158 Report of a Journey Around the JVor/d. 



although the water, to our own ideas, was not clean enough to do 

 much good. However, the clothes washed in similar water came 

 home apparently clean, and if a white shirt showed no dirt how 

 should the dark native skin? These same rice ponds (Fig. 123) 

 were worth the journey to see : no stiff, merely utilitarian rec- 

 tangular ponds such as we should have found perhaps in China, 

 but really landscape gardening as well as hydraulic engineering: 

 one tiny pond on the hilLside had the conventional heart shape and 

 was carefully built, although it could hold hardly twenty rice 

 plants. At the rest house, Villa Pauline, I had to wait until my 

 triple team (a stallion with a mare on either side) was harnessed, 

 a delay of more than half an hour which I used to explore the gar- 

 den and enjoy the fine views of the volcanic mountains that encircle 

 Garoet plain. I found a bed of carefully cultivated golden-rod, 

 another of lavender in full and fragrant blossom, and in the kitchen 

 garden a good assortment of cabbages and other edible vegetables. 



The drive home was cheery and the driver did not offer to 

 smoke, for which I rewarded him with an extra tip. On the hills 

 I noticed a primitive brake to the carts, which are two-wheeled, 

 with the long tongue in the rear by which the men propelling can 

 steer it : it consisted simpl}^ of a pole with one end pushed into a 

 hole in the side of the cart just in front of the wheel, and the other 

 end held b}' a boy and pressed against the rim of the wheel as he 

 ran alongside. When the bo}' was absent one of the men had a 

 rope from the out end of the pole tied around his waist so that he 

 could exert some pressure when needed. 



Monday 23. As usual, we were up in the dark and break- 

 fasted before dawn. Our traps were carted off to the station, and 

 every trace of our occupation removed from the apartment we had 

 so much enjoyed for nearly a week, and about five o'clock we 

 strolled to the near-by station with our host Mr. Hack. The man- 

 doer had purchased our tickets, got the trunk weighed and checked, 

 and presented us with change, tickets and baggage receipt as we 

 came in. The ride to Tjibatoe was short and pleasant, as the day 

 was fine, and we shortly transferred to the train from Weltvreden. 

 The character of the cultivation changed, and although the familiar 

 rice appeared here and there, coco palms occupied much more 

 space, and after some miles we came to good rubber plantations 



with sugar-cane appearing here and there. At Maos we were able 



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