k. The
peak is 7000 feet above sea-level, and, like most of the Javan
mountains, it rises to its full height almost clear from its base. The
lower levels are luxuriantly covered with tropical forests, a covering
which gradually thins and dwindles until the apex of the triangle stands
out sharply against the sky. Between the hotel and the mountain there
stretches a sea of waving treetops. In the distance it is deep blue; as
it approaches it grows more and more green; then separate forms of palms
and bamboos can be distinguished, with red-tiled or brown-thatched roofs
showing between them. Immediately beneath me is the brown river
Tjiliwong, with bamboo cottages on its banks and natives bathing in its
waters.

Inside the courtyard no one is stirring. The dreamy silence is only
broken by the voices that rise from the river below, by the clacking of
the sarong weaver's shuttle or the dull boom of a far-away tom-tom.

Under such circumstances the conditions necessary for perfect physical
enjoyment are very fully realized. Yet it is at such moments that one is
apt to reflect how unimportant are these material considerations
compared with the advantages of strenuous and reasoned action. One longs
for the stir of life as it is felt in the great centres of European
population;

"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay."

Well, I was going to see some European energy on the morrow. At Batavia
an English resident had said, "When you are at Buitenzorg you should go
on to Soekaboemi and see a coffee plantation.' Subsequently he wrote
that his friend H---- would expect me on Tuesday at his coffee
plantation with an unpronounceable name in the Preanger district. The
morrow was Tuesday.

Soekaboemi was only thirty or forty miles away, but I left Buitenzorg at
eight o'clock in order to escape the discomfort of travelling in the
middle of the day. It goes without saying that trains in the tropics do
not carry you along as quickly as the Flying Dutchman or the Scotch
express. But I found the carriages comfortable enough, being built in
the American fashion, and furnished with Venetians to keep out the sun
and let in the air. Except the station-masters, all the officials were
Chinese or Javan natives. The guard who looked at my ticket wore the
traditional peaked cap and cloth uniform, but over his European garments
he had appended as usual his airy native costume. Of the four classes of
carriages two are reserved for