Chapter 12

Including the neighbouring villages and country-houses properly belonging to it, the city of Batavia contains about 3000 European inhabitants, exclusive of the garrison, 23,000 Javans and Malays, 14,700 Chinese, 600 Arabs, and 9000 slaves. A grievous falling off from the time when the population was of 160,000 souls. The Arabs, Chinese, and Javans, have each their allotted quarter, or camp, as it is termed. That of the Arabs is in the Rua Malacca--a remnant of the old Portuguese nomenclature--and consists of a medley of low, Dutch-built houses, and of light bamboo huts. The Arabs are greatly looked up to by the aborigines, who attribute to them an especial holiness on account of their strict observance of the Mahomedan law; and to such an extent is this reverence carried that vessels known to belong to them are respected by the pirates of the Archipelago. Remarkable for their quiet, orderly lives, crime is said to be unknown amongst them. They are under the orders of a chief upon whom the Dutch government confers the title of Major, and who is answerable for the good behaviour of his countrymen. Whilst traversing their quarter, Dr. Selberg observed, in front of many of the doors, triumphal arches of green boughs, decorated with coloured paper--an indication that the occupants of those dwellings had recently returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca, and thence had a peculiar claim on the respect of all true believers.

The way to the Chinese district is through a labyrinth of deserted streets and crumbling houses, abandoned on account of their unhealthiness. The contrast is striking on emerging from this scene of solitude and desolation into the bustling Chinese Kampong, where that active and ingenious people carry on their innumerable trades and handicrafts. Here mechanics, with the simplest and seemingly most inadequate tools, give a perfect finish to their manufactures; here are shops full of toys, clothes, food, of every thing in short that can minister to the wants and tastes of Chinese, Javans, or Europeans. "On the roofs of several Chinese houses, I saw jars, some with the mouth, others with the bottom turned towards the street. They are so placed in conformity with a singular custom. The jar whose bottom is turned to the street indicates that there is in the house a daughter not yet grown up. When the damsel becomes marriageable, the position of the jar is reversed; and when she marries, it is taken down altogether."

Both numerically and by reason of their energy and industry the Chinese form a very important part of the population of Java, and but for the precautions of the Dutch government they would soon entirely overrun the island. The number allowed to settle there annually, is limited by law, and during Dr. Selberg's stay at Surubaya, he saw a large junk, containing four hundred of them, compelled to put back without landing a passenger. Thus their numbers are kept stationary, or may even be said to decrease; for in 1817, Raffles estimated the Chinese in Java at nearly a hundred thousand, whilst Dr. Selberg, twenty years later, calculates them at eighty-five thousand. Although in China emigration is forbidden by law, from the over-populated districts, and when the harvest fails, thousands of Chinese make their escape, and repair to various of the East Indian islands. The majority of those in Java have been born there of Javan women married to Chinese men, who compel their wives to adopt their national usages. The children of these unions are called _pernakans_ by the Dutch, and in their turn are married to Chinese. The result has been a race which cannot be distinguished from the pure Chinese. New comers from the mainland generally arrive with little besides the clothes upon their backs, and obtain employment and support from their more prosperous countrymen until they know the customs and language sufficiently to make their way unassisted. Proud and conceited as they are in their own land, in Java they are humble and submissive, and seek their ends by craft and cunning. Laborious and clever, they would be of great benefit to their adopted country, but for their greediness and want of principle. In that oppressive and relaxing climate, the European workman has no chance with them, and moreover they accomplish the same results with half the number of tools. On the other hand, they are sensual and debauched, and desperate gamblers. Their favourite game is Topho, a bastard Rouge et Noir, at which they swindle the simple Javans in the most unscrupulous and barefaced manner.

The unhealthiness of Batavia, arising from stagnant canals, bad drinking-water, and adjacent swamps, has often been erroneously considered to extend to the entire island. The whole has been condemned for the fault of a fraction. Intermittent and remittent fevers, and dysentery, are the diseases most common, but they are generally confined to small districts. "Java," says Mr. Currie, surgeon of the 78th Regiment, which was quartered in Batavia during the whole period of the British occupation, from 1811 to 1815, "need no longer be held up as the grave of Europeans, for, except in the immediate neighbourhood of salt-marshes and forests, as in the city of Batavia, and two or three other places on the north coast, it may be safely affirmed that no tropical climate is superior to it in salubrity." The author of a hastily written and desultory volume of oriental travel,[19] founded, however, on personal experience, goes much further than this, and maintains, that "with common prudence, eschewing _in toto_ the vile habit of drinking gin and water whenever one feels thirsty, living generously but carefully, avoiding the sun's rays by always using a close or hooded carriage, and taking common precautions against wet feet and damp clothing, a man may live, and enjoy life too, in Batavia, as long as he would in any other part of the world." Mr. Davidson here refers not to the city of Batavia--which he admits to be a fatal residence, especially in the rainy season--but to the suburbs where he resided some years. These, however, only come in the second class, as regards salubrity, and are much too near the swamps, forests, and slimy sea-shore, to be a desirable abode, except for those whom business, compels to live within a drive of the city. Waitz, the Dutch writer, in his _Levensregeln voor Oost Indie_, divides the European settlements in Java into three classes; the healthy, or mountain districts, where the air is dry, and the temperature moderate; the less healthy, which are warm and damp; and finally, the positively pestiferous, where, besides tremendous heat and great moisture, the atmosphere is laden with marsh miasmata. Weltevrede, Ryswyk, and the other villages, or rather, _faubourgs_, south of Batavia, belong to the second class; Batavia itself, Bantam, Cheribon, Tubang, and Banjowangie, to the third, or worst division. And Dr. Selberg informs us, that the only two upas-trees whose existence he could ascertain, grow at Cheribon and Banjowangie, which of course was likely to confirm the popular superstition concerning the baneful influence of that tree. The coincidence, which at first appears remarkable, is of easy explanation, the upas preferring a swampy soil.

With respect to the possible longevity of Europeans in Java, Dr. Selberg's account materially differs from Mr. Davidson's estimate. The Dutch _employés_ have to serve sixteen years in the colony to be entitled to a furlough and free passage home, and twenty years for a pension. Very few, according to the doctor, live long enough to enjoy the one or the other. And those who do, buy the privilege at a dear rate. Their emaciated bodies, enfeebled minds, thin hair, and dim eyes, show them to be blighted in their prime. True it is that, with few exceptions, they utterly neglect the primary conditions of health in a hot country. They enervate themselves by sensual indulgences, and consume spirits and spices by wholesale. There is an absurd belief amongst them, that drink keeps off disease and preserves life, a case of _aut bibendum aut moriendum_; whereas the truth is precisely the contrary, for in that climate spirits are poison. The fact probably is, that they drink to dispel ennui, and to banish, at least for a while, the regret they feel at having exchanged Europe for Java. Dr. Selberg, states, that every European he spoke to in the colony, longed to leave it. But the voyage home is costly, and so they linger on until death or their furlough relieves them. Some lucky ones succeed in making rapid fortunes, but these are the very few, whose example, however, suffices to seduce others of their countrymen from their Dutch comforts, to brave fevers, tigers, mosquitoes, and the other great and little perils of Java, in pursuit of wealth which they rarely acquire, and which, when obtained, their impaired health renders it difficult for them to enjoy. Another class of the colonists consists of men who, having committed crimes in their own country, have fled from the vengeance of the law. These are thought little the worse of in Java, where the transition from one quarter of the globe to the other seems admitted as a species of moral whitewashing. And indeed, bad characters so abound amongst the scanty European population, that if the respectable portion kept themselves aloof, they would probably be found the minority. Many of the reprobates have realised considerable property. The rich host of the principal hotel at Surabaya, is a branded galley-slave. Dr. Selberg often found himself in the society of hard drinkers, and these, when wine had loosened their tongues, would let out details of their past lives, which at first greatly shocked his simplicity. "I was once," he says, "invited to a dinner, which ended, as usual, with a drinking bout. My neighbour at the table, was a German from the Rhine provinces, who had been twelve years in Java. He got very drunk, and spoke of his beloved country, which he should never see again. He was a man of property, well looked upon in the island, and I asked him what had first induced him to settle there. He replied very quietly, that it was on account of a theft he had committed. I started from my chair as if an adder had bitten me, and begged the master of the house to let me sit elsewhere than beside that man. He complied with my request, at the same time remarking, with a smile, that I should hear similar things of many, but that they were Europeans, and jolly fellows, and their conduct had been blameless since their residence in Java." In such a state of society, the best plan was to abstain from inquiries and intimacies. So the doctor found, and after a while, was able to eat the excellent Javan dinners, and sip his Medoc and Hochheimer, without asking or caring whether his fellow-feeders would not have been more in their places in an Amsterdam Zuchthaus, than in an honest man's company.

Dr. Selberg was at Batavia during the wet season, when torrents of rain, of whose abundance and volume Europeans can form no idea, alternate with a sun-heat that cracks the earth and pumps up pestilence from the low marshy ground upon which this fever-nest is built. He had abundant opportunity to investigate the causes and symptoms of the fevers and other prevalent maladies. His zeal in the cause of science led him into serious peril, by inducing him to pass a night in the city, at a time when that unlucky portion of the inhabitants whom poverty or other causes prevent from leaving it, were dying like flies from the effects of the noxious exhalations. The quality of the air was so bad as sensibly to affect the lungs and olfactories, and impede respiration; and, though exposed to it but a very few hours, he experienced various unpleasant symptoms, only to be dissipated by recourse to his medicine chest. Hence some idea may be formed of the terrible effect of that corrupt atmosphere upon those who continually breathe it. The plague of mosquitoes, who find their natural element in the marsh-vapour, also contributes to render Batavia an intolerable sleeping-place. One very singular phenomenon observed by Dr. Selberg, but for which he does not attempt to account, is the strong odour of musk constantly perceptible in the city and its environs.

As less interesting to the general than to the medical reader, we pass over the doctor's febrile researches, and accompany him to the town of Surabaya, to which he proceeded after a few days' stay at Batavia. "It was four in the afternoon when we came to an anchor: in an instant the ship was surrounded by a swarm of the small native boats--tambangans, as they are called; and we were assailed by all manner of noisy greetings and offers of service. Some of the applicants wished to row us to the town, others insisted upon selling us fruit and eatables, pine-apples, shaddocks, arrack, dried fish, boiled crabs, &c. &c., contained in tubs and jars of very dubious cleanliness. Chinese pressed upon our notice their various wares;--large straw hats, beautifully plaited; cigars, parasols, Indian ink, fans, and the like trifles. Here was a Javan proa, full of boots and shoes, of all colours; yonder, a floating menagerie of parrots, macaws, apes, and cockatoos, equally variegated, and to be sold for a song. There were jewellers, and diamond merchants, and dealers in carved horn and ivory; washer-women petitioning for custom, and exhibiting certificates of honesty in a dozen different languages, not one of which they understood; canoes full of young Javan girls,--these last also for sale. I at once saw that I had come into a neighbourhood where European civilisation had made considerable progress. Without exception, I found the morals of the aborigines at the lowest pitch in the vicinity of the large European establishments.

"It was a cheerful bustling scene. 'Here, sir, food!' 'Sir, you are welcome!' 'Gold from Padang!' 'Shoes for a silver florin!' 'Capital arrack!' and fifty other cries, mingled with the screams and chatter of the birds; whilst a great orang-outang from Borneo, and a number of monkeys, in different boats, insulted one another by the most diabolical grimaces. Many of the canoes were mere hollow trees, enclosed, to prevent their capsizing, in a frame-work of large bamboo stems, two of these being fixed transversely to bow and stern of the boat, and having their extremities connected by others running parallel to it. The lightness and buoyancy of the bamboos obviate all risk of the boats swamping. I have seen them out in a rough sea, tossed upon the waves, and showing nearly the whole of their keel, but I never knew one to upset."

The town of Surabaya, or Sorabaya, (Crocodile Resort,) is situated towards the eastern extremity of the north coast of Java, opposite the island of Madura, and at five hundred English miles from Batavia. It stands in a large plain near the mouth of the Kalimas, or Gold River; and, at the present day, is the most flourishing of the Dutch establishments in Java. The climate is damp and hot, the thermometer often standing at eighty-five in the night; but it is less unhealthy than that of Batavia. The river is not drained and frittered away by canals; the town is well planned and open; and the handsome houses are interspersed with beautiful gardens. As at Batavia, however, the harbour is more or less impeded by mud-banks, which prevent the entrance of large ships. Favoured and encouraged by the Dutch governor, General Daendels, and by his successor, Baron Van der Capellen, the place grew rapidly in size and prosperity. It possesses a mint, an arsenal, docks for ship-building, anchor-founderies, and other similar establishments. Notwithstanding these advantages, the European population amounts, in the town and entire province, which latter is of considerable extent, to no more than six hundred and fifty persons, exclusive of the troops. The whole population, of all nations and colours, reaches a quarter of a million. The mode of living is far gayer and more agreeable than at Batavia, which, whatever it may have been in former days, is now a mere place of business, a collection of offices, shops, and warehouses. At Surabaya life is more secure and its enjoyment greater. Every evening, during the fine season, the large square in the Chinese quarter--composed of massive comfortable buildings, contrasting favourably with the fragile huts of the Javans--is converted into a kind of fair, where the whole city assembles. "The place is illumined with a thousand torches, which increase, to a stranger's eyes, the curious exotic character of the scene. Javans, Chinese, Europeans, Liplaps, (the Batavian term for the children of Europeans and Javan women,) and various other races, crowd thither to gaze at the shows and performances. There jugglers and rope-dancers display their dexterity, far surpassing that of their European brethren; Chinese comedies are acted, and Chinese orchestras jar upon the ear of the newly arrived foreigner; the Rongengs (dancing girls) go through their series of voluptuous attitudes; gongs are beaten, trumpets blown; Chinese gamblers lie upon the ground and rob the Javans at the much-loved games of tzo and topho." The people of Java are very musical, after their fashion, and have all manner of queer instruments, many of a barbarous description, some borrowed from the Chinese. They are much addicted to dramatic exhibitions and puppet shows, and claim to be the original inventors of the _ombres chinoises_, figures moved behind a transparent curtain. Crawford, in his "History of the Indian Archipelago," gives them the credit of this triumph of inventive genius, which has found its way from the far Fast to the streets of London, and to Monsieur Seraphin's saloon in the Palais Royal.

Javan diversions are not all of the same human and gentle character as those just cited. Although mild and peaceable in disposition, the Javans are passionately fond of fights between animals. Whilst beholding these encounters, their usual calm gravity and mysterious reserve disappear, and are replaced by the noisy, vehement eagerness of an excited boy. Cock-fights are in great vogue, and in many an old Javan poem the exploits of the crested combatants are related in a strain of laughable magniloquence. But other and more serious contests frequently take place. Before speaking of them, we turn to Dr. Selberg's spirited account of a tiger-hunt, which occurred during his stay at Surabaya. Tigers of various species abound in Java. The commonest are the royal tiler and the leopard, of which latter animal the black tiger is a bastard variety. Cubs of both kinds are frequently found in the same lair; and when the black tiger is very young, leopard-like spots are discernible on its skin. As it grows older, they disappear, and the hair becomes of a uniform black. In the interior of Java much mischief is done by these cowardly but bloodthirsty and cunning beasts. In the neighbourhood of the large European settlements, accidents are less frequent, the tiger shunning populous districts, and retreating into the forest on the approach of man. When one makes its appearance, the authorities generally order a battue. Very few, however, are killed, though a price is set upon their heads, and they continue to destroy about three hundred Javans per annum, on a moderate average. This is, in great measure, the fault of the natives themselves, who, instead of doing their utmost to exterminate the breed, entertain a sort of superstitious respect for their devourers, and carry it so far as to place food in the places to which they are known to resort, thinking thereby to propitiate the foe, and keep his claws off their wives and children. They themselves, when compelled to oppose the tiger, or when led against him by their European allies, show vast coolness and courage, the more remarkable, as, in ordinary circumstances of danger, they are by no means a brave people. Raffles quotes several anecdotes of their fearlessness before wild beasts, and Dr. Selberg furnishes one of a similar kind. "A Javan criminal was condemned by the sultan to fight a large royal tiger, whose ferocity was raised to the highest point by want of food, and artificial irritation. The only weapon allowed to the human combatant was a kreese with the point broken off. After wrapping a cloth round his left fist and arm, the man entered the arena with an air of undaunted calmness, and fixed a steady menacing gaze upon the brute. The tiger sprang furiously upon his intended victim, who with extraordinary boldness and rapidity thrust his left fist into the gaping jaws, and at the same moment, with his keen though pointless dagger, ripped up the beast to the very heart. In less than a minute, the tiger lay dead at his conqueror's feet. The criminal was not only forgiven but ennobled by his sovereign."

A tiger having attacked and torn a Javan woman, a hunt was ordered, and Dr. Selberg was invited to share in it. He got on horseback before daybreak, but the sun was up and hot when he reached the place of rendezvous, where he found a strong muster of Europeans and Javans. "In front of us was a small wood, choked and tangled with bushes: this was the tiger's lair. At about twenty paces from the trees, we Europeans posted ourselves, with our rifles, twelve paces from each other, and in the form of a semicircle. Behind us was a close chain of several hundred Javans, armed with long lances, kreeses, and short swords. If the tiger broke through our ranks, they were to kill him after their fashion. The natives--those, at least, who have not served as soldiers--being unskilled in the use of fire-arms, are not trusted with them, for fear of accidents. From the opposite side of the wood a crowd of musicians now advanced, beating drums, triangles, and gongs, and making an infernal din, intended to scare the tiger from his lurking place, and drive him towards us. We were all on the alert, guns cocked, eyes riveted on the wood. The instruments came nearer and nearer, and I expected each moment to see the monster spring forth. There were no signs of him, however, and presently the beaters stood before us. Heartily disappointed at this fruitless chase and unexpected result, I was about to join the hunter stationed to my left, when the one on my other hand called a Javan, and bade him thrust his lance into a bush on my right front, between our line and the little wood. Impossible, thought I, that the beast should be there: and I turned to speak to my friend. I had uttered but a word or two, when a rustle and rush made me look round. The Javan stood before the bush, clutching a tiger by the throat with both hands. The brute was already pierced with bullets, lances, and daggers: a broad stream of blood flowed over the face of the Javan, who continued firmly to grasp his enemy, until we released the lifeless carcase from his hands. His wound was not so serious as we had at first feared: a bit of the scalp was torn off, and the nose slightly injured. He stood silent, and apparently stupefied, and revived only when an official informed him that he should receive the reward of ten dollars, set upon the head of every tiger."