---
In round numbers 134 130

When the natives have been educated and the industries of the island
freed from unnatural restrictions, financial and commercial prosperity
will return to Java.

CHAPTER X.

ON A COFFEE PLANTATION.

The Tji Wangi bungalow--Coffee plantations--
Cinchona--Native labour--A wayang--Country-bred
ponies--Bob and the ducks--Loneliness of a
planter's life.

Horace's remark,[18] "Those that cross the sea change temperature, not
temperament," is especially true of the Englishman out of England. The
room in which I was now seated differed in scarcely anything from the
regulation "den" of every Englishman, whether in Scotland or Timbuctoo.
From the French windows I could see smooth lawns and bright flower-beds,
while beyond appeared the dark green plantations surmounted with grey
mountain heights. Photographic groups and etchings shared the task of
decorating the walls with riding-gear and Indian knives. The
writing-table was strewn with photograph-frames of all sorts and sizes.
The black "boy" who brought tea and whisky and Apollinaris, alone gave a
hint of "foreign parts." The house itself stood 3500 feet above
sea-level; but some of the estate (which covered 800 acres) rose nearly
1000 feet higher still. At this altitude the temperature was never
excessively hot: at midday it averaged 70 deg.; certainly it never
approached the heat of Batavia; and that night I did what I had not done
before in Java--slept with a blanket over me.

[Footnote 18: "Coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt."]

The next morning, two handsome Sandalwood ponies were brought round, and
H---- took me over the estate. We rode between coffee and cinchona
plantations on roads of various widths cut in zigzags or curves up the
mountain sides, sometimes with the sun blazing full above us, sometimes
shaded by the light foliage of the albizzias, until we reached a rough
stone monument which marked the highest point. In the higher ranges we
sometimes came upon a piece of bush with the tall rosamala trees still
standing; or caught a glimpse of wide plains, bounded in the far-off
distance by lofty mountains.

[Illustration: ROSAMALA TREES. _Page_ 170.]

On more than one occasion H---- stopped to talk to the natives. They
were engaged in weeding--the heaviest work on the plantation, since, in
the hothouse atmosphere of Java, continual labour i