[16] 12 florins = £1.
[17] The picul = 135 lbs.
CHAPTER X.
ON A COFFEE PLANTATION.
The Tji Wangi bungalow—Coffee plantations— Cinchona—Native labour—A wayang—Country-bred ponies—Bob and the ducks—Loneliness of a planter's life.
Horace's remark,[18] "Those that cross the sea change temperature, not temperament," is especially true of the Englishman out of England. The room in which I was now seated differed in scarcely anything from the regulation "den" of every Englishman, whether in Scotland or Timbuctoo. From the French windows I could see smooth lawns and bright flower-beds, while beyond appeared the dark green plantations surmounted with grey mountain heights. Photographic groups and etchings shared the task of decorating the walls with riding-gear and Indian knives. The writing-table was strewn with photograph-frames of all sorts and sizes. The black "boy" who brought tea and whisky and Apollinaris, alone gave a hint of "foreign parts." The house itself stood 3500 feet above sea-level; but some of the estate (which covered 800 acres) rose nearly 1000 feet higher still. At this altitude the temperature was never excessively hot: at midday it averaged 70°; certainly it never approached the heat of Batavia; and that night I did what I had not done before in Java—slept with a blanket over me.
The next morning, two handsome Sandalwood ponies were brought round, and H—— took me over the estate. We rode between coffee and cinchona plantations on roads of various widths cut in zigzags or curves up the mountain sides, sometimes with the sun blazing full above us, sometimes shaded by the light foliage of the albizzias, until we reached a rough stone monument which marked the highest point. In the higher ranges we sometimes came upon a piece of bush with the tall rosamala trees still standing; or caught a glimpse of wide plains, bounded in the far-off distance by lofty mountains.
