Across the Equator Part 5

When a sharp rap came to our door at two o'clock in the morning to summon us for a ride to the Penandjaan Pa.s.s, we repented the rash promise to carry out this over-night project to see the sun rise. It was no use to curl one's-self up under two heavy blankets and pretend that we had not heard. The "jongus" was insistent. Up we had to get, effect a hasty toilet in ice-cold water by the aid of a flickering lamp, and step into the outer darkness and mount the pony waiting beside our bedroom door.

Unfamiliar constellations shed a cold light on the hillside.

Our thickest clothing was penetrated by a searching though slight breeze, as our little rat of a pony, guided by the syce, clambered bravely up the brae that led through Tosari village.

The road bore away to the left, and we were soon slipping and jolting down a mountain path that sank into a crater-like ravine. It was like a descent into the infernal regions. Disaster seemed inevitable. A mistake by the pony or the slightest lurch would have precipitated us down some hundreds of feet; but the guide knew his way and so did the pony, as, sure-footed and cautious, it picked its way, first on one side of the road and then on the other, descending, descending, lower and lower, where the pale light failed to penetrate. The hill on the other side loomed so high that one could not believe there was a way out. Pit-pat, pit-pat went the pony with steady step, now on hard road now on yielding lava mud, across fragile bamboo bridges covered with bamboo lathing, down, down, down till at last we reach the ford. The seat was not an easy one for the unaccustomed rider, whose hands and feet were chilled almost beyond feeling by the unwonted cold. But it was arm-chair ease compared with the experience on the other side, as the pony pluckily pounded his way up the zigzag path for the summit of the hill. How either guide or pony could see a path will ever remain a puzzle. The over-hanging vegetation blotted out any recognisable landmarks; not even the ribbon of a road was visible to the eye. But the top was reached, and believing we were now on the level road for Penandjaan we tried to open up conversation with our guide.

It is not easy to carry on a connected conversation with a native of the Teng'ger when one's Malay vocabulary consists of about twenty words--and half of these numerals--and the native's knowledge of the English language, as one soon learned, consists entirely of "Yes" and "No." Yet, it is wonderful what one will attempt in the dark--the loneliness was so overpowering that one felt compelled to break the awesome silence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROAD TO TOSARI.]

But the conversation soon flagged, and one was thrown back upon one's own thoughts. And as the road once again shaped for another crater-like ravine, plunged in inkier darkness and shrouded in solemn stillness, thoughts surged rapidly through one's mind. The first thing that had attracted our attention as we mounted our pony was the delicious smell of roses in the grounds of the Tosari Hotel. Since nothing could be learned from the syce, nothing could be seen, nothing could be heard except the occasional bark of a dog from a remote hut on the hillside or the tuneful tingle of a bell on the neck of the uneasy occupant of an unseen cow-shed, one tried to learn something by the sense of smell. At first, the morning air was snell and sharp; there was an earthy aroma which suggested nothing but decaying vegetable matter, but soon it was succeeded by a pungent penetrating odour which made one wonder whence its source. This pungency remained for the remainder of the morning's ride, almost to the top of the mountain pa.s.s, some 9000 feet above sea-level, and we ascertained on our return that it proceeded from the enormous cabbages grown by the mountaineers for the markets on the plains of East Java.

As we plunged deeper into the forest, it was impossible to make out more than a dull outline of a white jacket and the white shoulder of our piebald pony. Had we not known that the guide was there, we might have wondered how the wonderful jacket succeeded in floating through s.p.a.ce.

The pony had no head to our sight; the reins we held in our hand might have been dispensed with so far as they acted as a guide to the pony, who picked his own foothold and followed the white jacket. With painful persistence, he picked the edge of the precipitous declivity which was lost in the bottomless abyss.

Once only we lost our way. Turn after turn was negotiated safely, first down into the bottom of the ravine and through the mountain torrent, then up the hillside again, mysterious zigzag after zigzag, and one had become reconciled to the jolting motion of the pony, the steady tramp of his tiny hoofs, and his heavy breathing where the path was steepest, and gave one's-self up to reverie. How terrible, we thought, must have been the scene on the mountain slopes when the enormous craters of the Teng'ger range were belching forth their death-dealing streams of lava, their showers of ashes and stones and choking sulphurous fumes! How insignificant was man before the powerful agencies of Nature! How bright were the occasional stars one saw wherever there was a break in the trees that lined our path! How wonderful that each of those stars, those planets, might be peopled by beings puzzling over the disputed facts of the Creation, as we were; who might also be worrying over a future existence and the redemption of a sinful people; who might be endeavouring to solve labour problems and trade disputes and discussing whether free trade or preferential tariffs were best for a nation's welfare! Was there somebody up in one of those other planets on a pony's back, as we were, robbing one's-self of much-needed rest to reach a mountain top to see the sun rise?

These and other thoughts kept recurring to one when, suddenly, as if it had been shot, the pony planted his forefeet and refused to follow the guiding lead of the syce.

We had made a wrong turning and the syce all but slipped over a precipice. Had it not been for the pony's instinct, all three of us would have been plunged into Eternity, and some of the problems of the previous moment might have been solved.

Out came the syce's matches, as he clung to the pony's bridle. Not nearly so bright as the lambent phosph.o.r.escence from the fireflies which flickered across our path, the puny light of the match was sufficient for the guide to pick up the ribbon-like path, and once more we were on our way to the top.

Three deep ravines were traversed before we made the final upward movement, and then Nature's lamp lights were being shut out in hundreds at a time as the soft dawn began to diffuse itself. With Dawn's left hand in the sky, we thought of Omar Khayyam's stanza, and felt impelled to cry out to the sleepers in the hollow--

Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night Has flung the stone that puts the Stars to Flight: And lo! the Hunter of the East has caught The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light,

The dawn had been preluded by the awakening chirrups of songsters in the wood. A shriller note was struck by some feathered Daphnis piping to his Chloe. Deep down in the valleys and in the villages perched perilously on projecting ledges of the mountain, faint twinkling lights began to appear, and the lowing of the cattle and the answering and re-echoed crowing of rival poultry-yards sent the thoughts back to Homeland scenes some 10,000 miles away.

As we stood on the wall of the enormous crater, overlooking the Sand Sea, and watched the long shafts of golden light shoot up to the zenith from behind the mountain peaks to the East, we felt that our ride had not been in vain.

To be abroad at early dawn in the tropics is to enjoy the most delightful period of the day. An English essayist has well expressed the exhilaration one feels: "There is something beautiful in the unused day, something beautiful in the fact that it is still untouched, unsoiled."

Only those who have stood on the hill tops, far removed from the haunts of men, have any true idea of the grandeur of Nature and the insignificance of man.

The sun rose speedily in the full power of his golden radiance to paint the landscape. There was no transition. Out of the darkness there rose a view, enormous, diversified, impressive.

Miles away on the west, the five summits of the Ardjeono had been the first to reflect the rays hidden from us. Penanggoenan's sugar-loaf top soon caught them up and pa.s.sed them on to Kawi's three lofty peaks. To the south, was the Semeroe, Java's loftiest volcano; to the east, the Yang Plateau; to the north, the sea and the island of Madoera. We could trace the coast-line 9,000 feet below, away westward beyond Sourabaya, where white-crested surf beat silently upon the streak of yellow sand.

The vast plains of East Java showed a pattern of variegated colour, which stretched out to the cultivated slopes of the hills. Mountain hamlets and villages on the plains sent out blue vapours from morning fires. The rivers were distinguishable by their leafy fringe as much as by the reflection of the blue sky overhead. Between us and the Yang Plateau, there were rolling billows of white cloud, tipped by the colours from the sun's spectrum.

But it was the panorama spread out like a model beneath our feet which arrested attention and impressed one most. We stood on the edge of an enormous crater--the Teng'ger--with a circ.u.mference of fifteen miles.

Where, in prehistoric times, flames and ashes and lava had boiled and belched, there was now a sea of yellow sand, out of which stood other three volcano peaks--the Battok, the Bromo, and the Widodaren--showing purple in the morning light. The Battok is a perfect cone, the lava-covered sides standing out in clearly defined ridges like the b.u.t.tresses of a Gothic structure. The Bromo is the only one of the three now active. As we gaze down, we are startled by a deep groaning noise, and out of the wide crater mouth there issues a ma.s.s of grey smoke and ashes laden and streaked with fire. Simultaneously, a huge ma.s.s of cloud, cruciform in shape, is shot up hundreds of feet into the air from the Semeroe. It rests a few seconds above the bare, ash-strewn cone, and then drifts heavily to westward, to make way for the next eruption.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAND SEA, WITH BROMO AND SEMEROE.]

These indications of Nature's activity in the crucible at the earth's centre make one reflect on the possible consequences of the next great convulsion, and the fate that is in store for those intrepid villagers who have perched their primitive huts on the very edge of the Teng'ger crater. With these reflections, we turn away from one of the most solemn and impressive sights it has been our privilege to witness, silently mount our pony and retrace our steps for the snugly-situated Hotel at Tosari, no longer regretting, nay, rather thankful, that we had resolved and achieved our resolution to climb the Penandjaan Pa.s.s to see the sun rise.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SMOKE PLUME--THE SMeROE.]

Hotels and Travelling Facilities

Before going to Java, the tourist ought to make himself acquainted with the outlines of the history of the island since it came under European domination. Half the charm of European travel, if one is something more than a mere unreflective globetrotter, lies in the historic a.s.sociations of the places visited, and it is the comparative absence of this quality which robs new countries of the interests they would otherwise possess for educated people. Scenery alone surfeits the appet.i.te.

In Java, as in most Oriental countries, the traveller feels that he is moving in an atmosphere of antiquity, and though it has become a misnomer to refer to "The Unchanging East," it is borne in upon one that in the large group of islands comprised in the Philippine and Malay Archipelagoes, from Luzon in the north to Java in the south, from Samar in the east to Sumatra in the west, centuries of western contact has left but a slight impress upon the characters of the people. Changes there are, undoubtedly. Modern civilisation has advanced like a resistless wave and gradually engulfed an older civilisation, but here in Java one feels that the change has not been so decisive; and railways and ca.n.a.ls and cultivation notwithstanding, the difference in general advancement between the Javanese and the j.a.panese is most marked, and even the Chinese, conservative though they are in most ways, have more character and look more hopeful soil for the reception and development of western ideas.

A solid foundation for the trip to Java may be laid by perusing Sir Stamford Raffles' history, the second edition of which, published in 1830, will be found in Raffles Library. It covers the whole period from the time the Portuguese arrived in the Farther East in 1510 to the British occupation. Making Malacca his headquarters, Albuquerque sent various expeditions to the surrounding islands, and Antonio de Abrew was his emissary to Java and the Moluccas. The Dutch appeared in 1595, obtaining their first footing in the East Indies at Bantam, the English East India Company establis.h.i.+ng a factory at the same place in 1602.

Of the capture of Java by the British troops brief details have already been given.

An interesting account of "The Conquest of Java" is given by Captain William Thorn, a Dragoon officer, who served on the staff of one of the brigadiers. It was written in 1815 while he was on his way back to England, and is so plentifully ill.u.s.trated with field maps as to add interest to one's visit to Batavia and Buitenzorg and the seaports of Samarang and Sourabaya.

We are indebted to Dr. Hanitsch, the Curator, for the following list of books on Java in Raffles Library:--

The Dutch in Java; 1904, by Clive Day.

Java, Facts and Fancies; 1905, by Augusta de Wit.

Facts and Fancies about Java; 1908, by Augusta de Wit.

Life in Java, 2 vols; 1864, by W. B. d'Almeida.

Voyage Round the World; 1870, by Marquis de Beauvoir.

With the Dutch in the East; 1897, by W. Cool.

Geschiedenis der Nederlanders of Java; 1887, by M. L. Deventer.

From Jungle to Java; 1897, by Arthur Keyser.

Java; 2 vols., 1861, by J. W. Money.

Java; 1830, by Sir Stamford Raffles.

Fuhrer auf Java; 1890, by L. F. M. Schulze.

The Conquest of Java; 1815, by William Thorn.

A Visit to Java; 1893, by W. B. Worsfold.

Rambles in Java; 1853, (anon.).

The Hindu Ruins in the Plain of Parambanan; 1901, by Dr. I.

Groneman.

The Tjandi-Barabudur in Central Java; 1901, by Dr. I. Groneman.