364 GEOGRAPHIC LITERATURE 



ture was but the dry and dusty bones of dead knowledge. So Miss Scid- 

 more's book comes as a fragrant breath direct from the lush nursery of 

 the Orient — and a breath so redolent of the mystical potency of eastern 

 legend (and w^estern, too) as to regenerate the skeleton in full flesh and 

 vigorous vitality. The author spent months in the country ; she saw 

 with occidental eyes, indeed, yet all the more clearly because without the 

 curious oriental haze which distorts the vision, sometimes little, often 

 much ; her pen pictures and sun pictures alike bear inherent evidentje of 

 fidelity; and the general presentment of "The Garden of tlie East" is done 

 in vigorous lines and strong colors. As time passes, literature 



changes ; of old, the writer devoted a lifetime to a book (writ perchance 

 for a single reader), which was often a heaviness to the spirit; of late, a 

 more fanciful yet more vigorous style has grown up under the pressure 

 of magazine editors compelled to meet, more promptly than the book- 

 makers, the demands of modern readers : and now this literary quality — 

 which is represented by the best writings of two score authors, chiefly 

 American — is going into the books. In this style Miss Scidmore writes ; 

 each sentence is filled with idea and every paragraph throbs with vitality 

 and brims over with good humor, while the light of delicate fancy and 

 solid culture shines out between the lines— each chapter is a gem, and 

 the whole a chaplet of brilliants. The first chapter is " Singa- 



pore and the Equator;" the second "In 'Java Major';" the third 

 " ' Batavia, Queen of the East ' ; " next " The Kampongs ; " then " To the 

 Hills;" the si.Yth "A Dutch Sans Souci;" the seventh "In a Tropical 

 Garden;" the eighth and ninth "The 'Culture System';" the tenth 

 "Sinagar;" the eleventh "Plantation Life;" the twelfth "Across the 

 Preanger Regencies ; " the thirteenth "'To Tissak Malaya';" then 

 "Prisoners of State at Boro Boedor," followed by " Boro Boedor" and 

 " Boro Boedor and Mendoet ; " the seventeenth is " Brambanam ; " the 

 eighteenth "Solo: the City of the Susunhan;" next is "The Land of 

 Kris and Sarong;" then comes "Djokjakarta," followed by " Pakoe 

 Alam: The 'Axis of the Universe' ; " the twenty-second is "' Tjilatjap,' 

 ' Chalachap,' ' Chelachap' ; " then follows " Garoet and Papandayang," 

 and lastly (save a rather too condensed index) follows " ' Salamat '," the 

 soft farewell of the land of the Malay. It is impossible to epitomize these 

 chapters, already condensed to the utmost ; suffice it that apparently 

 every appropriate subject is treated or at least touched lightly — the myth 

 of the coco-de-mer is rectified and that of the " deadly upas " punctured 

 skillfully; the cofiee plantations are described, and the vile product of 

 the local chef duly anathematized; the tea industry receives attention, 

 and the unconventional hotel customs are not neglected ; even Krakatoa, 

 that world's volcano which happened to erupt so near to Java, comes in 

 for a share of space. The book hardly professes to be scientific, 



and may be unworthy of entombment alongside the musty tomes of the 

 Dutch societies ; but it can be commended as a thoroughly readable and 

 fully fin de siecle contribution to that semi-scientific literature which is 

 neither so heavy as to sink straightway into the depths of desuetude nor 

 so light as to drift into oblivion. W J M. 



