[7] At the time of writing I have come across the following paragraph in the Java news column of the Singapore Free Press for February 23, 1892: "The Nieuwsblad notes the arrival of a Turk from Singapore in the Stentor, who is suspected of having the intention to stir up the natives of Java. The police are paying attention to him."
[8] "Life in Java."
CHAPTER IV.
BATAVIA.
Tanjong Priok—Sadoes—Batavia—Business quarter—Telephoning—Chinese Campong—Weltevreden— Waterloo Plain—Peter Elberfeld's house—Raffles and Singapore.
When the prosperity of the Dutch East India Company was at its height, the city of Batavia[9] was justly entitled the "Queen of the East." Apart from the fact that this place was the centre and head-quarters of the company, it was the emporium through which the whole commerce of the East passed to and from Europe. The Dutch possessions of Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Moluccas depended for their supplies on Java. Not only were the European imports, iron, broadcloth, glass-ware, velvets, wines, gold lace, furniture, and saddlery destined for these settlements received here in the first instance, but similar imports intended for China, Cochin, Japan, and the Malay islands were also reshipped from this port into the native boats which conveyed them to those several countries. Similarly, the wealth of China and the East was first collected upon the wharfs of Batavia before it was finally despatched to the various ports of Europe and America.
Since the foundation of the town, the seashore has silted up to such an extent that the original harbour of Batavia, in which the Dutch East Indiamen of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries lay at anchor, has been abandoned, and a new port has been constructed at a point six miles to the eastward. The harbour works at Tanjong Priok, as the present port of Batavia is called, and the railway which connects the port and town of Batavia, are one among many improvements set on foot in the island since the inauguration of a public-works policy by the Colonial Government in 1875. Ocean steamships of 4000 and 5000 tons burden can now be berthed at these wharfs, and there is a constant and convenient service of trains between the port and the town. Even to-day the presence of superannuated Dutch warships and quaint craft from China and the Malay islands relieves the monotony of the vast hulls of the steamships of the British India, the Messageries Maritimes, and the Netherlands India Companies.
I was agreeably surprised at the size and convenience of the station at Tanjong Priok. The booking clerk, who was, I think, a Chinaman, seemed to know the ways of strangers, and I and my fellow-passengers had no difficulty in taking tickets for Batavia. The line passed through groves of cocoa-nut palms, intersected with canals. Everything was quaint and interesting, the canal boats, the buffalo ploughs, the gaily-feathered birds,—all revealed a new and delightful phase of life and nature. We were immensely struck with the appearance of a native cutting grass. He had a hooked blade of steel fastened to a long handle, forming an instrument not unlike a cleek or other golf-stick. This he slowly swung round his head, and each time it touched the ground cleared about three inches of grass. The thing looked too absurd. We all wanted to get out and ask him how long he expected to be mowing that strip of grass by the canal-side.
While I was on board ship I had been fortunate enough to borrow a Malay phrase-book from a man who had visited the Archipelago before, and during the voyage to Batavia I had amused myself with copying out some of the phrases and committing them to memory. On landing I found these few phrases extremely useful, and I mention the fact by way of encouragement, and in case any other traveller should be inclined similarly to beguile the tedium of the voyage. He will have his reward.