A Visit to Java

In writing these pages I have had before me a double purpose. First, to present to the general reader an account of what seemed to me to be a singularly interesting country, and one which, while being comparatively little known, has yet certain direct claims upon the attention of Englishmen. Secondly, to provide a book which, without being a guide book, would at the same time give information practically useful to the English and Australian traveller.

In sending this book to the press I have to acknowledge the courtesy of the editors of the Field and of Land and Water. To the former I am indebted for permission to make use of an unusually interesting quotation from Mr. Charles Ledger's letter to the Field on the subject of cinchona introduction, and also to include a short article of my own on "Horse-racing in Java" in Chapter XII. The latter has kindly allowed me to reproduce an account of my visit to the Buitenzorg Gardens, published in Land and Water.

My general indebtedness to standard works, such as Raffles' "Java," and Mr. Wallace's "Malay Archipelago," and also to those gentlemen who, like Dr. Treub, most kindly placed their information at my disposal in Java, is, I hope, sufficiently expressed in the text.

Professor Rhys Davids has very kindly read over the proof sheets of the chapter on the Hindu Temples; and I take this opportunity of acknowledging my sense of his courtesy in so doing, and my indebtedness to him for several valuable suggestions.

The spelling of the Javanese names and words has been a matter of some difficulty. The principle I have finally adopted is this. While adopting the Dutch spelling for the names of places and in descriptions of the natives, and thus preserving the forms which the traveller will find in railway time tables and in the Dutch accounts of the island, I have returned to the English spelling in narrative passages, and in those chapters where the reader is brought into contact with previous English works. But I have found it impossible to avoid occasional inconsistencies. In my account of the literature of the island I have kept to the Dutch titles of Javanese works as closely as possible; but I have modified the transliteration in accordance with the usages of English oriental scholars.

W. B. W.

1, Pump Court, Temple, E.C., November, 1892.

[Illustration: A JAVANESE ACTRESS.]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. PAGE HISTORICAL ACCOUNT UP TO THE PRESENT DAY.

Hindus--Mohammedans--Portuguese--English--Dutch-- Legal basis of Dutch possession--British occupation--Return of Dutch--Culture system-- Eruption of Mount Krakatoa 1

CHAPTER II.

TRAVELLING AND HOTELS.

Area--Climate--Permission to travel--Chief objects of interest--Means of locomotion--Language--Hotels 17

CHAPTER III.

THE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT AND THE NATIVES.

Dutch possessions in the East--Government--Army and navy--Administration--Development of natives--Raden Saleh--Native dress--Cooking and houses--Rice cultivation--Amusements--Marriage ceremony 38

CHAPTER IV.

BATAVIA.

Tanjong Priok--Sadoes--Batavia--Business quarter--Telephoning--Chinese Campong--Weltevreden-- Waterloo Plain--Peter Elberfeld's house--Raffles and Singapore 62

CHAPTER V.

THE HINDU TEMPLES.

The temple remains generally--The connection between Buddha and Brahma--The Boro-Boedoer--Loro-Jonggrang 86

ANNEX: The Routes to the Temples 100

CHAPTER VI.

BUITENZORG.

Batavian heat--To Buitenzorg by rail--Buitenzorg-- Kotta Batoe--Buffalo--Sawah land--Sketching a Javan cottage 103

CHAPTER VII.

THE BOTANICAL GARDENS.