Souci," containing the Governor-General's
rural Palace, the houses of Court officials, and the superb Botanical
Garden, which ranks first among the horticultural triumphs of the
world. The two hours' journey by the railway, which now traverses the
whole of Java, shows a succession of tropical landscapes, appearing
unreal in their fantastic and dream-like beauty. The glowing green of
rice-fields, the dense forests of swaying palms, the porphyry tints of
the teeming soil, and the purple mountains, carved into the weird
contours peculiar to volcanic ranges, frame myriad pictures of
unfamiliar native life with dramatic effect. Villages of woven
basket-work cluster beneath green curtains of banana and spreading
canopies of palm, the central mosque surmounting the tiny huts with
many-tiered roofs, and walls inlaid with gleaming tiles of white and
blue. Brown figures, with gay _sarong_ and turbaned headgear, bring
bamboo buckets to moss-grown wells, gray water-buffaloes crop marshy
herbage, a little bronze-hued figure seated on each broad back, and
busy workers stand knee-deep in slush, to transplant emerald blades of
rice or to gather the yellow crops, for seedtime and harvest go on
together in this fertile land. Our train halts at Depok, a Christian
village unique in Java, for the religious history of the island shows
little missionary enterprise among a race strangely indifferent to the
claims of faith, and lightly casting away one creed after another, with
a carelessness which has ever proved a formidable bar to spiritual
progress. The Portuguese Jesuits were expelled by the Dutch, and
English efforts at conversion were succeeded by a general exclusion of
foreign missionaries. Public opinion eventually prevented the
continuance of this despotic rule, and at the present day a certain
number of Roman and Protestant clergy are supported by the Government,
but Roman zeal outstrips the niggardly spiritual provision, and proves
the appreciation in which it is held by full churches and devout
worshippers. The Mohammedanism of the Malay lacks the fiery fervour
common to Islam, and his slack hands are ever ready to forego all
symbols of faith. From the region of rice and tapioca, maize and
sugar-cane, we reach the great cacao plantations, hung with
chocolate-coloured pods, and the ruddy kina-groves on the lower slopes
of the mountain chain. The palms are everywhere, clashing their huge
fronds, and undulating in waves of fiery green,