public buildings, and is ornamented with
pilasters and pediments. Part of the park is occupied by the famous
Botanical Gardens, which form the supreme attraction of the place to the
scientific visitor. The Governor-General, as the highest official in the
Dutch East Indies, receives a salary of 160,000 florins a year. While
this personage is at Buitenzorg he may be frequently observed driving
down the great avenue of Kanarie trees in his state coach drawn by four
horses. In close connection with the palace (as the Governor-General's
residence is called), but at some distance from the town, large and
convenient barracks have lately been completed for the better
accommodation of the European troops.

I had been told not to omit to visit Batoe Toelis, "the place of the
written stone," where there is an ancient inscription, and Kotta Batoe
with its celebrated bath presided over by a Chinaman. My first
expedition was to this latter place. There were three of us bent upon a
swim before breakfast, and in order to save time we took a sadoe. The
beauty and extent of the view increased as we ascended the slopes of
Mount Salak. When we had driven some three miles we left the sadoe, with
strict injunctions to the driver to wait till we returned, and proceeded
to accomplish our quest on foot. There were three baths in all, natural
basins of rock fed by streams of mountain water, and shaded by the dense
foliage of lofty trees. One of them is circular in form, and the water
is curiously coloured, by some trick of reflection or refraction, to a
dull steely blue. A plunge in the clear cool water was well worth the
trifling fee we paid to the celestial, and we returned to our hotel
with a famous appetite for breakfast.

It was on the occasion of this drive that I first made the acquaintance
of that useful domestic animal, the buffalo (_Bos Sondaicus_). He is a
very "fine and large" animal of a mouse colour, with white legs and a
patch of white on his quarters; and has long horns lying back on his
neck, where they cannot be the slightest use to him. His Javan masters
find him very docile, but he has an awkward way with strangers. He is
generally to be found under the care of a small boy, who is seated on
his broad back, and who touches him with a rod on this side or that
according to the direction which he desires the animal to take. I have
already described the simple but effective plough to which he is yoked
when working the sawahs,[14]