FIRST GLIMPSES

A BATAVIA HOTEL

THE TOWN

A COLONIAL HOME

SOCIAL LIFE

GLIMPSES OF NATIVE LIFE

ON THE BEACH

OF BUITENZORG

IN THE HILL COUNTRY

IN THE DESSA

EPILOGUE

ILLUSTRATIONS

CONTENTS

Title: Java, Facts and Fancies

Author: Augusta de Wit

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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JAVA

FACTS AND FANCIES

BY

AUGUSTA DE WIT

WITH 160 ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON
CHAPMAN & HALL, Ltd.

1905

When the Lady Dolly van der Decken, in answer to questions about her legendary husband's whereabouts, murmured something vague about "Java, Japan, or Jupiter," she had Java in her mind as the most "impossible" of those impossible places. And, indeed, every schoolboy points the finger of unceremonious acquaintance at Jupiter; and Japan lies transparent on the egg-shell porcelain of many an elegant tea-table. But Java? What far forlorn shore may it be that owns the strange-sounding name; and in what sailless seas may this other Ultima Thule be fancied to float? Time was when I never saw a globe—all spun about with the net of parallels and degrees, as with some vast spider's web—without a little shock of surprise at finding "Java" hanging in the meshes. How could there be latitude and longitude to such a thing of dreams and fancies? An attempt at determining the acreage of the rainbow, or the geological strata of a Fata Morgana, would hardly have seemed less absurd. I would have none of such vain exactitude; but still chose to think of Java as situate in the same region as the Island of Avalon; the Land of the Lotos-Eaters, palm-shaded Bohemia by the sea, and the Forest of Broceliand, Merlin's melodious grave. And it seemed to me that the very seas which girt those magic shores—still keeping their golden sands undefiled from the gross clay of the outer world—must be unlike all other water—tranquil ever, crystalline, with a seven-tinted glow of strange sea-flowers, and the flashing of jewel-like fishes gleaming from unsounded deeps. And higher than elsewhere, surely, the skies, blessed with the sign of the Southern Cross, must rise above the woods where the birds of paradise nestle.

Where is it now, the glory and the dream? The soil of Java is hot under my feet. I know—to my cost—that, if the surrounding seas be different from any other body of water, they are chiefly so in being more subject to tempest, turmoil, and sudden squalls. I find the benign influences of the Southern Cross—not a very brilliant constellation by the way—utterly undone by the fiery fury of the noonday-sun; and have learnt to appreciate the fine irony of the inherited style and title, as compared with the present habitat, of the said Birds of Paradise. And yet—all disappointing experience notwithstanding, and in spite of the deadly dullness of so many days, the fever of so many sultry nights, and the homesickness of all hours—I have still some of the old love for this country left; and I begin to understand something of the fascination by which it holds the Northerner who has breathed its odour-laden air for too long a time; so that, forgetting his home, his friends, and his kindred in the gray North, he is content to live on dreamily by some lotos-starred lake; and, dying, to be buried under the palm-trees.

Augusta de Wit.