Lombok

“ Forest-clad mountains and stretches of thorny jungle alternating with rich alluvial plains, cultivated like gardens under an ancient and elaborate system of irrigation, make the scenery of Lombok exceedingly attractive. The small rivers serve only for irrigation and the growing of rice, which is of superior quality. ”

“ I did not see what business the Savoe conducted at Ampenan. I was much too dazzled by gyrating canoeists who balanced themselves on rocking bamboos by their toes over leisurely sharks.
July 4.—We have lost the Englishman with his monocle. Heaven knows what he proposes to do in Lombok. We have added a Malay rajah and his ladies to our company. He is a wizened old man, barefooted, in sarong and jacket and a little turban. Even a voyager among these islands for the first time would not mistake that old man for merely another native. Once, at a mere hint from him, men had died. ”

“ The Peak of Lombok, or Gunong Ringani, is 12,375 feet high, and nearly extinct. It has never been ascended. A lake of some size lies at the height of gooo feet. Coffee is much cultivated, and there are many cattle and horses. The Rajah has a good palace, and it is all very beautiful. The population is about 540,000. Not many Europeans are resident in it. Landing is difficult as there is always a very heavy surf and swell.
Straits 1o miles wide separate Lombok and Sumbawa, which is larger than Jamaica, but it is not well known. Tambora, go40 feet, is the highest peak ”

“ The Sasaks of the neighbouring island of Lombok also owed their conversion to the preaching of the Bugis, who form a large colony here, having either crossed over the strait from Sambawa or come directly from Celebes: at any rate the conversion appears to have taken place in a peaceable manner.122 The population of Lombok falls into two distinct divisions, the Sasaks and the Balinese ”

“ Frequently in the most rigorous winters of the southern hemisphere I have rashly thrown myself on a fragment of drifting ice between Cape Horn and Van Diemen's Land, in the hope of effecting a passage to New Holland, reckless of the cold and the vast ocean, reckless of my fate, even should this savage land prove my grave.
But all in vain—I never reached New Holland. Each time, when defeated in my attempt, I returned to Lombok; and seated at its extreme point, my eyes directed to the southeast, I gave way afresh to lamentations that my range of investigation was so limited. ”

“ The Hindu religion still survives, though it cannot be said to flourish, both in this island and in Lombok. The native villages that we saw have quite characteristic features of their own; they are surrounded by a high mud wall with a brick coping and are guarded by a swarm of fiercely barking dogs. Inside the wall, if you are bold enough to enter, you find a neatly swept compound, round the sides of which are well-made dwelling-houses, and in the middle are granaries of rice ”

“ Both sexes wear their hair long, the men with head-cloths and the women with flowers and herbs, and all go bare-footed. The men are very good horsemen, and ride, like the Zulus and other coloured men, with only their big toes in the stirrups.
In Bally and Lombok the inhabitants are of the same race as the people of Java and Sumatra, but differ in religion and habits, having never been wholly subjected by the Mohammedans. The difference is chiefly noticeable in the construction of their houses, which are of stone in many cases, and built in streets. ”

“ If there had been no reward for overcoming the doldrums of a long voyage but the first light of day caught and bewildered by the forests and clouds of Agung and Ringani, the Peak of Baly and the Peak of Lombok, volcanoes which regard each other, supernal and terrible, over remote celestial kingdoms of cloud, then those small islands between the Java Sea and the Indian [122] Ocean would have been enough. It was the kind of reward which comes to a traveler when the gods forget that he is often discontented and unworthy. ”

“ These mountains are only a continuation of the chain which traverses Java, and Bali may be regarded as almost a part of Java, as it has quite the same flora and fauna, and is only separated from that island by a narrow strait. Here the Asiatic fauna of Sumatra, Borneo, and Java reaches its most eastern boundary. On Lombok, the next island eastward, a wholly different fauna is seen, having well-marked affinities with that of Australia. ”

“ The Hindu worshippers who are the chiefs and governers of Lombok, descended from Bali, may have given their island this high sounding name, retaining the Polynesian position of the words Sala and Paran, and not making it Paransala, which the more orthodox Sanscrit form would require.
Salaput, as tall as a man; a mans height. Mostly used to express the depth of a hole. Liang na lěuwih salaput, the hole is more than a man's height. ”

“ The extension of Dutch political power—notably in Java, Sumatra, Celebes, the Moluccas, Borneo, the Sunda Islands and New Guinea—proceeded simultaneously with the reform movement, and from time to time involved war with various native states. A large expedition was sent to Lombok in 1894, and almost the whole of that island was incorporated in the Dutch dominions. ”

“ Lombok, on the starboard side of the ship, is a much darker green, and has no open uplands. It is a quite different personality from Sumbawa, its neighbor.
August 7.—This morning I woke in my bunk thinking a Malay was running amok. The frightful lamentations of his suffering victims brought me up at a bound. I peeped out, but could see only a line of palms individual against the screen of a morning mist. The chief officer then paused at my cabin door, but he was calm. He always is. That noise? We are at Ampenan. We [209] shall take here three hundred pigs for Singapore. ”

“ Emboq Sri and Sadana, you have been received by So-and-So (the owner) , let So-and-So [pg 201] lead a life free from care. May Emboq Sri's luck continue in this very agreeable place!”608
The rice-spirit as husband and wife in Bali and Lombok. The same idea of the rice-spirit as a husband and wife meets us also in the harvest customs of Bali and Lombok, two islands which lie immediately to the east of Java. “The inhabitants of Lombok,” we are told, “think of the rice-plant as animated by a soul. ”

“ Nor do the smaller members of the island series—Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Timor, and Timor Laut—show any marked individuality in the possession of peculiar genera. Wallace’s line is absolutely non-existent, so far as the land Mollusca are concerned. The really noticeable break in distribution comes with the Aru Is., for while the Tenimber group (Timor Laut, etc.) are decidedly Malay, and the Ké Is., in the poverty of our information, uncertain, the Aru Is. are as Papuan as New Guinea itself. ”

“ In the map in the present article the last-named island is included in the present region, although, as stated, it is by preference referred to an Austro-Malay transitional region. Wallace drew the main line dividing the Oriental from the Australian region between the islands of Bali and Lombok, and between Borneo and Celebes: "The strait [between Bali and Lombok] is here fifteen miles wide, so that we may pass in two hours from one great division of the earth to another, differing as essentially in their animal life as Europe does from America. ”

“ These Papuans are said to be of the same race as the Australian aborigines, and are the only black people in these islands, the other inhabitants being light brown or copper-coloured. In religion, most of the Malays are Mohammedans, but the people of Bally and Lombok are still Brahmins, while the Dyaks and Battaks are of very primitive faiths. ”

“ But here comes the question—are there any land-quadrupeds in Bali or in Lombok? I think you told me little was known of the plants, but perhaps you know something of the insects. It is impossible that birds of long flight crossing over should not have conveyed the seeds and eggs of some plants, insects, mollusca, etc. Then the currents would not be idle, and during such an eruption as that of Tomboro in Sumbawa all sorts of disturbances, aerial, aquatic and terrestrial, would have scattered animals and plants. ”

“ It is believed that the terrace-building culture of the Asiatic islands for the production of mountain rice by irrigation during the dry season has drawn its inspiration from one source, and that such terraces where found to-day in Java, Lombok, Luzon, Formosa, and Japan are a survival of very early culture which spread from the nest of the primitive Malayan stock and left its marks along the way—doubtless in other islands besides these cited. ”

“ Ba ́li, an island of the Indian Archipelago east of Java, belonging to Holland; greatest length, 85 miles, greatest breadth, 55 miles; area, about 2160 sq. miles. It consists chiefly of a series of volcanic mountains, of which the loftiest, Agoong (11,326 feet) , became active in 1843 after a long period of quiescence. Principal products: rice, cocoa, coffee, indigo, cotton, &c. The people are akin to those of Java and are mostly Brahmans in religion. It is divided into eight provinces under native rajahs, and since 1882 has formed one colony with Lombok, the united pop. ”

“ Those on view here are regarded as slaves (or soldiers) of a raja, who is represented by a small kapatong which presides in a diminutive, half-tumbled-down house, and who is possessed by a good antoh that may appear in human shape at night. When the people of the kampong need rice or have any other wish, a fowl or pig is killed; the blood is smeared on the raja and on the slaves, and some of the meat is deposited in a jar standing next to him. When advised of what is wanted the raja gives the slaves orders to see that the people are supplied. ”

“ Being an antoh, and the greatest of all, it is invisible under ordinary conditions, but lives in rivers and underground caves, and it eats human beings.
Lidju, who accompanied me as interpreter and to be generally useful, had aroused the men early in the morning to cook their rice, so that we could start at seven o'clock, arriving in good time at the Kayan kampong, Long Blu. Here, on the north side of the river, was formerly a small military establishment, inhabited at present by a few Malay families, the only ones on the Mahakam River above the great kihams. ”

“ They plant a little rice, when the season comes, in the swamps behind the village. They work a little jungle produce, when the pinch of poverty drives them to it, but, like all Malays, they take life sufficiently easily. If you chance to go into the village of Ranggul, during any of the hot hours of the day, you will find most of its occupants lying about in their dark, cool houses, engaged upon such gentle mental tasks as may be afforded by whittling a stick, or hacking slowly at the already deeply scored threshold-block, with their clumsy wood-knives. ”

“ They were always marched in one long string. One end of the rope was held in the hand of one of the mounted men, who led the way, and the other end passed through the headstall of each of the ponies in turn. This answers all right, but the animals can pick up no living as they march. As soon as we had travelled beyond the neighbourhood of the Bayan Gol, Lobsan and his men began to show their fears of the Bana tribes, for he was always begging us to march with our guns ready, nor to go ahead of, or loiter behind, the party. ”

“ The old lama had no servants, but every third day a man came to bring him wood. He must find it dull in the long winter evenings, when he hears the storm roaring 297 outside, and silence reigns within around the gods who answer his prayers and the rolls of his drum with a smile of reconciliation. But probably he is a philosopher and has no fear of the dangers of the night. In his tent lay several sacks full of tsamba, barley, rice, and butter, but he had no authority to sell anything without the permission of the Gertse Pun. ”

“ On our return to a newly erected section of the kampong we met the intelligent kapala and a few men. Some large prahus were lying on land outside the house, bound for Long Iram, where the Kayans exchange rattan and rubber for salt and other commodities, but the start had been delayed because the moon, which was in its second quarter, was not favourable. These natives are reputed to have much wang, owing to the fact that formerly they supplied rice to the garrison, receiving one ringit for each tinful. ”

“ The harbor at Romblon resembles a lake guarded by mountains which are covered with cocoanut trees clear to their summits. At one end—the end toward the entrance, which no unfamiliar eye can detect—a great plateau mountain called Tablas stretches across the view in lengthened bulk like the sky-line of some submarine upheaval. The waters are gayly colored, shadowed into exquisite greens by the plumy mountains above; and in a little valley lies the white town of Romblon with its squat municipal buildings, its gray old church, and a graceful campanile rising from a grassy plaza. ”

“ The happiest time, however, was in the long silvery nights, when the valley was filled with the mild splendour of the regent of the sky, and the people turned with glee to joys which tire not. When the moonlight, falling softly, lighted with sheen the little village of Koroivónu, Lolóma and her handmaidens were always ready for the song and dance. ”