JAVA'S VOLCANIC WONDERS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18074, 16 May 1924, Page 11

JAVA'S VOLCANIC WONDERS.

» —— GLIMPSES OF NATURE AND NATIVE LIFE. (SPECIALLY WRITTEN FOE "THE PEESS. ) (By W. Farmer Whyte.) Java lies in the great volcanic belt that stretches up to Japan, in the north, and down to New Zealand, m the south. It is a land of many wonders, and not the least of these are its volcanoes. They have been pouring out their lava over the countryside these thousand years and more, and probably there is no richer country on the face of the earth than this beautiful, luxuriant land, with its volcanic soil. Having seen the world-famous Botanic Gardens of Buitenzorg, my next objective was Garoet, the centre of a great chain of active volcanoes. It was 7 o'clock in the morning when the train left Buitenzorg. .The air was like champagne, and it was a. delight to watch the mists, hanging in great white clouds over the high mountains, disso.ving in the early morning sunlight. Here was Nature in all her wondrous beauty. / Like a great patchwork quilt, worked in all shades of green and gold, stretched the everlasting rice-fields—along the level country, and up the hillsides, arid on the river banks. There seemed to be scarcely an inch of land that was not be,ing cultivated. Right down to tlie river's edge rah the terraced rioepatches, some of them so small in area that, as the train raced by, they looked! like soft pillows of green velvet.

Seven Hundred to the Square Mile. So much of this country is covered by volcanoes that the natives cannot atford to neglect any area, no matter how small, tliat is capable of cuittvaxtion. For, think of their numbers! In Java alone there are 36,000,000 of them—and the whole area of Java is only 50,«00 square miles. Its length is 663 miles, and in breadth it varies from 33 to 125 miles; There are about 700 people to the square mile! Included in the population of this island are nearly 500,000 Chinese and Arabs. How many Indians there are I do not know,' but there' is an Indian strain, dating back many centuries, m a very large percentage, of the natives. The Europeans total about 150,000, most of them, of course, being Dutch. I have a very vivid recollection of a Dutchman and his language at a station named Tjiendoer. He had a big, strawberry nose, long whiskers, and a number of women. He-seemed to be greatly put about. He spoke excitedly and used extraordinarily long words, with a snort at the end of them. But no—he was not upset about anything at all. A young Dutch lady in the carriage—she told me she was a schoolteacher —explained the situation.to me. The gentleman was merely a distingtyshed citizen, and nearly all the people on the platform, it appeared, had come down to see him off. There was much hand-shaking; and a brass band, comprised of natives, began playing on' the platform in his honour. The train moved off, to the accompaniment of" a violent expletive from the distinguished old gentleman. And now, for the first time, I' saw tea ; growing. Prom Java, Australia imports an enormous quantity of tea. We are, I believe, the greatest teadrinkers'in the world. But before tea .gets intov our it through many processes, not the leastimportant of which is the- blending. Here, now, on the hill-slopes, one «aw the actual tea-leaves growing.. "The plant itself is but a small thing. The. coffee tree, the beans of which are, ground up for the markets of the world, was also growing here; but it is quite a large'thing compared with the tea-tree, which .only grows to theheight of five or six feet. There was rice in the valleys and tea on the hills —miles and miles of it under' cultivation. Like the banana, it seems to thrive best on the hillsides. Bandoeng. A little after midday we reached Bandoeng, a place of much importance in Java.' Jt is called the "inland capital," and is the headquarters of the military. I thought Bandoeng'- one of the prettiest places I ever saw. Driving down the fine wide streets, with' splendid buildings on either side, all painted white, on the way to. the Hotel Preanger, one felt .it was a joy to be alive. The streets were crowded, and. everybody seemed prosperous. Motorcars and motor-bicycles whizzed by. The little pony-carts—the "sadas" —; went on their more leisurely way. The Hotel Preanger, like the Hotel der Nederlanden, in Batavia, stands in a big square. There is the main building in the centre, standing away back from the street, with two magnificent King palms in front of it; and down the sides of the square and at the back are the residential quarters, including some self-contained bungalows. When vou "take a room" at these big hotels in Java, you really take several rooms—a sitting-room and a bathroom are thrown in, and, in addition, vou usually find a pretty verandah that is all your own. Price? Oh, yes the Dutch hotel-keepers charge vou for the comforts they provide. My room, or rooms, at Bandoeng, cost- me 15 guelders for the day—£l 7s 6d. And the tips would easily bring it up to thirty shillings. You don't give big tips anywhere in the East, but .you are giving them all the. time. When you are leaving an hotel, your room-boy, your boot-boy, your table-boy, and a lot of other boys you never saw before line up solemnly to bid you goodbye. You have probably already tipr ped vour room-boy, your .boot-boy, and vour" table-boy, but they are polite to the last, and cheerfully take a second helping. . , I don't know whether they have trade unions there, out I.do know-that each "boy" sticks very closely to Ins own job, and there's, no "blacklegging." Even the bare-footed native, waiters in the dining-room seem to have their work divided up into watertight compartments.. A boy. wearing one sort of turban brings you a plate, and along comes one with another sort of turban carrying your food,: sometimes . on top of • his head. One brings your coffee, and another brings you a spoon. Perhaps that is why they have so many waiters. At some of the hotels there seemed to be more waiters than guests. It is a great game. A Little Sleep, a Little Walk. Everybody sleeps at Bandoeng in the middle of the day; and when you are there you do as Bandoeng does. , There is no business done, and most of-the big shops close, to reopen again later in' the afternoon, when it is cooler. ', . , So when it got cooler, and I had had my sleep, I went out shopping—went into shops kept by Dutchmen, and shops kept by Chinese, and shops kept by Arabs, and shops kept by Indians. They were, all of them, beautifully clean. • • , Here, too, I saw my first native market in Java. It was full of life,.and full of interest. There were three rows of rough native "shops," with men and women squatting on the floor, or on a raised platform, offering their wares, which were piled up around

them—sarongs of all sizes and colours, food of all kinds, post-cards, brumagem jewellery, and goodness knows what. The scene was not unlike that which one saw in Hihiya Park, Tokyo, where bo many of the .Japanese were temporarily housed after the earthquake. And one must mention the Dutch women of Bandoeng, for they are even bigger than those of Batavia. Some of them are giants. But they carry themselves most gracefully.

To a member of the staff of the "Preanger Bode," the writer owes his thanks for a most delightful drive around the town and its outskirts. We passed many magnificent public buildings, including a new technical college, and the military, headquarters. A beautiful private house caught my eye, and it turned out to be the home of the manager of the "quinine company," which, is reported to be making enormous profits. A little farther on one's attention was attracted by an interesting experiment in municipal government. The local authorities have built a large number of. very attractive cottages of various sizes, fitted with electric light and all conveniences, and these they let at a rental sufficient to return fair interest on the outlay. One tiling iterested me —the gaol. "Why are the footpaths covered with it. You see, tlue natives wear no boots, broken glass?" I asked. "Oh, that's the prison. There is glass all round and they're afraid of cutting their feet if they try to escaptT.by jumping over the wall."

Restricting the Chinese.

And then I commented on the large number of Chinese names over tho shops. "Yes," said my Bandoeng newspaper friend—"too many. They've been in the country as long as the Dutch—some of them longer. But the Government is making it more difficult for them to come in now, by putting on a heavy poll-tax." The fact of the matter is that neither the Dutch nor any other nation can compete against the Chinese as shopkeepers. And the position is becoming more acute with the added advantages that education is giving,.the. wily Chinese. Let me quote from a letter written by Mr Liin Cheng Giok, president of the Java Chinese Students' Association, to the "Straits Times," of Singapore, in November last:— ' , "On behalf of the Java Chinese Students ' Association, I should like to urge that the emergency ruling of sev'eral yvirs-ago, which bars ' students coming from: the Dutch East Indies from entering: into the schools in Singapore, should now be revoked. The Chinese people in Java are nearly all of tlie merchant class, and so are able and anxious to give their children English education. English education in Java is inadequately provided. There are no big English schools, because English education quite naturally is not encouraged by the Dutch • Government, arid until'.quite recently the Chinese there were not admitted into the Dutch schools. A s English is the universal language of commerce, and as our people are nearly all of the merchant class, local business and industry are bound to be benefited by the new contracts formed by sons of business men' of the Indies. The. records of our students in scholarship,' loyalty, and character have been highly commended by authorities. Most nations are proud to have a large influx of foreign students to-their schools and colleges, for they' are a testimony to .tlie progress of the; country.- Therefore, while thankful for concessions in the past, I. strongly urge upon the. Education Department to open the doors of.the various schools to all who' are anxious to secure an. English education, and who are able to pay for it, at least in the higher classes, whe're the congestion is not grejat* - ; Y' •"". ■/ ■;'■"'■>■ •-•■.'■ ,: Like the Land of Canaan. . : One leaves Bandoeng with many regrets. But yonder lies' Garoet, and Garoet compensates. One will never forget the glory of the countryside on approaching that pretty little' town. It is beyond all picturing with .penr or brush. 'For many;miles the train winds; round the'' mountains, through tunnels, and over long,.picturesque bridges, and all the time, thousands of -feet, below, there is a never-ending valley; green, and golden, that looked as sweet and lovely as the Land of Canaan. Paddyfields. Eice;'rice, rice! . And suddenly, at last, the train sweeps down into that beautiful, coun-;-try where the amphibious natives live. Amphibious, yet, for they seem to. live as much Jn the water as out ot it Bice/growing is a watery ; . wors. Each terraced',pateh; must receive .its flooding, and fortunately there is no lack of rivers in Java, -"-may not. be scientific, but the natives know how to irrigate these lands of theirs to grow rice crops that cannot be surpassed anywhere in the world. P And so, on a day in late» Nowmb*j one comes to Garoet and finds oneselt walking from the stationJ» J*« "JJ corner, where stands the Hotel Papan dejan-walking under an umbrella.eight feet in diaW, A b V„£* has servant from the hotel. And one has no sooner reached the place than A swarm of natives, boys and girls, lu» flies around a honey-pot, file, ir,rwith sarong and all manner of curios for sale. , ■ . On the Way to the Volcano. But the volcano's the thing 1 Which one? That i 6 the question, near Garoet, are a number d volcanoes-you see the smote issuing from them as you ride m the t»inr-ana if vour time is limited you cannot hope to see them all. The nearest is something like 20 miles away. The Hotel Paparfdajan is. calledafter one of-them But one is informed by the landlady that it is "not as good as it-was better see Kamodjan." So it is Kamodjan. and preparations are made accordID At 5 o'clock in the morning the party sets out-a visiting Hollander and his young wife, and the writer, xhe brst part of the journey is made by earprobably 12 miles. Then at a native village at the foot of the mountain, -horses and guides are procured, and we ride the rest of the way. You see Papandajan and another volcano smoking away to the left, and now and again vou hear a noise like distant thunder, and you fancy you can reel the earth shaking. Butto these people of Java it is> nothing. History tells ot lava pouring down the mountain s>aes and villages disappearing, but always, when the'monster's wrath is spent the natives creep back towards the mountain and till the land and grow their nee again. The mountain is like a god that beckons them-, only to destroy them. For there is no noe like the- noe that grows in these -valleys, with their rjch volcanic soil. ( <tp„„ There is a place they call the .English Park" on this journey made—a cleared snace in the centre, and round it some beautiful trees It mav be just one of Nature's parks, or it mav have a history—but nobody seemed to know anything about.it. All the rest of the country is rugged mountain scenery. We have left the lower slopes behind, with their rire and tea plantations, now, at half-past 8 m the morning, our Don'es are puffing i laboriouslv up the steeo mountain.; the I thick, impenetrable jungle on either i side of us. We are journeying through ! the forest primeval.. . i One looks up ouickly at a rustling m I the trees, and a sort of oachinnat-.on 1 —a click and a clack—strikes the ear. The next mornins; several large monkeys are seen swingine themselves by the branches high, overhead from one side of the narrow roadway to the other, j We stop for a while to look up. There

are a score or more of them peeping down at us and executing the most astonishing acrobatic tricks in the tall trees. They swing themselves swiftly from,tree to tree, and soon are lost to sight. ■..., ',/'.■ The Kamodjan Orator.

A little while after that .'the smell of j sulphur warns :us that; we are near the crater of Kamodjan. • Those of you who h«ve been, to Rotorua, in New Zealand will be able very fair aea «f Kamodjan with its boilmg lake and bubbling porridge-pots." Every now and the —at lone intervals—it bursts out in fury, 3it is death to be caught near it. • * X Roundin*- a corner, we came sudden]y on a small Wie - TK™* er Z* S | bubbling tod steam was- issuing from + The'sround all round waa hot and i was .almost suffocating. Climbing a steep pinch we pnwn^r skit s?rr*. r « ■lX**. over, th„. P»t^"tolSt-Sng-nJud-pools/bubbhng and spitting,. on every side.

"The Inferno." But it was when we came to "The Inferno!" aTthey call it that we were slked bv an indescribable fear. -It. wal an awful hissing, .smoking hole. with a great thickness of sulphur a all «round it. Tne L,+b Was heaving all round it, yi<"«So mtghty force below, \wheie firl md water met. Venturing near, with much daring, one bent over to t>eer into the great, black hole. But Se'ls notlWto be-en, nothi^ Sa'SISSfSSb mai SA Su could see\othing, but you oou£ hear a thousand devils fighting 4ot »-ia™7 nT ,d everv now and then a sulfen rJix shook the.earth and sent the toUing waters shooting up in great 3X,and you will see how (continents are made. But it wasn't the age <*«£«£ re of ours is like riurselyes, & W4-S? breathing, sentient * And we' shall see anon more wonderful things than Kamodjan.. - - ,;«