There is a growing demand in Java for a greater recognition of the people in government, and this demand is being yielded to in the cities. The colonial authorities have encouraged the soldiers to marry native women, these marriages terminating when the soldiers return to Europe. As a result, there is a half caste element which has been given better educational advantages than are accorded to the natives. This element considers itself as native, although counted in the census as European, and is already organizing with a view of securing more civil liberty.
Whatever may be said of Dutch colonialism in the past, a new era is dawning, and the present rulers recognize that their administration must be measured by the improvement in the people rather than by the profits drained from the land by Europeans.
CHAPTER XX.
IN THE TROPICS.
In a tour around the world one travels by steamer about six thousand miles through the tropics. Entering the torrid zone soon after leaving Hong Kong, almost touching the equator at Singapore, and not entering the temperate zone again until he is nearly half way through the Red Sea, he has ample time to study the temperature; and our opportunities were still farther enlarged by the trip to Java, which carried us nearly eight degrees below the equator. While on the water the heat is not so noticeable, being relieved by the ocean breezes, on land one suffers during the middle of the day. It is not that the heat in the shade is greater than the summer heat in the United States, but one can not always be in the shade, and the rays of the sun are piercing to a degree which is inconceivable to one without experience in these latitudes. At the seaports, too, the heat is intensified by the weight and moisture of the air, and the temperature is practically the same the year round—at least one who visits this part of the world in the winter time can not imagine it worse.
While, the native population work barebacked, barelegged, barefooted, and sometimes bareheaded, Americans and Europeans resort to every possible device to protect them from the climate.
The white helmet, with a lining of cork, is the most common headwear for both men and women, and it does not require a very long stay here to convince one that it is superior to the straw hat. White clothes which reflect the rays of the sun are also largely worn by both sexes. For evening dress, men sometimes wear a close-fitting white jacket, reaching to the waist, and before breakfast they lounge about in pajamas of variegated colors.
Eating extends through the entire day. Tea or coffee can be had from five to eight; breakfast is ready at eight or nine and ends at twelve; lunch or tiffin as it is called here, occupies the hours from one to three; then tea follows at four, and dinner is served from eight to ten-thirty. These are the hours for Europeans and Americans, and for those natives who have adopted foreign ways, but most of the natives look as if they had missed some of these meals.