136 Report of a Journey Around the World. 



We had no fire arms, so the luggage was passed without trouble, 

 as it is everywhere except in the civilised United States, and after 

 a short delay the train started for Batavia. At the Hotel des Indes 

 we learned that it was a race week and there was not a room to be 

 had; still worse, cholera, small-pox and bubonic plague were rife 

 and many were dying daily. I do not know that one could have 

 a choice of dying by any one of this terrible trio. So we at once 

 returned to the old town, went to the excellent tourist office, where 

 our route was planned for us and our time allotted to good advan- 

 tage, found a bank open and drew our Dutch money, called on the 

 American minister resident, and took train for Buitenzorg where 

 •we slept that night in comfort. 



One need not suppose because we cut our visit in Batavia 

 short that we saw little of the town. We saw the Dutch dwell- 

 ings and their accompanying canals ; we found the Commissioner 

 of Immigration a gentleman pleasant to meet on a journey in a 

 foreign land ; he told us that most of the old regulations regarding 

 travel had been done away, and at once repaid us the fifty guilders 

 we had been wrongfully charged when we bought our tickets in 

 Singapore, the agent there being ignorant of the new order of 

 things. We found to our astonishment that white clothes could be 

 washed clean in very muddy water, and so inferred that it was not 

 in vain that the children and women were bathing in the dirtiest 

 water I ever saw used for that purpose. We found later that most of 

 the Javanese streams were decidedly mud carriers. The museum 

 was closed and we had no time to hunt up the officer in charge, 

 but in the grounds around were very many images and other stone 

 sculptures, among them the rare rectangular lingams showing 

 clearly the transition to the obelisk. The contents of this museum 

 are of great beauty and interest ; much of the product of excava- 

 tions is here exhibited. 



Buitenzorg is less than an hour from Batavia and some 6co feet 

 above the sea. From the back of our hotel we looked upon a 

 charming bit of the tropics (Fig. 113), Gunung Salak, a quiescent 

 volcano, with its shattered crater often veiled in cloud, as in the 

 photograph, green to its very top, the stream in the valley below 

 evidently the favorite bathing place of the families that dwelt on 



its banks under the palms ; the variety of greens in the foliage not 



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