work in the shafts. Upon the whole they did their work extremely well, for a great deal was asked of them, and they scarcely deserved the almost continuous flogging to which they were subjected by our driver.
Having travelled over the road from Buitenzorg to Sindanglaya by the Poentjak, without reserve, we advise pilgrims to Sindanglaya to patronise the road from Tjiandjoer. The local guide book remarks with truth: "The main road to the Poentjak being very steep, it does not afford a quick mode of travelling. At Toegoe, an extra team of horses must be added—or karbouws (water buffaloes) used instead of the horses, to pull the carriage at a slow pace up the mountain. Good walkers may, therefore, be advised to do this part of the road on foot, which will take them about an hour and a half. By doing so they will be more able to admire this marvellous work of Governor-General Daendels."
We suspect there is a touch of Dutch satire in this last remark. We have travelled the road, and we are not prepared to parody the old Scot's saying:—
"If you'd seen this road before it was made,
You'd lift up your hands and bless General Wade"