JAVA.* " I was there, such things befell me," are
the words from La Fontaine with which the Comte (now Marquis) de Beauvoir prefaces the wonderful story of his visit to Java, in 1866, an incident of his voyage round the world made in company with the Dac de Penthievre, and recorded in several volumes of the most remarkable and interesting travels within our knowledge. This young Frenchman has a great talent for narration, and the happiest possible faculty of realising precisely what it is that readers want to know about strange places, of nicely adjusting the proportions of explanation and illustration, so as to produce at once a recital and a picture, the one captivating, the other dazzling. He observes with scrupulous nicety, he compares without weari-
• Java, Siam, Cantos: Voyage ardour de Monde. Par le Comte de Beauvoir. Paris: Henri Pion.
some iteration, his freshness and adaptability of mind invest every- thing with eager pleasure and interest, his ready humour plays about each successive subject, bringing out all its amusing points and contrasts, his unfailing cheerfulness invade every detail of the journey with a charm, and his keen intelligence extracts the social and political facts, just as his artistic sense notes the effects of colour and form. The marvellous journey which included the inmost interior of the island and a visit to the original of the hero of Eugene Sae's Myst&es de Paris, Randen-Saleh, reads like a chapter from the Arabian Nights, with modern and Western habits of locomotion superadded ; but when the reader comes to the travel- ler's" appreciation," he finds, under the heading "Le Systeme Colo- niale," a clear, well-reasoned, accurate chart of the material and moral condition of the great Dutch colony of Batavia, which proves that M. de Beauvoir can be as practical as he is artistic. With equal warmth and good sense he reprobates the selfish and wicked policy of Holland in keeping the 14,000,000 of people under its
"protectorate" in ignorance, in prohibiting missionary efforts, and perpetuating the hideous ignorance which enables that kingdom to extort enormous profit from the corvie system of labour. He gives an astonishing account of the natural productions of the island,
where, notwithstanding Mohammedan fanaticism, the bravery and the instincts of a race of pirates, and the pride of an ancient nobility, 25,000 Europeans rule, like demigods, fourteen millions of men. " When," says the author, "one has witnessed the reli- gious respect, the blind submission of the Javanese to all moral authority, the prompt patting in practice of everything that is material order, when one has gazed away to the far horizon of the mountains over the coffee plantations worked by the entire popu- lations of numerous villages, when one has travelled for many. whole days across fields of sugar-cane (each several square leagues in extent), where thousands of forced labourers (ouvriers en corvie) toil in long lines in the trenches, where one has learned that all this is a Government monopoly,—it is easy to understand that, after having discharged the expenses of administration, which,
everything included, amount to 120,500,000 francs, the budget has, in a period of ten years, reached a minimum excess of 63,000,000 francs. No other colony has ever produced such a result ! Thus, the traveller who only sees is dazzled by
these grandiose figures, by the aspect of the roads, the villages, and the country, by the superb cultivation, and the activity of the people who produce so much for their masters. But the traveller who thinks, asks how, in this age, these thousands of men wear away their lives in labouring upon land which they can never possess, and in producing harvests all whose profits are to belong to others. And yet he is told that these men are not slaves ! The author works out and exposes this problem in a chapter explanatory of the Dutch system of unanimous " exploitation" of this so-called colony,—in reality an immense farm administered by Government functionaries,—which is full of deep and painful moral interest; exhibiting the terrible result, in everything except money, of three centuries of European occupation, during which the Javanese have steadily gone down in the scale of civilisation. But how strong must be the temptation to the traveller to remain of the number of those who only think, who do not see, in a place where everything is so marvellous to the sight, and where the white man is so supreme that he can only behold chocolate-coloured humanity squatting with veiled face in his august presence, or straining its nerves and sinews in the character of his beast of burthen where he is surrounded with all that can minister to the pleasures of
sense, in a climate which makes him dependent upon the " ant- hills " of native servants always in attendance, and in a country too beautiful for language to describe I Here is a sketch of Batavia:- " In truth there are no streets, there are only majestic alleys shaded by beautiful tufted trees, framed in long, vast arbours, known to us in Europe only as operatic decorations. The rays of the pitiless sun can but penetrate their shade at intervals, while they gild with wonder- ful reflections the countless plumes of the cocoa-trees, the upright branches of the flame trees, which are all scarlet flowers, the bananas, with green leaves the size of a man, the cotton trees, laden with snow- white puffs, the traveller's palm, colossal fans of unsurpassable elegance, which yield streams of milk to the summons of a cane pushed into their bark ; finally, the immense banyane, whence fall thousands of verti- cal lianes, which touch the earth, take rapid root, and spring up to the summit of the tree, there to bind themselves into intricate garlands, and again to fling themselves down. One of these trees alone forms an entire wood, surrounded with a curtain, a net-work of intertwining leaves and flowers, through which, children in the costume of the angels, pushing back the liana, with their dark, lithe hands, watch the pirogues and the swimmers as they glide over the waters of the canal. For these alleys and arbours are the foot-paths of the 'arroyos' of the tropical Babylon, of those great aquatic ways which the Dutch would have made by hundreds in memory of the mother country, if the Malay population had not already made them by thousands. Thus have the . instincts of the white race of the North and the yellow race of the Equator met. We go on (in little open carriages drawn up by Liliputian ponies) through a delicious succession of these embowered alleys, by the side of the arroyo,' covered with innu- merable barques, which float amid gigantic water-lilies, and catching glimpses of fairy-like gardens and white marble palaces, with glittering, many-coloured verandahs closing up the vistas. Seeing nothing but these alleys, I believe myself to be in a Valley of Delights in the neighbourhood of the city, when I am deposited at the hotel of the Netherlands, which is, it seems, in the centre of Batavia. This flowery forest is the city it- self ! I am intoxicated, I cannot believe my eyes, and I swear by all the monkeys, sacred and profane, which I have seen since then, that I am quite incapable of making you understand my delight and admiration. The building is of white marble, supported on a colonnade of pierced arches ; opposite is a great oval kiosk open to all the breezes, protected by a light roof,—this is the dining-room, where a busy ant-hill of servants swarm about, laying the table. How fine is the effect of their robes of red silk or muslin, their blue turbans, and their golden sashes. thrown out against the whiteness of the marble floor and balconies . . . At nightfall we dine in the kiosk ; around us a brilliantly attired crowd dance in the alleys, lighted up with Venetian lamps. We are served by the Oriental troop just mentioned ; I have a Malay to pour out iced water into my glass, I have two to change my plates, three hold the dishes, one to carve, one to wait until the coffee comes round. If I wanted to taste twelve dishes, and could succeed in asking for them in the local tongue, I might employ the twelve motionless men in red who squat behind me. What a sight ! What colouring ! What a sky ! And when stretched along the verandah, in the full perfumed breeze, I cry, Sapada, easel api,' quick ; one of the Orientals of the thousand and one nights, whom one is tempted to call slaves, leaves the column at whose foot he has been mutely crouching like a statue of Buddha, and brings me, to light my pipe, a long fuse of which he is the appointed guardian. It is a kind of torch made of glutinous sandal-wood, which burns day and night, and exhales a delicious perfume. I feel myself rapidly turning into a Sultan. As for the dinner—I speak with the reserve of a Northman—forty-eight different kinds of pimento, a mountain of rice, in which is hidden a microscopic pilau of young pigeon, served with a sauce flavoured with red pepper, which is the famous kari,' an absence of all viands to be out with an ordinary knife, an abundance of salads of bamboo and ohutnee,—the whole undoubtedly offers a local colouring highly appreciated by amateurs, but which lights up a devouring flame in stomachs unaccustomed to Javanese cooking, which is still more excited by the local drinks."
Every one bathes. in baths of marvellous luxury, five or six times a day, eats quantities of spices, and sleeps all the afternoon. The old city of Batavia merited its deadly reputation, but the new city has no more than the ordinary danger to life of such a climate. The inhabitants regard the suddenness of death with the apathy of custom. M. de Beauvoir relates that he was talking to a Dutch- man about the terrible mortality one day, and that "pleasant companion" said, " Before we built the new town away from the shore, people died like flies in old Batavia. It was simply poison- ing on the grandest scale, for every human being; but it does not matter now, no one lives there but Chinamen and Malays." This reminds one of a certain newspaper correspondent, who, writing to Paris during the Mexican war, after having detailed the ravages of yellow fever on the seaboard, and related the departure of the troops for the interior, went on to say that there was no cause for uneasiness at home, as only the sailors remained at the coast. The new city, like the old, presents a constant succession of the curious spectacles of the mysterious East,—its extremes of gorgeousness and squalor, its idolatries, and its crowds of human beings, to our imagination incomparably oppressive. Here is a little picture of a sultan and sultana of one of the Bornean principalities, whom M. de Beauvoir saw at a splendid fete given by the Resident, Mynheer Hoogeveen :—
" The Sultan is a crooked little old man, wrinkled, rheumatic, who chews frantically a paste of mixed lime and betel, which blackens his teeth, keeps his gums always freshly bleeding, and closely packed between the teeth and the under lip, swells out the latter, naturally heavy and hanging, in a hideous way. But the Sultana is a very pretty, very little, very young and bright-eyed creature, who returns the salutations of the Europeans with perfect grace. Her dress is a loose robe of silk, blue and gold ; a white scarf covers her bosom, crossing it obliquely, and kept in its place by twelve interlaced crescents, forming a brooch of fine diamonds, the most beautiful ornament I ever saw ; a red turban, with a large knot of diamonds at the side, frames her expressive, merry, smooth, bronze face. We observe her curiously as we walk under the white arcades, in the midst of groups of strange soldiery, gorgeously-clad servants, smoking vases in which delicious perfumes are burning, and wondrous tropical flowers, while we organise with our amiable host a grand crocodile-hunt."
Nothing could be more amusing than the description of this crocodile-hunt, and a succeeding "day " with rhinoceros (the big beasts, for the most part, disdainful and unhurt), in which M. de Beauvoir caught every peculiarity and shade of the exciting and extraordinary scene. The " cheese " takes place in pirogues when crocodiles are its object, and the fun of the performance is equal to its danger. Here is one of several incidents. The party is steering for the villa of the " Captain of the Chinese," a very grand functionary of the colony, who occupies a place of honour in the leading pirogue. " During the crossing one of the native servants made a tremendous jump from the end of the boat to the side of the ' Captain,' and gathering up his pigtail, which was trailing in the water, carefully tucked it down beside him. 'Take care, my lord Mandarin,' he said ; you must not let your tail into the water, or a crocodile will pull you out by it." They killed some crocodiles, but they did not capture the unpleasant bodies; and M. de Beauvoir records regretfully that he had to re- linquish the long-cherished hope of bringing back into the " bosom of his family a black carapace, twenty-five feet in length, and hanging it from the ceiling." They did not kill any rhinoceros, which does not surprise us, but the candour of the admission, so unlike a " sporting " traveller, does. The grand " chasse," and a visit to the botanic gardens of Buitenzorg, which is the finest in the world, and where they saw the fatal tree one drop of whose juice is warranted to kill a " Christian " in ten minutes and a " native " in fifteen, preceded their departure for the interior. The exquisite beauty and variety of nature, the profusion of animal life in its strangest types, and the degradation of humanity in that land where the serpent and the monkey are worshipped, and where no white man ever sees a native stand upright in his presence, offer an extraordinary contrast, which did not fail to strike the travellers, but of which they had not time to feel the pain, for every hour was filled with the strained effort of observa- tion, with impressions and sensations absolutely new. Their journey was made by the corree system, and at each stage a whole tribe was turned out to carry them over the precipices and down the winding ravines, where the little pink buffaloes, whose curious instinct it is to hate and spit at Europeans, cannot be used. At Tjipadalarang they met a Javanese prince, arrayed in pale green silk., and two princesses in rose-coloured belts, spangled with gold, who immediately squatted on the ground before the white men, to their confusion and distress. At Bandong they were admitted to the palace of the " Regent," a prince of antique race, quite subject to the Dutch Government, who give him this post, but a king, a " sultan " in the eyes of the natives, who obey him abjectly. He gets any amount of toil out of his people, to the enormous profit of the Dutch, who pay him an im- mense annual salary. He has his harem, his orchestra, and his rhinoceros-hunts, his gods and his priests, gaudy clothes and splendid jewels, and he is content. The travellers were lodged in the palace, where a multitude of servants received them. "The palace," says M. de Beauvoir, "is a hive, and they are the bees, without working however ; the courts and the galleries are blocked up by them ; it is true, they do not cost much to feed, for they are simply staffed with rice like chickens, and they are delighted. Our two servants, at lunch, were waited on by seven- teen Indians, doable the number at dinner, and guess what it is when the Javanese Prince entertains the French Prince in state." A great hunting party in the immense forests, terminating with a superb feast, is delightfully described ; and the chapter ends with a passage respecting the ravine of Ti-ka-Poundoung, whither the travellers resorted in search of shade and coolness, to which we refer our readers as a brilliant example of M. de Beauvoir's pic- torial style. He revels in the luxuriant beauty of nature, and is deeply impressed with its terrors and sublimities. Nothing can be finer than his description of the volcanoes and the marshes, of the boiling lakes of the far interior, and the awful storms in which the travellers were caught when far from refuge, and which rapidly dispersed their brilliant escort of native cavalry, gorgeously dressed, with golden spurs attached to their feet, and mounted on ponies hardly so large as Shelties. The great forests of teak are made to rise before us in all their endless grandeur, as the travellers journey towards the splendid and populous city of Samarang, en route to the " princely lands," Sourakarta and Djokjokarta (not subject to Holland, but protected after the Dutch fashion), where reign two sultaos, in whose lives are exemplified all the ancient customs, all the traditions, all the mysteries of the un- changing East. In these forests the sacred monkeys swarm, and such was the consternation caused to the escort by the sight of the travellers' guns pointed at the struggling black bunches pendent from the trees, that the headman was obliged to explain that the killing of a monkey would be regarded as the deadliest treason to hospitality, and the worst form of assassination.
They arrived at Sourakarta just in time to witness the rejoicing* for the birth of the Sultan's thirty-third child, and were received with great honour by his Majesty, at the " Kraton," a palace-city shut in by magnificent gates, which contains ten thousand persons. This is the Versailles of the Malay Louis XIV., and on that occa- sion four thousand of its tenants were lying prostrate to receive the foreign guests. Green parasols are carried over the heads of the " Resident " and the visitors presented by him, by rajas in scarlet petticoats, with gilt helmets and golden krisses, and with this pomp of attendance they pass through twelve interior courts, sur- rounded with superb terraces, and in . and out of great doorways guarded by pickets of the Imperial Army naked from waist upwards, but with splendid skirts, and turbans of black and gold. Musi- cians in scarlet drapery execute the moat Oriental of charivaris, and do wonders with bamboo flutes two yards long. The procession passes before bronze monsters which date from the earliest ages, before cannons of extraordinary form, served by gunners of the calibre of 1346, and before huge cages where the fighting tigers crouch and growl. The standard, representing a fantastic bird, embroidered in gold, is lowered before them at every step, until they reach the heart of the palace, a vast court, whence a grand staircase of white marble leads to the dwelling of the three thou- sand women who form the harem of the sultan. This court is surrounded by a colonnade, and filled with hundreds of rajahs, squatting in regular circles, according to their rank, the sun glis- tening on their naked breasts and their jewelled weapons. Here is a scene which few European eyes have ever witnessed, a scene at once incomparably splendid and morally hideous : —
In the centre stands the •pendippo,' a great pavilion, open on all sides, whose base is of marble, and whose sandal-wood roof is laden with sculptured arabesques on the inside, while from the outside rise the slender curves and layers of a Chinese temple. On the right, in a line, their faces on the ground, wearing high caps of azure and gold tissue, diamond earrings, and white petticoats, are the thirty-two sons of the Emperor. On the left are hundreds of brothers-in-law, cousins, and nephews. In the centre, and far down, seated upon a throne, is his Majesty. He is twenty-eight years old, of a slight and elegant figure, of a pale green complexion, his enormous eyebrows are painted, and his eyes are large and weary. His head-dress is of black silk, with gold stripes, he wears a close-fitting vest, with golden embroideries enclosing a thousand diamonds of the first water ; on his breast hang many fan- tastic decorations in splendid gems, and the Commander's Cross of the Lion of the Netherlands. His long shining skirt, the superb jewels which glitter in his hair, in his ears, on his hands and feet, the hilt of his bias, which barns with many-coloured fire, tarn him into a magical tableau vivant, with an expression of complete effeminacy. Twenty young female servants, almost entirely unclothed, stand immediately behind him. Then four dwarfs and four jesters, in the most curious attire, crouch at their feet, like doge in grotesque chins. Inferior officials and bayaddres en retraite, squads of mandarins, in green, in blue, in orange, who are light-holders, handkerchief-holders, spittoon- holders, tea-holders, coffee-holders, betel-holders, perfume-holders, sons, born regularly at the rate of two a year, prostrating themselves before the paternal Majesty ; grand seigneurs and high officials, to the number of 4,000, extended on all fours, without uttering a sound, without daring to raise their eyes to the pendippo ; ' such was the sight before us, such the half-fabulous Court on which we looked from the topmost step of the marble dais,—we, the only persons to whom it was permitted to stand upright in the midst of that human harvest, which seemed to be mown down at the feet of the master."
And yet they were only on the threshold of the wonders which were to be disclosed to them in the "princely lands." The narra- tive grows more and more fascinating and sad, and its interest culminates at the ancient city of Djokjokarta ; where the Victoria Regis is a common water-plant, where the great pachyderms are plentiful as poppies, where serpents are familiar incidents of every- day life ; where nobody is " put out " of humour, though many are put out of life, by earthquakes ; where Buddhism reigns under its most fantastic and mystic forms, where the jealousy of the harem is symbolised by hedges of shark's teeth and traps of ingenious cruelty, where everything one has ever imagined of splendour is utterly surpassed, and where the following items were contributed to the Dutch amateurs of statistical facts in 1863:—" 273 indi- viduals have been eaten, during this year, by tigers, 158 by croco- diles, 72 have been trampled to death by rhinoceros, and 32 killed by the bites of serpents. The deaths by earthquake amount to 493."
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