e lights gleam through foliage, and ever and again,
through an air instinct with electric movement and heavy with
perfumes, strains of music reach the ear from the open doorways, or
are wafted in the distance from one of the numerous military bands,
which are ever "discoursing sweet music" to the society of the
capital. In the centre of the town the native streets look, to the
European eye, like a perpetual festival. Outside the doors are
gathered in groups the various inhabitants--Chinese, Malay, or
Sundanese, some clanging cymbals and other strange instruments of
music, others seated round fires, eating baked cakes or fruits and
other frugal dainties. Meanwhile the streets are alive with the
rush of numerous cahars[10] and sadoes, drawn by the agile native
pony, and with itinerant vendors, who, bearing their baskets
suspended from their shoulders by the _pikulan_, or cross-piece,
each with a lamp fixed to the rearmost basket, flit to and fro
noiselessly on their bare feet.

[Footnote 10: Native carriage much like the sadoe, but never
used by Europeans.]

The business quarter, like the "city" in London, is thronged with
merchants and carriages, carts and coolies, and all the machinery
of commerce, in the daytime, and entirely deserted at night. The
merchants keep their offices open from nine till five, and, in
spite of the great heat, work all through the day, with the
exception of an hour or so for "tiffin." By this arrangement the
early morning and late afternoon, the only time when open-air
exercise is possible, is left available for riding or walking. In
spite of the romantic exterior of the place, Batavia is not
ill-supplied with modern improvements. The tramway system, in
which smoke and heat are avoided by the use of a central boiler
from which steam is taken for the different locomotives, is
especially well suited to the requirements of the climate. The
telephone, again, is in constant use both in offices and private
houses, although the confusion of languages--Malay, Dutch, and
English--makes it a little difficult sometimes to work it. I
remember once asking the landlord of the Hotel der Nederlanden to
telephone to a man in the town that I was intending to go to
Buitenzorg on the following morning, and the terrible difficulty I
had to get him to convey my name to the clerk at the other end.
After ringing up the central office (which is worked by Malays) and
getting the connection he wanted, he said