Inside the courtyard no one is stirring. The dreamy silence is only broken by the voices that rise from the river below, by the clacking of the sarong weaver's shuttle or the dull boom of a far-away tom-tom.
Under such circumstances the conditions necessary for perfect physical enjoyment are very fully realized. Yet it is at such moments that one is apt to reflect how unimportant are these material considerations compared with the advantages of strenuous and reasoned action. One longs for the stir of life as it is felt in the great centres of European population;
"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay."
Well, I was going to see some European energy on the morrow. At Batavia an English resident had said, "When you are at Buitenzorg you should go on to Soekaboemi and see a coffee plantation.' Subsequently he wrote that his friend H—— would expect me on Tuesday at his coffee plantation with an unpronounceable name in the Preanger district. The morrow was Tuesday.
Soekaboemi was only thirty or forty miles away, but I left Buitenzorg at eight o'clock in order to escape the discomfort of travelling in the middle of the day. It goes without saying that trains in the tropics do not carry you along as quickly as the Flying Dutchman or the Scotch express. But I found the carriages comfortable enough, being built in the American fashion, and furnished with Venetians to keep out the sun and let in the air. Except the station-masters, all the officials were Chinese or Javan natives. The guard who looked at my ticket wore the traditional peaked cap and cloth uniform, but over his European garments he had appended as usual his airy native costume. Of the four classes of carriages two are reserved for Europeans, one for Chinese, and one for the natives.
In leaving Buitenzorg I made the mistake of taking a first-class ticket. In the first place, the carriage had not been dusted, and a cooly came in and disturbed me with his brush. He made such a cloud of dust that I had to beat a retreat. On my return I found the carriage clean, but the dust transferred to my baggage. In the next place, all the Dutch officials, and the planters and their wives, were travelling second class, and I was left to enjoy (?) my compartment in solitary grandeur. Had there been any one in the carriage, I should have found out that Soekaboemi was not the right station for H——'s plantation. As it was I could open and shut windows at will, and I was free to make the best of my opportunities for sight-seeing—an object towards which the slow pace of the train and the frequent and lengthy stoppages materially contributed. Indeed, the crowds of natives at the stations were as well worth studying as the mountains and plantations. I never saw elsewhere, even in Java, such rainbow mixtures of colours as they contrived to bring into their cotton jackets and dresses; and as for their plaited hats, there was every possible variety of shape and size, from an umbrella to a funnel.
For the first few miles the line ran southwards between Salak and Gedé. On either side I could see stretches of mountain slopes luxuriously wooded, while the brown stream Tji Sadanie, a tributary of the Kali Besar, or "great river" of Batavia, playing hide-and-seek with the railroad, afforded more than one charming "bit" of river, tree, and mountain.
As we get away from the mountains the view widens. Masses of palms, dark green bamboos, and other tropical growths fill up the distance. In the foreground are irrigated rice terraces, with gleaming waters and the freshest of verdure. Here copper-coloured natives are at work. Men are ploughing the wet soil of the sawahs with buffaloes; women—often with their babies slung on their backs with their long scarfs—are hoeing, or weeding, or reaping. As the average monthly temperature does not vary more than two degrees all the year round in Java, the process of preparing the ground, sowing, and reaping go on simultaneously in the ricefields. Every now and then we come across a queer little Noah's-ark cottage in the midst of bananas and bamboos, with a tall palm or two waving overhead. Salak remains long in sight. At first it towered in its pride of greatness, then it grew soft in the blue distance. At last the railway turns abruptly at Karan Tenjak, and it is gone.
As the train nears Soekaboemi the character of the country changes. Plantations of sugar in the level country and of tea on the uplands take the place of ricefields. The name Soekaboemi means "pleasant place," and the town is the centre of the planting interest in Java. In its immediate neighbourhood are coffee, cinchona, and tea plantations.
At a quarter to eleven the train drew up in a large and excellently arranged station. I at once made my way outside. Here I looked in vain for the horses and coolies I expected to meet me. After waiting some moments, I confided my troubles to a bystander, addressing him in French, which is spoken by the Europeans in Java almost as much as Dutch. Fortunately Tji Wangi—the unpronounceable name of H——'s plantation—seemed to be well known, and he grasped the situation at once.