Albert Smith Bickmore

“ The soil appears to be very infertile, yet when the sun was approaching the western horizon, and the cumuli, floating in the pure air, slowly drew along their changing shadows over the innumerable hills and valleys, the whole scene was nearly as delightful as my first view of the tropics in coming up the Strait of Sunda. There is no road in the interior of the island, and every one who will travel the shortest distance, must go on horseback along the sandy beaches. ”

“ As we left the shore, and pushed out into the open sea, our progress became still slower. Inch by inch we gained till we were half-way across, when the wind freshened, and for a time we could scarcely hold our own, despite the increased jargon from the tifa and the gong, and a wilder whooping from every native, varied by mutterings from each, to the effect that he was the only one who was really working. Almost the moment these people meet with any unexpected difficulty they become disheartened, and want to give up their task at once, exactly like little children. ”

“ As might naturally be expected, these natives abhor all application and labor, in the same degree that they are fond of excitement.
Saparua Bay is one of the most beautiful inlets of the sea. Near its head is a bold, projecting bluff, and on this rise the white walls of Fort Duurstede. The other parts of the shore form a semicircular, sandy beach, which is bordered with such a thick grove of cocoa-nut palms that no one looking from the bay would imagine that they concealed hundreds of native houses. ”

“ From Kema up to the strait, between Limbi and Celebes, we had a light air off the shore. A thin cloud, like a veil of gauze, gathered on the heads of the twin-peaks known as “The Sisters,” and fell down in rich graceful folds over their green shoulders. From the crests of all these peaks, down to the high-water line on the shore, is one dense, unbroken forest. There dwells the sapi utung or “wild ox,” probably not indigenous, but descended from the tame sapi introduced from Java and Madura. The natives describe them as being exceedingly fierce, both the cows and the bulls. ”

“ One of the kites is very abundant at all the anchorages, and so tame as to light on the rigging of a ship quite near where the sailors are working. When it has caught any offal in its long talons, it does not fly away at once to a perch to consume the delicious morsel at its leisure, like many birds of prey, but is so extremely greedy that it tears off pieces with its beak and swallows them as it slowly sails along in the air.
When we begin to examine the luxuriant flora of these tropical islands, almost the first tree that we notice by the shore is the tall, graceful cocoa-nut palm. ”

“ A number of heavy seas now rolled in and broke, but the natives, by means of their paddles, kept us from being swept forward or backward. A smaller swell is coming in now. Every native gives a wild yell, and those on the shore haul in the rattan with all their might, and away we dart on the crest of a wave with the swiftness of an arrow. We are now in the midst of the surf, and our boat is on the skid, but away we glide at the speed of a locomotive, and already we are high upon the bank before the next wave can come in. ”

“ Unlike the cocoa-nut tree, it is seldom seen where it has not been planted by the hand of man. The traveller, therefore, who is worn out with his long wanderings through the thick, almost impassable, jungles, beholds with delight the long, green, drooping leaves of this tree. He knows that he is near some native hut where he can find a shelter from the hot sun, and slake his thirst with [85] the water of the cocoa-nut, and appease his hunger on bananas and boiled rice, a simple and literally a frugal meal. ”

“ From Lariki the opziener accompanied me to the neighboring kampong of Wakasihu. Our narrow footpath wound along the side of a rugged, projecting crag, and the view from the outer point was very imposing. The stormy monsoon was at its height. The heavy swell rolling in from the open ocean broke and flung its white spray and clotted foam far and wide over the black rocks left bare by the ebbing tide. Thick clouds, heavily freighted with rain, were driven by the strong wind against the rugged coast and adjoining mountains. ”

“ Now changing our course to the east, we steam up under the high, steep Gunong Api. On its north-northwest side, about one-fourth of the distance from its summit down to the sea, is a deep, wide gulf, out of which rise thick, opaque clouds of white gas, that now, in the still, clear air, are seen rolling grandly upward in one gigantic, expanding column to the sky. On its top also thin, veil-like clouds occasionally gather, and then slowly float away like cumuli dissolving in the pure ether. ”

“ Nine paals from Menado, when we were about twelve hundred feet above the sea, I wheeled round my horse and enjoyed a magnificent view over the bay of Menado and the adjacent shore. Out in the bay rose several high islands, among them the volcanic peak of Menado Tua, its head raised high in the blue sky, and its feet bathed in the blue sea. Near the shore the land is very low, and abounds in various species of palms. ”

“ First a diffuse light appeared along the mountain-tops and whitened the fleecy cumuli hovering over their summits. Then that part of the sky grew brighter and brighter until the light of the full moon fell like a silver cascade over the serrated edge of the high mountains and rested on the tops of the hills below. An assistant resident is stationed here at Fort Elout, who has charge of this fruitful valley of Mandéling, which is wholly inhabited by the Battas. The territory between this valley and the west coast is also inhabited by this rude people. ”

“ This road has been lately made, and already great fissures in its outer edge show that it is quite ready to slide down the mountain.
Large troops of monkeys have established themselves in this dark gorge, and just when I was in the most dangerous place they made a frightful noise, some trumpeting, some screeching, and some making a prolonged shrill whistling, yet I could only see one or two, though the natives who were building the road assured me that the tops of the trees were full of them. While in this deep ravine I crossed the equator for the third time since I entered the archipelago. ”

“ From Amboina we passed up the strait between Kilang and Manipa, which is less than a mile wide, and made much narrower by long tongue-shaped reefs of coral which project from several points. A fresh breeze had sprung up from the south, and, under a full head of steam and a good press of canvas, we ploughed through the waves which rolled up against the wind. In all these straits the tidal currents are very strong, and in many places so swift that a good boat cannot make headway against them with oars, and this makes many of these narrow channels very dangerous for the native boats. ”

“ Beyond Pisang our road lay in a narrow valley, and, as the sky was clear and the neighboring hills prevented any breeze from reaching us, we seemed to be at the focus of a great burning lens. In the thick woods on either hand troops of large, black monkeys kept up a hooting or trumpeting, their prolonged cries sounding exactly like a score of amateurs practising on trombones. In some places the din they made was quite deafening. In one place the road passed through a deep cut through strata, composed of sand and conglomerate, which probably once filled the whole valley. ”

“ On landing at this village I found a pleasant residence with a good English lady, the second it had been my good fortune to meet since I left Java. After living so long among a people speaking another language, it is a privilege indeed to hear one’s native tongue spoken without a foreign accent, and to converse with a person whose religion, education, and views of life accord with one’s own. On these outer borders of civilization, Americans and Englishmen are—as we ought to be everywhere—members of the same family. ”

“ The pleasure of viewing coral reefs never becomes wearisome, because the grouping is always new. No two places are just alike beneath all the wide sea, and no one can fail to be thrilled with pleasure, when, after a [287] few strong strokes of the oars, his canoe is left to glide on by her own momentum, and the coral gardens pass in review below with a magical effect like a panorama. ”

“ Here, at Palimbayang, I have had the first opportunity of enjoying a view of that magnificent mountain, Ophir, nine thousand seven hundred and seventy feet in height. Its truncated summit indicates that its highest parts are the ruins of an old crater, and this thought reminds us of the volcanic action to which the mountain owes its birth. ”

“ Nicholas, the northwest extremity of Java. It is a high land, with sharp ridges coming down to the water, thus forming a series of little rocky headlands, separated by small sandy bays. These, as we sail along, come up, and open to our view with a most charming panoramic effect. Near the shore a few Malays are seen on their praus, or large boats, while others appear in groups on the beaches, around their canoes, and only now and then do we catch glimpses of their rude houses under the feathery leaves of the cocoa-nut palm. ”

“ Indeed, this part of Java may be correctly described as one magnificent garden, divided into small lots by lines of thick evergreens, and tall, feathery palm-trees. This afternoon we steamed into the open roadstead of Samarang during a heavy rain-squall; for though the “western monsoon,” or “rainy season,” is past, yet nearly every afternoon we have a heavy shower, and every one is speaking of the great damage it is likely to do to the rice and sugar crops which are just now ripening. ”

“ February 27th.—At 7.30 A. M. started on horseback for Lubu Siképing. At first the road led through the lowland near Bondyol, and then crossing a rapid stream began to ascend a narrow winding valley. My little pony took me up the steep places apparently with as little exertion as if we were ascending a gentle acclivity. Like all the saddle and carriage horses used in the archipelago, he was a stallion, it being considered among all these islands as disgraceful for a man to ride or drive a mare as it would be in our land for a farmer to plough with a yoke of cows. ”

“ As it stands along the shore, it invariably inclines toward its parent, the sea, for borne on the waves came the nut from which it sprang, and now fully grown, it seeks to make a due return to its ancestor by leaning over the shore and dropping into the ocean’s bosom rich clusters of its golden fruit. ”

“ This is placed upright among the dense foliage, and in the varying breeze gives out soft or heavy notes, until the whole surrounding forest seems filled with the harps of fairies.
All these natives are passionately fond of music, and perhaps in nothing has their inventive genius been so well displayed as in their peculiar musical instruments, which have been brought to the greatest perfection in Java, where they are so elaborate that a set of eighteen or twenty pieces, for a complete band, costs from six hundred to one thousand dollars. ”

“ Down and down we went, until at last I became quite discouraged, and seriously began to think of explaining to my native guide that the wisest heads which lived in my land believe that the centre of the earth is nothing but a mass of molten rock, and to inquire of him whether he was sure we should stop short of such an uncomfortable place, when the thick mist which enshrouded us cleared away, and I beheld far, far beneath me a large lake, and above me the steep, overhanging crater-wall which I had descended ”

“ Along the way we met natives of both sexes carrying tobacco and vegetables to market, the men having their loads in a sled-shaped frame on their backs, and the women carrying theirs in shallow baskets on their heads. Our road, which led to the south, was—like all in the Minahassa—broad and well graded, and where it ascended an acclivity coarse fibres from the leaves of the gomuti palm were laid across it from place to place to cause the water to drain off into the ditches by its sides. ”

“ He states that he saw it himself, and describes it as “the sole individual of its species, standing alone, in a scene of solitary horror, on the middle of a naked, blasted plain, surrounded by a circle of mountains, the whole area of which is covered with the skeletons of birds, beasts, and men. Not a vestige of vegetable life is to be seen within the contaminated atmosphere, and even the fishes die in the water!” This, like most fables, has some foundation in fact; and a large forest-tree exists in Java, the Antiaris toxicaria of botanists, that has a poisonous sap. ”

“ Throwing off my hat, that I might go into the dreadful struggle unimpeded, I shouted out for a long knife, knowing well that what I must try to do was to cut him in two, and that he would attempt to catch my hand in his jaws, and, if he should succeed in doing that, he would wind himself around me as quick as a man could wind the lash of a long whip around a fixed stick, and certainly he was large enough and strong enough to crush the largest horse. ”

“ Chinese, for they rarely or never carry back the bones of their friends to the sacred soil of the Celestial Land from these islands as they do from California. Such graves are always horseshoe-shaped, just as in China, and their white walls make very conspicuous objects on the green hill-sides. Above the open areas, in the wooded regions, we notice a few places filled with small trees that have a peculiar bright-green foliage. Those are the gardens of clove-trees which have made this island so famous throughout the world. ”

“ In these shallow furrows are dropped kernels of our own Indian maize and seeds of the sugar-cane. Sometimes the fields are planted with cocoa-nut palms about twenty yards apart, more for their shade, it appears, than for their fruit, which is now hanging in great green and yellow clusters, and will be ripe in a month. Beneath these trees are blighted nuts, and in many places large heaps of them are seen, gathered by the natives for the sake of the husk, from which they make a coarse rope. ”

“ The natives, under shelter of their rude huts, were giving themselves up to indolent repose, when suddenly a frightful thundering was heard in the earth; and from the top of this old volcano a dark, dense mass was seen rising higher and higher into the air, and spreading itself out over the clear sky with such an appalling rapidity that in a few moments the whole landscape was shrouded in the darkness of night. ”

“ My hunter at once began collecting birds, while I searched the shores for shells, and bought what the natives chanced to have in their miserable dwellings. The most common shell here is an Auricula. Its peculiar aperture, as its name implies, is like that of the human ear. It lives on the soft, muddy flats, where the many-rooted mangrove thrives. The rarest and most valuable shell found here, and indeed one of the rarest living in all these seas, is the Rostellaria rectirostris. It is so seldom found that a pair is frequently sold here for ten guilders, four Mexican dollars. ”

“ Along the shores are many little bays where praus are seen at anchor, and on the beaches are small groves of the cocoa-nut palm, which furnish food and shade to the natives dwelling in the rude huts beneath them. Higher up the hill-sides, large, open areas are seen covered with a tall, coarse grass; but the richly-cultivated fields on the flanks of the mountains in Java nowhere appear. ”