WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE FOUNDING OF SINGAPORE   BY W. BASIL WORSFOLD. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, Publishers in Ordinary to her Majesty the Queen. 1893. ( All rights reserved. )...

In writing these pages I have had before me a double purpose. First, to present to the general reader an account of what seemed to me to be a singularly interesting country, and one which, while being comparatively little known, has yet certain direct claims upon the attention of Englishmen. Secondly, to provide a book which, without being a guide book, would at the same time give information practically useful to the English and Australian traveller. In sending this book to the press I have to

Hindus—​Mohammedans—​Portuguese—​English—​Dutch—​ Legal basis of Dutch possession—​British occupation—​ Return of Dutch—​Culture system—​Eruption of Mount Krakatoa. In the centre of that region of countless islands termed not inaptly the "Summer of the World," midmost of the Sunda group of which Sumatra lies to the west, and Flores to the east, with the fury of the tropical sun tempered by a physical formation which especially exposes it to the cooling influence of the ocean, lies the island of

Area—Climate—​Permission to travel—​Chief objects of interest—​Means of locomotion—​Language—​Hotels. Of the many travellers who have written accounts of their visits to Java, not one has been explicit in his directions as to the ways and means of reaching the various interesting objects which he has described. This may partly be accounted for by the fact that there are, indeed, no Titanic difficulties to be encountered. The districts to be traversed are furnished with excellent roads, and in pa

Dutch possessions in the East—​Government—​Army and navy—​Administration—​Development of natives—​Raden Saleh—​Native dress—​Cooking and houses—​Rice cultivation—​Amusements—​Marriage ceremony. The Netherlands India, as the Dutch possessions in the East are officially styled, includes the whole of the Malay Archipelago, with the exception of the Philippine Islands belonging to Spain, part of Borneo in the possession of the North Borneo Company, and the eastern half of New Guinea, which is shared

Tanjong Priok—​ Sadoes —​Batavia—​Business quarter—​Telephoning—​Chinese Campong—​Weltevreden—​ Waterloo Plain—​Peter Elberfeld's house—​Raffles and Singapore. When the prosperity of the Dutch East India Company was at its height, the city of Batavia [9] was justly entitled the "Queen of the East." Apart from the fact that this place was the centre and head-quarters of the company, it was the emporium through which the whole commerce of the East passed to and from Europe. The Dutch possessions o

The temple remains generally—​The connection between Buddha and Brahma—​The Boro-Boedoer—​Loro-Jonggrang. Of the temple ruins of Java, considered generally, Mr. Wallace says, "It will take most persons by surprise to learn that they far surpass those of Central America, perhaps even those of India." [12] Yet it is only recently that these great works have been recovered to the world. A Dutch engineer who was sent to construct a fort at Klaten, in 1797, found that a number of architectural remain

Supposing that the traveller has been landed at Batavia, and wishes to visit the ruins in the east of the island, he will have the choice of three routes. First, he may sail by a Netherlands India boat to Samarang (or Soerabaia, if, as often happens from December to February, it is impossible to land at the former place owing to the surf); this occupies about thirty-six hours. There is an excellent hotel at Samarang—the Pavilion—where the night can be spent, and the following day the train will

Batavian heat—​To Buitenzorg by rail—​Buitenzorg—​ Kotta Batoe—​Buffalo—​Sawah land—​Sketching a Javan cottage. Once in Java, and a visit to Buitenzorg is a matter of course. In the first place, Buitenzorg is to the Dutch possessions in the East what Simla is to British India; and, in the second, it possesses a strong attraction in its famous Botanical Gardens. After a week of Batavia, the European or Australian traveller begins to want a change. It is not that there is at any time any extraordi

History of the Buitenzorg gardens—​Teysmann—​ Scheffer—​Three separate branches—​Horticultural garden—​Mountain garden—​Botanical garden—​ Dr. Treub—​Lady Raffles' monument—​Pandanus with aërial roots—​Cyrtostachys renda—​Stelecho-karpus—​ Urostigma—​Brazilian palms—​Laboratories and offices—​Number of men employed—​Scientific strangers. Among the twenty or thirty tropical gardens established in the colonial possessions of the various European Powers, three stand pre-eminent—those of Calcutta, t

View of Mount Salak—​Railway travelling in Java—​ Soekaboemi—​No coolies—​A long walk—​Making a pikulan —​Forest path—​Tji Wangi at last. It is two in the afternoon, and I have just taken the curious Javan meal called rice-table . Everyone else in the hotel, visitors and servants alike, are asleep. The doors of my rooms are all open, and there is a through draught from the courtyard to the verandah, where I am seated in a long easy chair with arms extending at will after the manner of the tropic

Financial system previous to the British occupation—​ Raffles' changes—​Return of the Dutch—​Financial policy—​Van den Bosch Governor-General—​Introduction of the culture system—​Its application to sugar—​To other industries—​Financial results of the system—​ Its abandonment—​Reasons of this—​Present condition of trade in Java—​Financial outlook. As I have already mentioned, the Colonial Government succeeded the Dutch East India Company in the administration of Java towards the end of the last c

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 flo

Mr. Wallace and the Malay Archipelago—​Animals—​ Birds—​General characteristics of plants—​European flora in mountains—​Darwin's explanation—​Fruits—​ History of cinchona introduction—​Mr. Ledger's story—​Indiarubber. No less than eight years (1854—1862) were employed by Mr. Wallace, the naturalist, in "the study of man and nature" in the Malay Archipelago. During this period he collected a vast number of specimens of animals and plants, and, some years after his return to England, gave the resu

Dutch society in the East—​Batavian etiquette—​ English residents—​Clubs—​Harmonie—​Concordia—​ Lawn-tennis—​Planters—​Horse-racing. Boston is not the only place in the world which has decided upon insufficient evidence that it is the centre of the universe. We all of us have a weakness for the special form of civilization with which we are most familiar, and to discover excellences of character and manners essentially identical with those we have been taught to associate with a cherished societ

The Hindu Javanese literature concerned with the past—​Javanese alphabet—​Extent of Javanese works—​ Kavi dialect—​Krama and Ngoko—​The Mahabharata and the Ramayana in Kavi—​Native Kavi works—​The Arjuna Vivaya—​The Bharata Yuddha—​Episode of Salya and Satiavati—​Ethical poems—​The Paniti Sastra—​ Localization of Hindu mythology in Java. The literature of a country reflects its life, but under certain conditions. The literature of Java is mainly, but not entirely, concerned with the distant past

Uncertainty about the history of the Hindu kingdoms given by the chronicles—​Character of the babad , or chronicle—​Its historical value—​Brumund's treatment of the babads—​Account of the babad "Mangku Nagara"—​ Prose works—​The Niti Praja—​The Surya Ngalam—​ Romances—​The Johar Manikam—​Dramatic works—​The Panjis—​Wayang plays—​Arabic works and influence—​The theatre—​The wayang. The works of the Mohammedan Javanese period include, in addition to translations and versions of all kinds both from

Batavia and Singapore—​Raffles' arrival in the East—​ Determines to oppose the Dutch supremacy in the Archipelago—​Occupation of Java—​Is knighted—​Returns from England—​Foundation of Singapore—​Uncertainty whether the settlement would be maintained—​His death—​Description of Singapore—​Epilogue. A fortnight after my visit to Tji Wangi I left Java. As the train took us from Batavia to the port, I caught a glimpse of the sea over the palm-trees, and I felt something of the exultation which prompt