Part 9

I asked my way of an old woman who sat by the roadside, complacently smoking a cigarette, and soon found myself within the gates of the Botanical Garden, and in the celebrated waringin avenue, one of the glories of the place. The first impression, I confess, is somewhat disappointing. The avenue is not very long, so that it lacks the depths of green darkness, the prospect along apparently converging parallels of pillar-like trunks, and the bluish shimmer of light afar off, which are the characteristic charms of woodland glades. It seems more like a square, planted with trees on two sides of the quadrangle only, a comparatively narrow space of shadow, abutting on the broad fields of sunlight beyond. After a while, however, one notices the smallness of the figures moving past the trees, men, horses, and bullock-carts. By comparison, one begins to realize the gigantic proportions of it all,--the length and breadth and height of the leafy vault overhead, and the hugeness of those stupendous growths that support it, each of them a grove in itself, congregated hundreds of trees, group by group of stately stems crowding round the colossal parent bole. Then, bye and bye, the sense of grandeur is succeeded by a curious impression of lifelessness. In their vast size, their stark immobility, and their rigid attitudes, these grey masses resemble granite peaks and cliffs rather than trees. The aged trunks, broadbased, are riven and fissured like weather-beaten rocks, showing gnarled protuberances and black clefts from which ferns and mosses droop. Some, rotten to the core--nothing left of the trunk but a fragment of grey gnarled rind, with the fungus-overgrown mould lying heaped up against the base--resemble boulders, covered with earth and detritus. One or two, quite decayed, hang in mid-air, dependent from a dome of interlacing branches, stems, and air-roots, like some gigantic stalactite from the roof of a pillared cavern. And, aloft, the dense masses of foliage, grey against the sunlit brilliancy of the sky, seem like the broken and crumbling vault of this immense grotto. This strange resemblance of living vegetable matter to inert stone ceases only when, issuing from among the stems, one looks at the waringins from a distance, and sees the grey multitude of boles, trunks, and stems disappearing under spreading masses of foliage, resplendent in the sun.

The garden is worthy of this magnificent entrance. Enthusiastic "savants" have sung its praises in all the languages of civilization, and, by common consent, have declared it to be the finest botanical garden in the world, assigning the second place to famous Kew, and mentioning the gardens of Berlin, Paris, and Vienna as third, fourth, and fifth in order of merit. Originally, it was no more than the park belonging to the country-house, which Governor-General Van Imhoff built here in 1754: a house since destroyed by an earth-quake, and on the site of which the present lodge was erected.

In this park, Professor Bernwardt, some eighty years ago, arranged a small botanical garden, a "hortus" as the innocent pedantry of the period called it. The idea was to gather in this fertile spot specimens of all the plants and trees growing in Java, so as to afford men of science an opportunity for studying the flora of the island. By and bye, however, especially under the direction of Teysmann, many plants from other countries were introduced, with a view of acclimatizing them in Java, often with signal success. And, recently, a museum and a library have been established, as well as several laboratories for chemical, botanical, and pharmaceutical research. For the cultivation of such plants as require a cool climate, gardens have been laid out on the terraced hill-side, in ascending tiers that climb up to the heights of Tji-Bodas, where in the early morning, the temperature is 10° Celsius. These ameliorations, for the greater part, are due to the untiring energy of the eminent scientist now directing the garden.

But, that morning, as I wandered through the tall avenues of the Buitenzorg Park, the thought of its importance as a scientific institution disappeared before the perception of its exquisite loveliness. Not a beauty of line and colour merely: it has these--the park is admirably arranged, in broad effects of light and shadow, dark hued groves and avenues contrasting with sunny expanses of lawn and copse and mirroring lake; but there is something over and above all this, an element of beauty as subtle and elusive as the transient sparkle of a sun-beam, or the fitful comings and goings of the summer wind. Perhaps it was the extraordinary brilliancy of the colours, and the shimmer in the rain-saturated atmosphere; or perhaps it was the profound quietude all around, a stillness so perfect that it seemed it must endure for ever. I do not know what may have been the elements that made up the nameless charm. But I yielded myself up to it; and it seemed to me, as if I were walking in a dream, amidst objects at once unreal and singularly distinct. For a long time I sat by the shore of a little lake, that had an islet in the midst of it, all overgrown with brushwood, and great tangles of liana, that opened hundreds of pale violet flowers to the sunlight; in the centre there rose a group of young palms, of the sort that has a bright red stem; and all these colours, the many-tinted green and the lilac and the scarlet were mirrored so vividly in the clear water as to almost make the reflection seem brighter than the reality.... By and by, following a path that wandered out of sunshine into chequered shadow, and out of shadow into sunlight again, I came to a vast sweep of meadowy ground, where herds of reddish deer were feeding as peacefully as in a forest clearing. Presently I found myself in a great dim avenue of kenari-trees, through whose sombre branches the sky showed but faintly; and anon in a bamboo grove where there was a continual rustling and waving of leaves though not the slightest breath of wind could be felt to stir the air.

Here and there through gaps in the trees came a sudden glimpse of the distant valley, with the river shining between the light-green rice fields, and beyond the encircling hills. Everywhere, too, the presence of living water made itself felt, in the cool damp air, and in the delicious smell of moist earth, wet stones, and water-plants. And I would suddenly catch the silvery gleams, between the bushes, of a brooklet hurrying past over its pebbly bed, and foaming in small cascades that be-sprinkled the ferns and tall nodding grasses upon the bank with scintillating spray. Here and there, I heard the murmur and tinkle of a fountain; and I passed by quiet ponds and lakelets, dark green in the shadow of overhanging trees. One of these sheets of water--or rather the streamlet into which it narrows at one end--is completely overgrown with white lotus flowers; and a sight more exquisitely beautiful cannot be imagined. It burst upon me suddenly, as I came out of a long, dark avenue; and, at first, I could not make out what that white splendour was. It seemed to float like a luminous summer cloud, like a snowy drift of morning mist. A breath of wind arose, and the even splendour trembled and seemed to break up into hundreds of white flames and sparks, that for an instant all blew one way, and then shot up again, and stood steadily shining. As I came nearer, I discerned the great, round white flowers, radiant in the sunshine. The circular, purplish brown leaves spread all over the surface of the water, covering it from bank to bank. And, out of these heaps of bronze shields, there rose the straight tall stems, like lances, with the white flame of the flower breaking out at the top--sparks of St. Elmo's fire, such as, on that memorable night, tipped the spears of the Roman cohorts, on their march to battle and victory.

This field of radiant lotus blossoms, and the sombre and solemn waringin avenue, contrasting glories, seem to me to be the crowning beauties of the Buitenzorg garden. The name of Buitenzorg, by the bye, is an innovation. Natives still call the town by its ancient name of Bogor, which it bore in the glorious age when it was the capital of the Hindoo realm of Padjadjaran. A Muslim conqueror, Hassan Udin, son of the Sheik Mulana, destroyed it; and a new town was reared on the ruins, but legends of its bygone glory still haunt the imagination of the country folk. In the tales which they repeat to one another of an evening, the splendour of the ancient empire, and the wisdom and unconquerable valour of its founder are still remembered. Tjioeng Wonara was his name; and his son and successor, the victorious Praboe Wangi, was even greater than he. In the craggy hill-tops of the Gedeh range, popular tradition sees the ruins of the splendid palace he built himself on the heights; the hall where the throne of gold and ivory stood; the temple, where he worshipped the gods; the domes of his harem; and the battlemented towers which his unconquerable warriors kept against the world, a thousand years ago. The southern wall of the Gedeh-crater surrounds, as an impregnable bulwark, the palace and temple courts.

The Hindoo period, however, has left in this neighbourhood records more authentic than Praboe Wangi's fancy-built palace on the heights. Near a native kampong, which derives its name from this proximity, the so-called Batu Tulis is found, a field covered with a quantity of stone slabs, some lying prone, others still upright, adorned with figures in bas-relief and covered with inscriptions. The legend on the largest of these memorial tablets, traced in ancient Javanese characters, has been deciphered; it celebrates the virtues and victories of a Hindoo king. And the worn-away superscriptions and rude effigies discernible on the other stones probably commemorate contemporary princes and warriors. The Bogor country-folk greatly venerate these relics of a glorious past.

Carriers walking by the side of their lumbering, bullock-drawn "pedati," which creaks so leisurely along the sun-scorched roads; labourers on their way to the rice fields, the light wooden ploughshare across their shoulders, driving the patient yoke of oxen before them; women from the hill-villages around, who come to the Bogor market in holiday attire, a chaplet of jessamine blossoms twisted into their "kondeh"--all turn aside from the road, to murmur a short prayer, and offer a handful of flowers, of frankincense and yellow boreh unguent, or even Chinese joss-sticks and small paper lanterns on the consecrated spot. Whether this be an act of homage to those ancient kings and heroes, whose rude effigies adorn the stones, and whose spirits are believed still to haunt the spot; or simply a fetishistic adoration of these blocks of granite and the curious signs engraved thereon, it is difficult to decide; the worshippers themselves hardly seem to know. When asked, they reply that they do as their fathers did before them, and so, therefore, must be right; unless, indeed, they merely smile, and offer the somewhat irrelevant remark that they are true Moslemin. This, indeed, every native of Java (save such few as have been converted to the Christian religion) professes himself to be. And, in a measure, the Javanese are Mohammedans; they recite the Mohammedan prayers and Confession of Faith, go to the Messigit--which is Javanese for mosque--when it suits them, keep the Ramadan very strictly; also, if they can afford it, they perform that most sacred duty of the Mohammedan, the Mecca pilgrimage, and, returning thence, live for ever on the purses of their admiring co-religionists. But for the rest, one may apply to them Napoleon's dictum concerning the Russians--mutatis mutandis. Scratch the Muslim, and you will find the Hindoo; scratch the Hindoo, and you will find the fetish-adoring Pagan. In the same way, too, as they confuse religious beliefs, they distort historical facts and traditions so as to make them tally with the prevalent opinions of the day. This Batu Tulis, for instance; though they venerate it as a record of the Hindoo empire, they yet, at the same time, honour it as a monument of the Mohammedan conquest. According to them, these roughly-fashioned stones, of which, they say, there are over eight hundred dispersed throughout the neighbourhood, are the transformed shapes of Siliwangi, last King of Padjadjaran, and his followers, who, in this spot, their last refuge on flight from the victorious Muslim hosts, were turned into stones by Tuan Allah, as a punishment for their persistent refusal to embrace El-Islam; and the superscription celebrating the Hindoo prince they make out to be the record of this miracle. A touch of romance clings to the grim legend like a tender-petalled flower to a rock. It concerns the impress of a foot, visible on one of the slabs, and a fair princess who left it there, many centuries ago. Alone of all that multitude that fled with Siliwangi, she, the consort of valiant Poerwakali, his son, escaped the general doom, through the influence of an Arab priest who had converted her to the true religion. She could not, however save her husband, whom, before her very eyes, she saw turned into a stone. But, in her faithful heart, love could not die, though the loved one was dead. The victor, vanquished in his turn by her incomparable beauty, implored her in vain. She would not be separated from her husband's inanimate shape, and, building herself a little hut under the waringin trees, she still, day by day, repaired to the stone, which bore Poerwakali's semblance, with sacrifices and prayers, and tears. And, often, in a transport of love and grief, she would throw her arms about the inert mass, closely embracing it, and, into its deaf ear, murmur soft words, and vows of eternal loyalty, and bitter-sweet memories of the days that were no more. Her tears, still flowing, fell on the stone underfoot, day by day, month by month, year by year, until at last it became soft and yielding as clay, and received and retained the impress of those tender feet, which for so long had known no other resting place.

From these memories of an empire overthrown, a religion smitten with the edge of the sword, and a love stronger than death--"old unhappy far off things and battles long ago"--suggested by Batu Tulis, to the gaiety of the Buitenzorg races is a wide step. But our modern souls have grown accustomed to these sudden transitions. In Java, more than in any other country, one must be prepared at any moment to pass from the fairy lands forlorn of history, to contemporary Philistia. Let me hasten to add, in justice, that I found that high festival of Philistinism in Java, the Buitenzorg races, both amusing and full of interest. The crowded Stands gave one an "impression d'ensemble" of society in the colony, such as would be expected in vain on any other occasion--formal functionaries and business men from the hot towns with their exquisitely dressed, palefaced wives and daughters, mingling with sunburnt planters from the interior, and rosy-cheeked girls from the neighbouring hill-stations, in white muslin frocks, brightened up by flowers such as those grown at home. And the spectacle of the races, exciting in itself, is rendered the more interesting by the changes and transformations which an essentially northern sport has suffered under the sun of the tropics--by the substitution of Sandalwood and Battak ponies for horses, of native syces, who clutch the stirrup with bare toes, for jockeys, and of silent multitudes brightly garbed, for the black-coated crowds that shout and huzza at Epsom or Longchamps.

IN THE HILL COUNTRY

Among other Western ideas and institutions, the Hollanders have imported into Java that of health-resorts. Erstwhile lonely hills now bear hotel and "pavilions" upon their disforested summits; picnics are held in glades where, a few years ago, the timid antelopes fed; and Strauss's waltzes have reduced to silence the noisy cicadas. In the country south and east of Batavia, in the Gedehhills, and in the Preanger district, there are several of these hill-stations. There, the air is pure and cool, in the months when the hot east monsoon scorches the plains. There is Tji-Panas, Tji-Bodas, Sookaboomi, Sindanglaya, Tjandjoor, the country round about Bandong, and, somewhat farther east, Garoot, all of which places are easily accessible from Batavia. The hotels are generally airy, roomy, and clean, if not elegant; the food is fairly good, and the charges moderate, about four dollars a day, the average rate throughout Java.

The Preanger district, in which Garoot, Bandong, and Tjandjoor are situated--the "Garden of Java" as it is fitly named--in more than one respect reminds the traveller of the hillcountry. There is the same clearness in the profiles of the mountain-ranges; the same transparency of the air, which causes distant objects to appear quite near, and reveals their contour rather than their modelling; the same jewel-like sparkle in the colouring of the landscape, in the clear-hued green of valley and hillside, in the changeful hues of the water, and in the blue, opal, and roseate violet of the distances under an azure sky. The thin pure air is as wellwater; in the evenings one has to kindle a fire in order to keep warm; and walks of several hours cause neither heat nor fatigue in this bracing climate, which makes even natives quicken their naturally slow movements, and which tinges their brown complexions with a flush of healthy red. In the fields, corn is seen instead of rice, and, in places, golden wheat waves. The gardens are fragrant with mignonette, heliotropes, and carnations; mossroses flourish, velvety pansies, geraniums, fuchsias, phlox in all its countless varieties of brilliant colours, and the tender forget-me-nots of northern brooksides. Strawberries, along with clusters of the blue and white grape show between the dense foliage of the vines. At certain seasons of the year, the hills are purple with the blossoms of the rasamala tree,--a magnificent growth which throws out its first branches at a height of a hundred feet, and the summit of which reaches an altitude of a hundred and eighty. The most splendid orchids are found in the woods side by side with mushrooms of extraordinary dimensions, some of three feet in diameter, and of strange and brilliant colours. On all sides, too, there is sparkle of living water as limpid as the air itself, leaping down the rocky hill-sides in innumerable cataracts and shining in broad tranquil lakes that mirror the encircling hill-tops and the clouds sailing overhead. As one reaches higher levels, from about four thousand feet above the sea level to six thousand and upwards, the changes in the landscape become more and more marked. The Flame of the Forest, the kambodja, the champaka, and all the countless host of large-flowered trees, characteristic of the tropics, disappear. The type of the foliage changes: it is less fantastic in shape, less luxuriant, and differently tinted from the leafage of the lowland forests. To the sombre green of the plains, which under the glaring sunlight, assumes tones of an almost blackish blue, succeeds a vivid emerald, touched with tender yellow. Then come dense forests of "tjemara", a coniferous tree, the dim greyish foliage of which resembles a drift of autumnal mist; and, by and bye, trees of the oak and chestnut kind appear, and the maple that balances its fan-like leaves on bright red stalks. Violets open their purple chalices in mossy hollows. On the cloudy mountain heights of Tosari, one may gather flowers such as grow on the Alps. The scenery here is grand beyond description--a landscape of vast hill ranges, cataracts, and precipices, and heaving seas of cloud. The temperature is almost too low; big fires are kept burning all day in the hotel, through the verandahs of which the clouds float past. The one thing that still reminds the traveller of the tropics is the wonderful splendour of the orchids that grow here. In the fourth zone, at an altitude of from seven thousand to ten thousand feet, the orchids, too, disappear. A European vegetation covers the summits of the mountains and the chill "plateau" of the Djeng, where four wonderful lakes of green, and blue, and yellow, and pure white water sparkle in the sunlight, and the nights are frosty.

These wonders of the Javanese hill-country are well known, from the descriptions of many able pens, and from the enthusiastic reports of travellers. But, here and there, in the folds of the lower hills, there are pleasant nooks and corners, all but ignored of the multitude, and hardly inferior in beauty to these famous sites, albeit beauty of a very different character. And, among these places, the idyllic grace of which has not yet been marred by railroads and hotels, few can surpass in loveliness the country round about Tjerimai, where it was my good fortune to spend several pleasant days, last June.

Tjerimai, a spur of the lofty Preanger range, is situated on the confines of the Preanger Regencies and the Cheribon district, the broad green plains and marshy coast of which its finely shaped summit dominates--a landmark to sailors.