162 



grets that it is ended so soon. Always on one side or the other 

 of the train, and sometimes on both sides, huge forested moun- 

 tains are in view. The gently rolUng valley land along which 

 the train passes is intensively cultivated and very densely popu- 

 lated. The villages are shaded by slender betel palms, heavy 

 sugar palms, tall coconuts, and huge spreading trees of durian, 

 rambutan, and mangosteen, so that only the marginal houses 

 are visible. So dense is the population that the train is hardly 

 out of one village before it enters another, and their groves of 

 fruit trees and palms blend at a little distance so that the whole 

 country appears one vast forest. But for forty miles not a bit 



Fig. 12. Parkia intermedia as seen from the railway between Batavia and 

 Buitenzorg, Java. 



of real forest is passed, and one can easily understand the fact 

 that the whole island is under cultivation up to an altitude of 

 five thousand feet. To see the tropical forest in Java, one must 

 visit the forest reserves, or must climb high up into the moun- 

 tains, where the cooler climate makes ordinary tropical agri- 

 culture impossible. 



Between the villages there are extensive rice fields, or sawahs, 

 rising one above the other in countless terraces, with a stream of 

 muddy water flowing away from them beneath. At the edge 



