A HAPPY CELESTIAL.
Footnotes:
[15] Bogor is the native name for this place; Buitenzorg means "beyond care," and is therefore the equivalent of the French sans sourci.
CHAPTER VIII.
FROM BUITENZORG TO TJI WANGI.
View of Mount Salak—Railway travelling in Java— Soekaboemi—No coolies—A long walk—Making a pikulan—Forest path—Tji Wangi at last.
It is two in the afternoon, and I have just taken the curious Javan meal called rice-table. Everyone else in the hotel, visitors and servants alike, are asleep. The doors of my rooms are all open, and there is a through draught from the courtyard to the verandah, where I am seated in a long easy chair with arms extending at will after the manner of the tropics. By my side on a table are placed cigars, a glass of iced claret and water, and a novel.
The view from the back rooms of the Hôtel Belle Vue at Buitenzorg is famous. This afternoon I am looking at it for the last time, and it seems more wonderful than ever. Let me try to describe it.
Immediately in front is the great triangular mass of Mount Salak. The peak is 7000 feet above sea-level, and, like most of the Javan mountains, it rises to its full height almost clear from its base. The lower levels are luxuriantly covered with tropical forests, a covering which gradually thins and dwindles until the apex of the triangle stands out sharply against the sky. Between the hotel and the mountain there stretches a sea of waving treetops. In the distance it is deep blue; as it approaches it grows more and more green; then separate forms of palms and bamboos can be distinguished, with red-tiled or brown-thatched roofs showing between them. Immediately beneath me is the brown river Tjiliwong, with bamboo cottages on its banks and natives bathing in its waters.