raits Settlements
is entering upon a similar campaign to rectify past sins against the
laws of sanitation and hygiene, and hundreds of thousands of dollars
might have been available for other purposes had the Chinese been
handled as the Dutch handle them in Batavia, Samarang and Sourabaya. It
may be overdoing the cult for whitewash to whiten the walls of every
bridge and the stack of every sugar mill in the country, but it is
pleasing to the Europeans to see that one nation has been successful in
carrying its ideas of cleanliness into the tropics and in making the
Oriental conform to the ordinary laws for the protection of the health
of the common people.

To those of our readers who may be induced to visit Java, we would
tender a few words of advice.

If it is intended to compress a tour of the principal places we have
noted into a fortnight's holiday, travel, if possible, to Sourabaya, and
go first of all to Tosari. After a few days there, Djocjakarta should be
made the headquarters for a two or three days' inspection of the
Buddhist ruins, and then Bandoeng could be made a halting place while a
decision is arrived at as to whether Sindanglaya, Soekaboemi or Garoet
is to be visited next before going on to Buitenzorg and Batavia. We
recommend this course because there is a more frequent service of
steamers between Batavia and Singapore, and by ascertaining the sailing
dates while at some of the Preanger health resorts one is able to time
one's arrival at Batavia and so avoid the heat of the seaport.

We have painted Java in rosy colours because we found it beautiful, the
people companionable and the conditions agreeable. It is possible that
others may go over our tracks without deriving a tithe of the enjoyment.

No one should travel unless he has a genius for travel and a ready
adaptability to prevailing conditions. He should bear in mind that it is
he who is the odd piece in the machinery, and that unless he adjusts
himself to the other working pieces he will only have himself to blame
if things do not run smoothly. If Java is visited in the right spirit,
we have not the least doubt that the traveller will be delighted with
all he sees and experiences, and will come away with an assured
conviction that it was no exaggeration which styled the island "The
Garden of the East."

[Map: JAVA.]

Transcriber's Notes:

Inconsistencies in the hyphenation of words preserved. (court-yard,
courtyard; over-night,