Chapter III: Part 3

Siva the Destroyer, and also the Life-Giver, the Third Person of the Hindu Trinity, together with Parvati and Brahma, were worshipped here in their original character, and an exquisite statue of Lora Jonggran (Parvati in her Javanese guise) remains enshrined in a richly-decorated chapel, surrounded by dancing houris, inspired in their sacred measure by the flute-playing of Krishna. A further instance of the mode already mentioned by which sentiment survives dogma in the Malay races, is shown by the fact that Lora Jonggran still receives the homage of Javanese women. Flowers are laid at her feet, love affairs are confided to her advocacy, and as the shadows deepen across the great quadrangle, a weeping girl prostrates herself before the smiling goddess, and, raising brown arms in earnest supplication, kisses the stone slab at the feet of the beautiful statue, popularly endowed with some occult virtue which the loosely-held Mohammedanism of a later day has failed to discredit or deny. The temples of Brambanam were erected shortly after the completion of that upper terrace in the great sanctuary of Boro-Boedoer which marks the traditional epoch between Buddhism and the later Hinduism, including Sakya Munyi among the _avatars_ of Vishnu. The sacred trees and lions carved here on the walls of the temple quadrangle, give place in the galleries to scenes from the great Hindu epic of the Ramayan. The familiar form of Ganesh, the elephant-headed God of Wisdom, looms from the shadows of a vaulted shrine; Nandi, the sacred bull, stands beneath a carven canopy, and the great memorial of a bygone faith contains the identical galaxy of gods found in the Indian temples of the present day, for the thin veil of Javanese thought is a transparency rather than a disguise, softening rather than hiding the clear-cut outlines of the original idea. The "fatal beauty" of the graceful waringen-tree has played an ominous part in the destruction of the Brambanam temples, for the interlacing roots, like a network of branching veins, make their devious way through crevice and cranny, splitting and uplifting the strongest slab, wherein one tiny crack suffices for the string-like fibres to gain foothold. Masks and arabesques, fruit and flowers, fabulous monsters and sacred emblems, encrust the grey balustrades and bas-reliefs of the noble stairways. Roof and column teem with richest ornament, for Hindu art had reached the climax of splendour when the great city, formerly surrounding the monumental group of stately temples, attained to her utmost power and fame. The Greek influences which prevailed in Northern Hindustan were translated to Brambanam in their attributes of dignity and grace, for the flowing robes and easy postures of the sculptured figures correct and modify the grotesque and over-laden character of original Hindu art. The great stone-paved court once contained an imposing group of twenty pyramidal shrines, but only three remain in the original contour of the so-called "pagoda style," peculiar to the Dravidian temples of Southern India, from whence Java derived her special form of faith. The ruins on the opposite side of the grey quadrangle are mere cone-shaped piles of rubbish, dust, and broken stone, but the tapering pyramids, with their graceful galleries and processional terraces, richly carved and adorned with images, enable us to reconstruct in imagination the stately beauty of the architectural panorama once displayed by the temple courts. Scenes from the Ramayan and Mahabharata adorn the great blocks of the boundary wall, sculptured in high relief. The Vedic Powers of Nature, with Indra as the god of storm and hurricane, manifest the recognition of that earlier belief which became submerged in the vast system of Pantheistic mythology. The faith of further India takes form and colour from the idiosyncracy of Java, and the goddess Parvati, or Kali, worshipped under these different names according to her attributes of glory or terror, becomes Lora Jonggran, the benignant goddess of Java, popularly known as "the maiden of the beauteous form." Four lofty stairways ascend to the hoary chapels within each sculptured pyramid, every dusky vault containing the broken image of the tutelary _Deva_.

Only separated from Brambanam by a winding path and a green belt of jungle, stands the great Buddhist temple of Chandi Sewon, and the colossal figures flanking the entrance gate indicate a decadent phase of the ancient creed which Boro-Boedoer illustrates in the purity of earlier developement. Chandi Sewon, the "thousand temples," includes in the number myriad unimportant shrines, ruined, overthrown, or covered with a green network of interlacing creepers. The great architectural pile, built at a uniform level, surrounds the central sanctuary with five great enclosures. All the ancient faiths of the world contain foreshadowings or reflections of Christian truth, and the cruciform temple which forms the climax of this monumental erection shows the mystic value attached to the sacred Sign so frequently encountered in Buddhist shrines, and known as the _Shvastika_. The numerous chapels of Chandi Sewon contained the galaxy of Tirthankas or Buddhist saints which the materialism of the Jains added to the impersonal subtleties of esoteric Buddhism. The blank emptiness and desertion of this vast sanctuary produces an impression of unutterable desolation. The weed-grown courts, the ruined altars, and the moss-blackened arches, encumbered with indistinguishable heaps of shattered sculpture, lack all the reposeful charm of Boro-Boedoer, still a sermon in stone which he who runs may read. The degenerate creed memorialised by Chandi Sewon, has failed to impress itself on the colossal pile which bears melancholy witness to the evanescent character of the heretical offshoot from the parent stem. Jungle and palm-forest in Central Java contain innumerable vestiges of pyramidal temples, palaces, and shrines; vaults hidden beneath the shrouding trees have yielded a rich store of gold, silver, and bronze ornaments, household utensils, and armour. For many years the peasants of the region between Samarang and Boro-Boedoer paid their taxes in gold melted from the treasure trove turned up by the plough, or dug from the precincts of some forgotten sanctuary, buried beneath the rank vegetation of the teaming soil. The discarded Hindu gods still haunt the forest depths, and the superstitious native, as he threads the dark recesses of the solemn woods, gazes with apprehensive eyes on the trident of Siva, or the elephant's trunk of Ganesh emerging from the trailing wreaths and matted tapestry of liana and creeper, veiling the blackened stone of each decaying shrine. Nature has proved stronger than Art or Creed, in the eternal growth beneath an equatorial sun, of the kingdom over which she reigns in immortal life. Silently and insidiously she undermines man's handiwork, and realisation of his futile conflict with her invincible power enters with disastrous effect into the popular mind, lacking that immutable force without which the spiritual temple of faith rests on a foundation of shifting sand. Kawi literature, popularised by translation, and familiar through the medium of national drama, interprets Javanese creeds and traditions. This "utterance of poetry" derived from Sanskrit, fell into disuse after the Mohammedan conquest, though a few Arabic words became incorporated into the two-fold language comprising _Krama_, the ceremonial speech, and _Ngoko_, the speech of "thee and thou," or colloquial form of address. The island of Bali, and the slopes of the Tengger range, retain a modification of Hinduism, and Bali treasures a Kawi version of the Ramayan and Mahabharata epics. Many inspiring thoughts and noble sentiments, expressed in story and song, have become well-known maxims identified with Javanese life. "Rob no man of due credit, for the sun, by depriving the moon of her light, adds no lustre to his own." "As the lotus floats in water, the heart rests in a pure body." "Ye cannot take riches to the grave, but he who succoureth the poor in this world shall find a better wealth hereafter." A _babad_ or rhythmical ballad of semi-religious character belongs to every province, but though many details of temple worship--Buddhist, Hindu, and Mohammedan--may be gathered from the lengthy scroll, heroic and princely exploits, myths and traditions, encumber the sacred text, which Eastern imagination transforms into a fairy tale. Creeds lose their chiselled outline, and crumble away in the disintegrating medium of Javanese thought, which blends them into each other with changing colour and borrowed light. The inconstant soul of the Malay knows nothing of that rigid adherence to some centralising truth which often forms the heart of a living faith, and his religious history is an age-long record of failure, change, desertion, and oblivion, repeated in varying cadences, and inscribed in unmistakeable characters on the ruined sanctuaries of old Mataram.

SOURAKARTA.

The imperial city of Sourakarta, commonly abbreviated into "Solo," was the hereditary capital of the Mohammedan emperors, now mere puppet-princes held in the iron grasp of Holland. The present Susunhan, descended from both Hindu and Arab ancestry, maintains a brilliant simulacrum of royal state, and his huge Kraton, far surpassing that of Djokjacarta, contains 10,000 inhabitants. The pronounced Hindu type, though debased and degraded, remains noticeable even amid the all-pervading environment of squalor and disorder, which dims the gorgeous colour and brilliant ceremonial, producing the effect of jewels flung in the dust. A dense throng of brown humanity, clad and unclad, walks to and fro beneath the dusky avenues of feathery tamarinds which shield Solo from the ardour of the tropical sun. Old crones, with unkempt locks streaming over brown and bony necks, pass by, their wide mouths distorted and discoloured with sucking the scarlet lumps of _Sarya_, from which the native derives unfailing consolation, even the Javanese girl showing absolute disregard of the disfigurement produced by this favourite stimulant. Deep moats, lichen-stained walls, and hoary forts, invest Solo with a feudal aspect, and the grim tower of Vostenberg menaces the Kraton with bristling cannon, reminding the hereditary Ruler of his subserviency to modern Holland, for only a melancholy illusion of past glory remains to him. The dragon-carved eaves of the Chinese quarter, the open _tokos_ beneath waringen boughs, the shadowy _passer_ brightened by mounds of richly-coloured fruits, and the stuccoed palaces of Court dignitaries, framed in dark foliage, give character and interest to the city, where the life of the past lingers in a series of street pictures remaining from bygone days of pomp and show. Ministers of State walk beneath many-coloured official umbrellas, held by obsequious attendants; graceful _bedayas_, in glittering robes, execute intricate dances, and _gamelon_ players discourse weird music on pipe and drum. Court ballet-girls, known as _Serimpi_, are borne swiftly through the crowd in gilded litters, and masked actors give _al fresco_ performances of the historic _Wayang-wayang_, represented by living persons, for the actual "shadow-play" is impossible in broad daylight. The colour of the mask indicates the character assumed by the actor. The golden mask signifies Divinity, heroes wear white, and evil spirits black or red. Here, as elsewhere, the profile of the grotesque disguise invariably shows either the Greek, or the hawk-nose strangely suggestive of Egyptian origin, and which, as a variation on human physiognomy, specially commended itself to Mohammedan thought as a skilful evasion of an inconvenient dogma. Elsewhere the spirit of concession to alien ideas is almost unknown, even flower and leaf being conventionalised on those architectural monuments of Islam which form the supreme expression of Mussulman genius. The suppression of national amusements has ever proved a perilous step, and in the heart of this ancient kingdom the original setting of Javanese life remained in stereotyped form. The moving panorama of the tree-shadowed streets possesses a strange fascination, and the light of the past lingers like a sunset glow over the human element of the changed and modernised city. The twang of double-stringed lutes, the tinkle of metal tubes, and the elusive melody of silvery gongs, echo from the ages whence dance and song descend as an unchanged inheritance. An itinerant minstrel recites the history of _Johar Mankain_, the Una of Java, who shone like a jewel in the world which could not tarnish the purity and devotion of one whose heart entertained no evil thought. In the intricate byways of the crumbling Kraton, a professional story-teller draws a squalid crowd of women from their dark hovels and cellars, with the magic wand of enchantment wielded by the reciter of heroic deeds from the _Panji_, exaggerated out of all recognition by the addition of fairies and giants, demons and dwarfs, to the simple human element of the original story. The apathy and decay of native life, lacking all the scope and interest common to a strenuous age, appears galvanised into some fleeting semblance of vitality by the extravaganza presented to it, for the language of hyperbole is the natural expression of Eastern thought, and penetrates into mental recesses unknown and unexplored by the relater of unvarnished facts. The quick response of the native mind to Nature's teaching, and the wealth of tradition woven round flower and tree, mountain and stream, foster the love of marvel and miracle in those whose daily wants are supplied by the prodigality of a tropical climate, for the innate poetry of the race has never been crushed out by the weight of practical necessities.

A permit being obtained to view the interior of the Susunhan's palace under a Dutch escort, we present ourselves at the colonnaded portico, where the Prince Probolingo, brother of the Susunhan, receives his visitors with simple courtesy. This descendant of a hundred kings is simply attired in a dark brown _sarong_ and turban, the _kris_ in his belt of embroidered velvet ablaze with a huge boss of diamonds. Attendants, holding State umbrellas over the favoured guests, usher them through marble-paved courts, in one of which a little prince is seated, with furled golden umbrella behind him to denote his rank, a group of royal children playing round him, their lithe brown forms half-hidden in the green shadows of a great tamarind tree. A superb marble ball-room with crystal chandeliers, forms an incongruous modern feature of the spacious Palace, but helps to popularise the so-called "Nail of the Universe" among the European inhabitants of Solo, by the splendid entertainments continually given at the imperial command. The porcelain and glass rooms convey an idea of the boundless hospitality bestowed; the thousands of wine-glasses being especially noticeable, for 800 guests are often invited at a time. Treasures of linen and costly embroidery, silken hangings and velvet banners, gorgeous carpets and mats of finest texture, are displayed to our admiring eyes, but possession rather than enjoyment is the keynote of Eastern character, and the bales and bundles of priceless value, kept in huge cabinets of fragrant cedar-wood, seldom see the light of day. Long counting-houses are crowded with native scribes, their brown bodies naked except for _sarong_ and _kris_, the perpetual rattle of the abacus making a deafening din, for apparently the smallest sum cannot be added up under Eastern skies without the assistance of this wire frame with the ever-shifting marbles. Cramped fingers move wearily over the yellow parchments, with their long lists of undecipherable hieroglyphics, and the turbaned heads are scarcely raised until the entrance of the Prince necessitates the time-honoured salute of the _dodok_, the crouching posture assumed in the presence of a superior. The needs and luxuries of the immense royal household render the counting-house a feature of the utmost importance. The Prince Probolingo has himself forty wives, and a Harem in proportion to their numbers, the Susunhan's Imperial Harem far exceeding that of his brother. Wonderful tales are told of the fairy-like loveliness belonging to these inner palaces, with their treasures of ivory and sandalwood, cedar and ebony, but they are jealously guarded from intrusion, and a glimpse of their fantastic glory seldom permitted to Western eyes. After an exhibition of gold-encrusted litters and painted coaches of State, used in royal processions, the Prince, a clever-looking man of forty, takes wine with his guests. Each stand of solid silver contains six bottles, the crouching attendants also carrying silver trays of tumblers and wine-glasses, a gaily clad servitor with a huge silver ice-bowl bringing up the rear. After drinking the health of His Royal Highness in iced Rhine wine, we make our adieux, and escape from our splendid _pajongs_ of rainbow hue on the steps of the Great Entrance, conveying our thanks through the medium of an interpreter. These fainéant princes learn no tongue but their own, greatly to the advantage of their Dutch masters. The colossal incomes assigned to scions of the royal stock only serve the double purpose of political expediency and personal extravagance, for the luxury of a licentious Court remains unchecked, and the idea of educating or reforming tributary princes is unknown in Java. Territorial rights were relinquished for pecuniary gains, and the entire Court of the Susunhan is in the pay of the Dutch, the wealth amassed from the richest island in the world affording ample compensation for the pensions lavishly bestowed on the former owners of the tropical Paradise. The Dutch Resident, in his capacity of "Elder Brother" to the indigenous race, claims the full privileges of his assumed position, but the advancing tide of social reform has even touched these distant shores, and the alien authority tends on the whole to the welfare of the community. Hygienic regulations are compulsory, and even here the traditions of Holland enjoin an amount of whitewashing and cleaning up unique in tropical colonies. The green and vermilion panelled _sarongs_ of Solo are renowned for their elaborate designs, and the painting of _battek_, or cotton cloth, remains a flourishing industry of the ancient capital. The intricate beauty of the hand-made patterns far surpasses that of the woven fabrics wherewith new mills and factories begin to supply the market. Centuries of hereditary training, from the days when royal Solo was a self-supporting city, contribute to the amazing skill of the _battek_ girls, but the elaboration of native Art is doomed to decay, for Time, hitherto a negligeable quantity in this "summer isle of Eden," begins to reveal a value unknown to the Javanese past, and as the poetry of illumination vanished before the prose of the printing press, so the painting of _battek_ must inevitably give way to the wholesale methods of Manchester in the near future of Java, just awakening from her spellbound sleep to the changed conditions of life and labour. An exquisite plain, described by de Charnay as unrivalled even in Java, surrounds Sourakarta with belts of palm, avenues of waringen, and picturesque rice-fields of flaming green and vivid gold. Azure peaks frame the enchanting picture. The storied heights are rich in traditions of gods and heroes, with innumerable myths haunting the ruined temples which cluster round the base of the mountain range, and suggest themselves as relics of an earlier creed than Buddhism or Brahminism. Archaic sculptures, obelisks, and gateways, massive and undecorated, recall the architecture of Egyptian sanctuaries, but no record exists which throws any light on the origin of the extensive monuments of a forgotten past, though the triple pyramid of Mount Lawu is still a place of sacrifice to Siva the Destroyer. Pilgrims climb the steep ascent to lay their marigold garlands and burn their incense-sticks at the foot of the rude cairn erected in propitiation of the Divine wrath, typified by the cloud and tempest hovering round the jagged pinnacles of the volcanic range, which frowns with perpetual menace above the verdant loveliness of plain and woodland. The instinctive worship seems one of those hereditary relics of a perished faith so frequently encountered in Java; a blind impulse for which no reason can be ascribed by the devotee, swayed by those mysterious forces of the subconscious self which seem imperishable elements in the brown races of the Malay Archipelago. The native Court attracts myriad parasites, and the wealthy Chinese half-castes, or _Paranaks_ of Solo, with their inborn commercial genius, surpass all competitors in the pursuit of fortune. The three centuries of mixed marriages have modified Chinese conservatism, and though the _Paranak_ is severely taxed, and excluded from all political offices, he remains supreme in the kingdom of finance, regarded even by the Dutch as an indispensable factor in the complicated affairs of the island.

The great _passer_ of Solo becomes an endless delight, and the interminable corridors, where the fumes of incense mingle with the breath of flowers, convey strange suggestions of antiquity. Simple meals of rice and bananas progress round cooking-pots of burnished copper. Pink pomelo and purple mangosteen vary the repast; strips of green banana leaf folded into cups fastened with an acanthus thorn, or serving as plates for Dame Nature's prodigality, provide the accessories of the feast as well as the provisions. The Javanese populace, wonderfully free from those household cares which involve so much time and trouble in Northern nations strenuously occupied in keeping the wolf from the door, and left to carry out their own inventions, have evolved numerous methods of blending the different metals--steel and iron, brass and silver. The veinings of the _kris_, beautiful as those of any Toledo blade, are produced by the welding of metals steeped in lime-juice and arsenic, which destroy the iron and retain the ingrained pattern. The chains of mingled brass and silver show exquisite designs and a special charm of colour, in the soft golden hue and subdued gleam of the heavy links, with their richly-enamelled talismans of ruby and turquoise enamel. Soft voices, tranquil movements, and courteous manners are the age-long heritage of Malay idiosyncracy, and even in the crowded _passer_, with its horde of buyers and sellers, noise and dispute are non-existent. It is a market of dreamland, and though echoes of marching feet and music of native bands remind us that we are in imperial Sourakarta, the busy hive of the _passer_ suggests a panoramic picture of native life, rather than the pushing, jostling crowd represented by the ordinary idea of a market in that Western hemisphere which, in bestowing so many priceless gifts on humanity, has taken from it the old-world grace of repose.

SOURABAYA AND THE TENGGER.

The port of Sourabaya, supreme in mercantile importance, ranks as the second city of Java, as it contains the military headquarters, the principal dockyards, and the arsenal. Leagues of rice and sugar-cane lie between Solo and Sourabaya, the landscape varied by gloomy teak woods, feathery tamarinds, and stately mango trees. White towns nestle in rich vegetation, and the green common known as the _aloon-aloon_ marks each hybrid suburb, Europeanized by Dutch canals, white bridges, and red-tiled houses, planted amid a riotous wealth of palm and banana. A broad river, brimming over from the deluge of the previous night, flows through burning Sourabaya; a canal, gay with painted _praus_ connecting it with the vast harbour, where shipping of all nations lies at anchor, the sheltered roads bristling with a forest of masts and funnels. Bungalows, in gorgeous gardens, flank dusky avenues of colossal trees, for even Sourabaya, the hottest place in steaming Java, enjoys "a boundless contiguity of shade." In the _sawa_ fields broad-eaved huts, set on stilts above the swamp, protect the brown boys who frighten birds from the rice, for the clapping and shouting must be carried on under shelter from the ardent sun. No air blows from the rippling water, set with acres of lotus-beds, the fringed chalices of rose and azure swaying on their plate-like leaves of palest green. The heterogeneous character of Sourabaya gives unwonted interest to the streets, uniquely brilliant in grouping and colour. Gilded eaves of Chinese houses, many-tiered Arab mosques, encrusted with polished tiles of blue and purple, white colonnades of Dutch bungalows, and pointed huts of woven basket-work within wicker gate and bamboo fence, mingle in fantastic confusion to frame a series of living pictures. Cream-coloured bullocks and spirited Timor ponies, in creaking waggons and ramshackle carriages, pass in endless procession. Bronze-hued coolies balance heavy loads on the swaying _pikolan_, a sloping pole of elastic bamboo, and strolling players, rouged and tinselled, collect crowds in every open space where a fluttering tamarind-tree offers a welcome patch of shadow to each turbaned audience, clad in the paradisaical garb of the tropics. Graceful Malay women flit silently past, in pleasing contrast to their burly Dutch mistresses, clad in a caricature of native garb which the appalling heat of Sourabaya renders a more slatternly disguise than even colonial _sans géne_ accomplishes elsewhere. Orchids spread broad spathes of scented bloom from grey trunks of courtyard trees, and cascades of crimson and purple creepers tumble over arch and wall. Insinuating Chinamen untie bundles of _sarongs_, scarves, and delicate embroideries on the marble steps of hotel porticoes, where the prolonged "shopping" of the drowsy East is catered for by the industrious Celestial, when _tokos_ are closed, and the tradesman sleeps on the floor amid his piled-up wares, for the slumber of Java is too deep to be lightly disturbed, and the solemnity of the long siesta seems regarded almost as a religious function. In this far-off land of dreams it seems "always afternoon," and the complacency wherewith the entire population places itself "hors de combat" becomes a perpetual irritation to the traveller, anxious to seize a golden opportunity of fresh experience. The sun sinks out of sight before the sultry atmosphere begins to cool. The weird "gecko," a large lizard which foretells rain, screams "Becky! Becky!" in the garden shadows, and a cry of "Toko! Toko!" echoes from another unseen speaker of a mysterious language, while wraith-like forms of his tiny brethren make moving patterns on the white columns, as the hungry little reptiles hunt ceaselessly for the mosquitos which form their staple diet. Lashing rain and deafening thunder at length cool the fiery furnace, blue lightning flares on the solid blackness of heaven, and the storm only dies away when we start at dawn for Tosari, the mountain sanatorium of the Tengger. The flat and flooded land glows with the vivid green of springing rice, tremulous tamarind and blossoming teak bordering a road gay with pilgrim crowds, for the great volcano of the Tengger remains one of Nature's mystic altars, dedicated to prayer and sacrifice. Moslem girls in yellow veils jostle brown men with white prayer-marks and clanking bangles. The _sari_ of India replaces the _sarong_ of Java, with fluttering folds of red and purple; children, clad only in silver chains and medals, or strings of blue beads, dart through the crowd, from whence the familiar types of Malay and Javanese personality are absent. We change carts in a busy roadside _passer_, which drives a roaring trade in rice-cakes and fruit, syrups and stews, to mount through changing zones of vegetation, where palms give place to tree ferns, and luscious frangipanni or gardenia yields to rose and chrysanthemum. From the half-way house of Poespo, a forest road ascends to Tosari. Sombre casuarina, most mournful of the pine tribe, mingles with teak and mahogany in dense woods falling away on either side from the shadowy path. Innumerable monkeys swing from bough to bough, eating wild fruits, and breaking off twigs to pelt the intruders on their domains. At length the sylvan scenery gives place to endless fields of cabbage, potatoes, maize, and onions, for the cool heights of the Tengger range serve the prosaic purpose of market-garden to Eastern Java, and all European vegetables may be cultivated here with success. A patchwork counterpane of green, brown, and yellow, clothes these steep slopes, but the extent of the mountain chain, and the phantasmal outlines of volcanic peaks, absorb the incongruities grafted upon them. Valerian and violet border the track between swarthy pines with grey mosses hanging down like silver beards from forked branches, and sudden mists shroud the landscape in vaporous folds, torn to shreds by gusts of wind, to melt away into the blue sky, suddenly unveiled in dazzling glimpses between the surging clouds. A long flight of mossy steps ascends to the plateau occupied by the Sanatorium, with wide verandahs and a poetic garden, like some old Italian pleasaunce, with fountain and sundial, espaliered orange boughs, and ancient rose-trees overhanging paved walks, gay parterres, and avenues of myrtle or heliotrope. Flowers are perennial even on these airy heights, and dense hedges of datura, with long white bells drooping in myriads over the pointed foliage, transform each narrow lane into a vista of enchantment. Eastern Java spreads map-like beneath the overhanging precipice, the blue strait of Madoera curving between fretted peak and palm-clad isle. The velvety plum-colour of nearer ranges fades through tints of violet and mauve into the ethereal lilac of distant summits. The lowlands gleam with brimming fish-ponds and flooded _sawas_, as though the sea penetrated through creek and inlet to the heart of the green country, the vague glitter of this watery world investing the scene with dream-like unreality. Brown _campongs_ cling to mountain crest and precipitous ledge. These almost inaccessible fastnesses were colonised after the Moslem conquest by a Hindu tribe which refused to relinquish Brahminism. Driven from place to place by the fanatical hordes of Islam on the downfall of the Hindu empire, the persecuted race, a notable exception to native inconstancy and indifference, retreated by degrees to this mountain stronghold, where they successfully retained their religious independence, and defended themselves from Mohammedan hostility. Brahminism through centuries of isolation, has assimilated many extraneous heathen rites, and wild superstitions have overlaid the original creed. The worship of the Tenggerese is now mainly directed to the ever-active crater of the awe-inspiring Bromo, always faced by the longer side of the windowless communal houses, built to contain the several generations of the families which in patriarchal fashion inhabit these spacious dwellings. Huge clouds of smoke from the majestic volcano curl perpetually above the surrounding peaks, and float slowly westward, the thunderous roar of the colossal crater echoing in eternal menace through the rarefied air, and regarded as the voice of the god who inhabits the fiery Inferno. These lonely hills, ravaged by tempest and haunted by beasts of prey, are the hiding-places of fear and the cradles of ever-deepening superstition. Wild fancies sway the untaught mountaineers, responsive to Nature's wonders, though powerless to interpret their signification. The constant struggle for existence produces a character utterly opposed to that of the suave and facile Malay. The graces of life are unknown, but the strenuous temperament of the Tenggerese is shown by indefatigable industry in the difficult agriculture of the mountain region, and the careful cultivation of the vegetables for which the district is renowned. Day by day, the Tenggerese women--gaunt, scantily-clad, and almost unsexed by incessant toil in the teeth of wind and weather--carry down their burdens to the plain, their backs bent under the weight of the huge crates, while the brown and wizened children are prematurely aged and deformed by their share in the family toil. The more prosperous inhabitant carries his vegetables on a mountain pony, trained to wonderful feats in the art of sliding up and climbing down walls of rock almost devoid of foothold, for the riding of Tenggerese youth and maiden rivals that of the Sioux Indian. Misdirected zeal strips the hills of forest growth; the scanty pines of the higher zone serving as fuel, and the ruthless destruction of timber brings the dire result of decreasing rainfall. Only bamboo remains wherewith to build the communal houses, formerly constructed of tastefully blended woods, and the flimsy substitute, unfitted to resist drenching rain and raging wind, is dragged with the utmost difficulty from cleft and gorge along rude tracks hewn out in the mountain side. Rice, elsewhere the mainstay of life in Java, has never been cultivated by the Tenggerese, the sowing and planting of the precious crop being forbidden to them during the era of gradual retreat before the Mohammedan army centuries ago, and the innate conservatism of the secluded tribe, in spite of life's altered environment, clings to the dead letter of an obsolete law. The tigers, once numerous round Tosari, have retreated into the jungle clothing the lower hills, and seldom issue from their forest lairs unless stress of weather drives them upward for a nightly prowl round byre and pen. The destruction of covert renders Tosari immune from this past peril, and the tragic tiger stories related round the hearthstone of the communal house are becoming oral traditions of a forgotten day, gathering round themselves the moss and lichen of fable and myth.

The main interest of Tosari centres round the stupendous Bromo, possessing the largest crater in the world, a fathomless cavity three miles in diameter, veiled in Stygian darkness, and suggesting the yawning mouth of hell. This bottomless pit, bubbling like a boiling cauldron, pouring out black volumes of sulphureous smoke, and clamouring with unceasing thunder, was for ages a blood-stained altar of human sacrifice. Every year the fairest maiden of the Tengger was the chosen victim offered to Siva, who, in his attribute of a Consuming Fire, occupied the volcanic abyss. The worship of the Divine Destroyer has ever been a fruitful source of crime and cruelty, and a tangible atmosphere of evil lingers round those hoary temples of India dedicated to the Avenging Deity, whose fanatical followers are reckoned by millions. Through the inversion of creed peculiar to Hindu Pantheism, the propitiation of Divine wrath has become the fundamental principle of religion, and pathetic appeals for mercy continually ascend from darkened hearts to those unseen powers vividly present to Hindu thought, which, amid countless errors and degradations, has never ceased to grasp the central fact of Eternity. The impalpable air teems with Divinity. Watchful eyes and clutching hands surround the pilgrim's path, and unseen spirits dog faltering footsteps as they stumble through the snares and pitfalls of earthly life. In the rude tribes of the Tengger, hereditary faith reflects the uncompromising features of local environment. The lotus-eating races of the tropical lowlands, with their feeble grasp on the sterner aspects of creed and character, have nothing in common with this Indian tribe, remaining on the outskirts of an alien civilisation. The creed for which the early Tenggerese fought and conquered, has cooled from white heat to a shapeless petrifaction, and weird influences throng the ruined temple of a moribund faith, but the shadows which loom darkly above the mouldering altars still command the old allegiance, and a thousand hereditary ties bind heart and soul to the past.

The expedition to the Bromo, by horse or litter, affords the supreme experience of Javanese volcanoes. The broken track, knee-deep in mud and rent by landslips, traverses fields of Indian corn, rocky clefts, and rugged water-courses. The familiar flora of Northern Europe fringes babbling brooks, their banks enamelled with wild strawberries and reddening brambles. Curtains of ghostly mist lift at intervals to disclose the magical pink and blue of the mountain distance, as sunrise throws a shaft of scarlet over the grim cliff's of the Moengal Pass. A chasm in the stony wall reveals the famous Sand Sea below the abrupt precipice, a yellow expanse of arid desert encircling three fantastic volcanoes. The pyramidal Batok, the cloud-capped Bromo, and the serrated Widodaren, set in the wild solitude of this desolate Sahara, form a startling picture, suggesting a sudden revelation of Nature's mysterious laboratories. The deep roar of subterranean thunder, and the fleecy clouds of sulphureous smoke ever rising from the vast furnaces of the Bromo, emphasise the solemnity of the marvellous scene. Native ideas recognise this terror-haunted landscape as the point where Times touches Eternity, and natural forces blend with occult influences. Tjewara Lawang, "the gate of the spirits," traditionally haunted by the countless _Devas_ of Hindu Pantheism, bounds the ribbed and tumbled Sand Sea with a black bridge of fretted crags, from whence the invisible host keeps watch and ward over the regions of eternal fire.

By a fortunate coincidence, the annual festival of the Bromo is celebrated to-day, when Siva, the Third Person of the Hindu Triad, is propitiated by a living sacrifice. Goats and buffaloes were flung into the flaming crater long after the offering of human victims was discontinued, but, alas for the chicanery of a degenerate age! even the terrified animals thrown into the air by the sacrificing priest never reach the mystic under-world, their downward progress being arrested by a skilled accomplice, who catches them at a lower level, and risks great Siva's wrath by preserving them for more prosaic uses. The silence of the Sand Sea is broken to-day by the bustle of a gay market on the brink of the yellow plain. The terrific descent through a gash in the precipice, carved by falling boulders, landslips, and torrential rains, lands the battered pilgrim in the midst of a lively throng in festal array. Girls in rose and orange _saris_, with silver pins in sleek dark hair plaited with skeins of scarlet wool, dismount from rough ponies for refreshment, or gallop across the Sand Sea to the mountain of sacrifice. The turbaned men in rough garb of indigo and brown show less zeal than their womenkind, and betel-chewing, smoking, or the consumption of syrups and sweetmeats, prove more attractive than the religious service, for modern materialism extends even to these remote shores, and the Avenging God is often worshipped by proxy.

The Sand Sea was originally the base of the Tengger volcano, split from head to foot by an appalling eruption, which forced mud, sand, and lava from the enclosing walls into the surrounding valley. Fresh craters formed in the vast depths of sand and molten metal; the three new volcanoes--Bromo, Battok, and Widodaren--casting themselves up from the blazing crucibles hidden beneath the fire-charged earth. We stand on the thin and crumbling crust of the globe's most friable surface, a mere veil concealing fountains of eternal fire, foaming solfataras, and smoking fumaroles. Circle after circle, the great belt of volcanic peaks rises around us, visible outlets of incalculable forces, ever menacing the world with ruin and havoc.

On the steep descent, a few devout pilgrims offer preliminary sacrifices of food, or flowers, to the _Devas_ of the mountains, laying the little treasures in oval vaults dug by human hands, before entering the inner courts of the fiery sanctuary. The yellow Sand Sea, swept by a moaning wind, sends up whirling eddies, and the dusky haze shimmers in fantastic outlines, which probably originated the idea of spiritual presences hovering round the scene. Grey heather and clumps of cypress-grass dot the wild Sahara with their dry and colourless monotony, but give place on the southern side to patches of fern and turf, the scanty pasture of the mountain ponies, herding together until sickness or accident breaks the ranks, when the hapless sufferer, deserted by his kind, falls an easy prey to the wild dogs of the Tengger ranges. A heap of bleaching bones points to some past tragedy, and terrifies the swerving horses of the native pilgrims. The ascent of the Bromo is negotiated from the eastern side to the lip of the gigantic crater. Slanting precipices of lava, their grey flanks scored with black gullies below the volcanic ash which covers the upper slopes, rise to the jagged pinnacles bordering the black gulf of eternal mystery and night. A rickety ladder of bamboo, approached through a chaos of boulders, mounts to the edge of the profound abyss. The ladder has been renewed for this Day of Atonement, and worshippers clad in rainbow hues crowd round the base of the volcano, while the priests of Siva, in motley robes of brilliant patchwork, adorned with cabalistic tracery in white, ascend the swaying rungs, bearing their struggling victims, bleating, crowing, and clucking in mortal terror. Stalwart arms toss the black goat with accurate aim to an assistant priest, who passes on his clever "catch" to a third expert in the task of hoodwinking Siva and depriving him of his lawful prey. Sundry cocks and hens, evidently toothsome morsels, are then thrown from one priest to another, and saved for the cooking-pot, but a tough-looking chanticleer of the Cochin China persuasion is finally selected, and cast into the seething pit to propitiate the terrible wrath of the Avenging Deity at the smallest expense and loss to the astute priesthood. At the close of the sacerdotal is sacreligious performance, we mount the shaking ladder to a thatched shed on the rim of the crater. From hence, between the dense volumes of smoke, the huge cavity is visible to a depth of 600 feet. Sallow clouds of sulphur emerge from a pandemonium of tumultuous clamour; red-hot stones shoot upward, but fall back into the chasm before they reach us; burning ashes strike the smooth walls with a weird scream, and then whirl back into the darkness; yellow solfataras rise in foaming jets, with the fierce hiss of unseen serpents, and bellowing thunders shake the earth. The superb spectacle of nature's power in her armoury of terror is unique among the volcanos of Java, for unless the Bromo blazes in the throes of a violent eruption, when the ascent to the crater becomes impossible, no danger exists in gazing down into the mysterious abyss. At every gust which rages round this laboratory of Nature, the vast clouds--black, yellow, and blue--floating away into space, assume grotesque forms suggesting primeval monsters or menacing giants, darkening the skies with their ghostly presence. Driving rain and a rising gale hasten a rapid descent to the Sand Sea, but the sudden storm dies away into sunlit mists. The climb to the Moenggal Pass is complicated by a series of pools and cascades; the horses pick their own perilous way, but the management of the chairs by the noisy coolies demands superhuman strength and security of hand and foot, the crazy and battered _doolie_ escaping falls and collisions by a continuous miracle.

The expedition to Ngandwona, in the heart of the hills, skirts green precipices and traverses brown _campongs_ forlorn and neglected, like this stranded Hindu race, incapable of adjustment to life's law of change, and retaining the form without the spirit of the past. The glens lie veiled in cloud, but the peaks bask in sunshine. Waterfalls dash through thickets of crimson foxglove, and daturas swing their fragrant bells over the dancing water. A little goatherd, leading his bleating flock, plays on a reed flute to summon a straggler from a distant crag. The brown figure, in linen waistcloth and yellow turban, suggests that Indian personality which has survived ages of exile on these lonely heights. The route to Ngandwona discloses the Tengger in a different aspect; the volcanos are far away, and this central region is rich in pastoral pictures full of lulling charm. The voice of the Bromo still breaks the silence of the deep valley with a mysterious undertone, but only benignant _Devas_ haunt this flower-filled hollow, remote alike from the terrors of Nature and the influences of the external world.

The following day varies the character of the range, exposed to every vicissitude of temperature and climate. White billows of fog beat upon the mountain tops like a silent sea, and blot out the landscape with an impenetrable veil. Thunder echoes through the rocky caves with incessant reverberations, and rain settles down in a drenching flood. The chill of the wooden Hotel penetrates to the bone; enthusiasm wanes below zero, and even scorching Sourabaya appears preferable to this wet and windy refuge on the storm-swept heights. The hurricane proves brief in proportion to the violence displayed, and the walk to Poespo at dawn, behind the baggage-coolie, is a vision of delight. Violet mountains lean against the pale blue of a rain-washed sky, tjewara and teak glisten with jewelled lustre, and the Tengger, bathed in amethystine light, lifts itself above the world as the realm of purity and peace, ever revealed and prophesied by the glory of mountain scenery.

CELEBES.

MAKASSAR AND WESTERN CELEBES.

Each island of the great Archipelago offers distinctive interests, for many alien races grafted themselves on the original stock, after those age-long wanderings across the Southern seas which probably coincided with the westward march from Central Asia, whereby primeval man fulfilled the decrees of destiny.

A long pull in a rickety _sampan_ across the harbour of Sourabaya involves numerous collisions with fruit-boats, canoes, and rafts, before reaching the steamer in the offing. Intervals of comparative safety permit cursory observation of the gorgeously-painted _praus_ with upturned stern, curving bamboo masts, and striped sails, the outline of the gaudy boats accentuated by a black line, and producing the effect of huge shells tossing on the tide. The green isle of Madoera, and the level morasses of Eastern Java, bound the wide harbour, the blue cloud of the distant Tengger soaring abruptly on the horizon. The ship becomes our home for a month, and affords a welcome relief from divers struggles on land, involved by a dual language, official red tape, and native incompetence. A brilliant sunset flames across the heavens, and we glide across a golden sea as a fitting prelude to unknown realms of enchantment. The dreamful calm of the two days' passage obliterates the memory of bygone difficulties and perturbations, the interval between past and future experiences falling like refreshing dew on the weary spirit, and increasing the receptive capacity required for the assimilation of new impressions. The vast extent of the Malay Archipelago, and the stupendous size of the principal islands, comes as a fresh revelation to travellers whose ideas have been limited by vague recollections of schoolroom geography. The seven hundred miles of Java's length, Sumatra's vast extent of fourteen hundred miles, the area of Borneo equalling that of France and Germany combined, and the fact of Celebes, for which we are bound, exceeding the dimensions of Norway and Sweden, convey startling suggestions of the limitless space occupied by the great Equatorial group. The palms and flowers of myriad smaller isles break the blue monotony of these summer seas traversed by the Malay wanderers of olden days, striving to sail beyond the sunset, and to overtake that visionary ideal flitting ever before them, and luring them on with the fairy gold of unfulfilled desires.

At length the high blue peaks of central Celebes pierce the silver mists of a roseate dawn, and beyond a cluster of coral islets, the white town of Makassar gleams against a green background of palms. Miles of brown _campongs_ fringe the shore, but the gay scene on the wooden wharves at first occupies undivided attention. _Sarongs_ of crimson, orange, purple, or boldly-contrasting plaids, enhance the deep bronze of native complexion, the ample folds of the wide skirts drawn up above the knees. High turbans of white or red cambric, elaborately twisted, add dignity to the stately figures, deeply-cut features and hawk noses denoting Arab origin, for the Makassarese is a lineal descendant of the Moslem pirates, once the terror of these island-studded seas. Proud, courageous, and passionately addicted to adventurous travel in far-off lands, these sturdy islanders have little in common with the inert races of Java. The normal Malay element appears extinguished by the fiery superstructure of Arab nature, retaining the vindictive and fanatical traits of ancestral character. The women, in rainbow garb, use their floating _slandangs_ as improvised _yashmaks_, holding the red and yellow folds before their faces in approved Moslem fashion, when passing a man. Makassar, formerly ruled by a line of powerful princes as an independent fief, but now subject to a Dutch Governor, has become the capital of Celebes, and occupies an important commercial position. The wharves are filled with bales of _copra_, mother-of-pearl shells, plumage of native birds, dried fish, bundles of rattan, and precious woods from the primeval forests of the interior. The boom of the fisherman's drum echoes across the water in constant reverberations, a secularised relic of the religious past, originally serving the purpose of the Mohammedan call to prayer, but now fulfilling the prosaic office of signalling the arrival or departure of boats, though the devout mariner still appeals by drum to the Heavenly Powers for fair weather and a good haul of fish. The official buildings of Makassar, including the Dutch Governor's palace, face a green _aloon-aloon_, flanked by superb avenues of kanari and tamarind trees. The hoary fort, scarcely distinguishable from the solid rock which supports it, was captured from the King of Goa by a Dutch admiral, who thrust his sword through an adjacent cocoanut palm, to symbolise his intention of piercing the hearts of all who resisted the Treaty afterwards drawn up. The sword and cocoanut now form part of the heraldic arms belonging to Makassar.

Local costume affords a continuous feast of colour, and streets and avenues appear like moving tulip beds, the broad blue sky and dazzling sunshine of this tropical land intensifying every glowing tint of robe, fruit, and flower. In the umber shadows of dusky _tokos_, gold-beaters fashion those red-gold ornaments rich in barbaric beauty, for which Makassar has ever been renowned. Portuguese art glorifies native workmanship, and the Dutch carry on the traditions of the past, merely simplifying the old methods by introducing modern tools to lighten the labour of production. Silken scarves, and elaborately-painted _battek_, woven with gold and silver thread, swing from the black rafters of dim corridors, and countless treasures of the deep, in shells and coral of rich and delicate colouring, manifest the infinite variety of Nature's handiwork. From the crowded lanes, with their busy markets and hybrid population, we drive through the long line of _campongs_ bordering the palm-fringed coast. The bamboo walls of the fragile houses, standing on stilts or rocking on poles in the rippling sea, show a multitude of fantastic designs, the broad roofs of thatched grass or plaited palm-leaves extending in penthouse eaves above carven panels let into the gables. A riot of glorious vegetation frames and overshadows the clustering huts of deftly-woven cane. Dark faces peer through the narrow slits of bamboo window-spaces, but Makassar pride contains the elements of self-respect, and though the stranger attracts a certain amount of interest, no discourtesy mars the pleasure of exploration. A red road beneath towering palms, skirts rice-fields and bamboo thickets to the beautiful ford of the Tello, a broad river flowing between vast woods of cocoanut and bread-fruit trees, with only a tiny dug-out, steered by a brown boy in a scarlet turban, to dispel the loneliness of the scene. The vicinity of Makassar offers no special characteristics beyond those of a tropical garden, but the changing aspects of native life provide subjects of unceasing interest. To-day a great Chinese festa takes place, which attracts all the inhabitants of town and _campong_, for amusements are scarce on these distant shores, and no questions of race or faith complicate the determination to secure a share in the pleasures of the ceremony. When the usual burst of squibs and crackers, lighting of bonfires, and tossing of joss-papers into the air, marks the commencement of the holiday, spectators line the roads, climb the trees, and crowd the fiat roofs of Portuguese houses. The afternoon is the children's portion of the festival, and the little bedizened figures, with rouged faces, tinsel crowns, and spangled robes, bestride grotesque wooden dragons, fishes, and birds, brilliantly painted, and drawn on wheels by masked men in robes of pink and green. A crowd of high-class babies, also bedizened and spangled, follows in perambulators wreathed with flowers, and pushed by their Chinese nurses. Hideous gods in glittering robes, and appalling demons painted in black and scarlet, bring up the rear of the long procession, which traverses every street and lane of the Chinese _campong_, the open houses displaying the lighted altars and tutelary gods of Buddhist and Taoist creed, for the mystic philosophy of the Eastern sages materialises into grossest realism by passing through the crucible of Chinese thought.

A visit to the so-called "Kingdom of Goa" fills up our last day in Makassar. The Palace of the tributary Sultan, ten miles from the capital, consists of steep-roofed houses built upon huge trunks of forest trees, and connected by carved galleries and crumbling stairs with the Harem at the back of the main edifice. Squalid women in blue yashmaks loll on the crazy verandah, whence a native secretary marshals us through the dusty and ruinous building. The Sultan, taking to the hills as a necessary precaution after inciting his subjects to rebellion against the Dutch, has just been captured, but, whether by accident or design, fell over a cliff, and until his dead body is brought back to receive the Mohammedan rites of burial, the royal residence remains in charge of the police. The grass-grown road to the decaying Palace intersects the rambling and sordid village of Goa, the feudal appanage of the sorry chieftain, a perpetual thorn in the side of the Dutch Government. The surrounding country appears almost a solitude, the silence stirred by the song of the distant surf, the chirping of myriad grasshoppers, and the ceaseless clash of waving palms in the breeze which steals up from the sea. A quaint water-castle, shaped like a Chinese junk, stands on a rock in a fish-pond reflecting the rosy sky, and the fretted marble of a beautiful Arabian tomb gleams from a clump of white-starred _sumboya_ exhaling incense on the air. As the magic and mystery of night shroud Makassar in a mantle of gloom, the surrounding sea becomes a vision of phosphorescent flame to the furthest horizon. The sheet-lightning of the tropical sky repeats the wonders of the deep, the glamour of romance gilds the prose of reality, and we apprehend that spirit of wondering awe which breathes through the records of old-world voyagers across uncharted oceans, when witnessing the phenomena of Nature in the sanctuary of her power, before Science had torn the veil from the mystic shrine.