[Illustration: Bamboo bridge near Batu Tulis.]
[Illustration: Bamboo bridge across the Tji-taroon.]
[Illustration: Bamboo bridge across the Tji-taroon.]
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.
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.