Bright and early the next morning the boys were out for a visit to a place where there was a spring of remarkably cold water. It was about two miles from Buitenzorg, and the road leading to it ran through a palm forest and among rice-fields. They had an opportunity to see the care with which the Javanese till their land. The hilly ground is laid out in terraces, one above another, and when the water has performed its work in one place, it goes to the terrace next below; thus it is made to do duty over and over again. There are large reservoirs where water can be stored in the wet season, and kept for the period when the rain-fall ceases. By close attention to the needs of the soil and the peculiarities of the climate, the Javanese are able to make their land extremely productive, and a failure of crops is a very rare occurrence. On much of the rice-land they grow two crops a year.
THE HOUSE AT THE SPRING.
The spring was of goodly size, and flowed into a pool fifty or sixty feet across. A house had been erected at one side of this pool, and was overshadowed by banana and cocoa trees; it had a lot of dressing-rooms, where the boys were not long in donning the proper costume for a bath. They shivered somewhat when they first entered the water; but the shock did not last long, and then they found the sensation was most delicious. The place was in charge of a Chinese, who demanded a most exorbitant price for the use of the bath and a few bananas and mangosteens that were ordered. When they offered a low sum, he bowed, and seemed to say that, if he could not have what he wanted, he would take what they offered, which was a good deal more than he deserved.
On their return they had a different view of the rice-fields, and Fred made note of the fact that when you look upwards on a lot of rice-fields you see nothing but a series of terraces, while, looking downwards, you seem to be gazing on a lake. While the water is on the flats, the ground is stirred with a harrow drawn by a pair of buffaloes; the rice is sown, and as soon as the plants are of the requisite height the surplus ones are taken out and transplanted. The crop is then started, and the farmer has little to do till the time of harvest, beyond taking care that his fields have plenty of water. When the harvest is made, the paddy—as the uncleaned rice is called—is cut and taken to the mill.
Rice-mills are abundant in Java; some are run by steam, many by water, and many small ones by horses and buffaloes. The rice-mill is quite simple, and consists of a shaft like a ship's capstan and four projecting arms. Each arm has a wheel at the end, and as the shaft goes round the wheels revolve in a circular groove containing the rice to be cleaned. The wheel removes the husk, and when this is done a winnowing-mill separates the rice from the chaff or trash. This is the whole operation. The rice-mill of to-day is practically what it was a hundred years ago.
The Dutch have introduced farming implements of the European pattern on some of the estates, but the natives do not generally take kindly to the innovation. They prefer the old form of ploughs which have been in use from ancient days, and think that what was good for their fathers is good for them. Frank made a sketch of a primitive plough; it had a single handle, and its point could only scratch a furrow in the soil without turning it over.