BY MOTOR THROUGH THE EAST COAST OF SUMATRA 



75 



of the Amsterdam-Deli Company, the 

 most important tobacco company of the 

 Indies, is a modern town, created by the 

 Dutch and laid out in a very attractive 

 manner. 



MEDAN A CITY OF MANY MIXED RACES 



There is an airy appearance and a cheer- 

 ful, "white-man's" atmosphere about the 

 official buildings around its spacious 

 square and the cool, shaded streets of its 

 European quarter. 



The white bungalows are extremely 

 attractive in their green and w T ell-kept 

 grounds, shaded by tall royal palms, rub- 

 ber trees, bamboo, banyans, "flames of 

 the forest," travelers' trees, and other 

 tropical growth. 



The huge buildings of the Deli Com- 

 pany, with a European hospital and a 

 well-appointed asylum for native immi- 

 grants, are almost hidden in the dense 

 verdure of a park filled with beautiful 

 shade trees. 



Farther out are the native compounds 

 and various Asiatic quarters, having each 

 its own characteristics. 



The Chinese compound, with its elab- 

 orate temple, bears the unmistakable 

 mark of the Celestial Republic, with adap- 

 tations to East Indian conditions. Its 

 houses, joined together in even-fronted 

 rows, faced with cement or white and 

 tinted plaster, with carved and colored 

 decorations and roofs flaring slightly up- 

 ward at the corners, are much the same 

 as are found in Malayan towns. Many 

 of the stores and a large part of the trade 

 of Medan are in the hands of Chinese, 

 who, as usual, are extremely prosperous. 



Medan's prosperity and importance are 

 due to its location in the center of the 

 rich tobacco lands ; and owing to this, 

 with the consequent demand for labor 

 and to the scarcity of native Sumatrese, 

 its population of about 14,000 is a very 

 mixed one. 



THE "BIG DAY," SUBSTITUTE FOR SUNDAY 



We had arrived in the midst of hari- 

 bazar and so were immediately intro- 

 duced to this interesting feature of Su- 

 matran life. 



The tobacco, rubber, and various other 

 estates of the east coast are spread over 



such a vast amount of territory, with so 

 comparatively small a number of white 

 men in their administration, that 4he 

 Dutch planters and managers outside of 

 the head office and shipping ports are apt 

 to be more or less isolated from the so- 

 ciety of their own kind. Since it is quite 

 without significance to the Asiatic labor- 

 ers, Sunday is not recognized as a holiday 

 on the estates, but in its place a substitute 

 has been instituted in the fortnightly 

 hari-bazar, occurring about the first and 

 fifteenth of each month and literally 

 meaning "big day" or "holiday." Both 

 are pertinent. 



On these days all the planters — the 

 general term for white men in any capac- 

 ity on an estate, either their own or a 

 company's — who are able to do so, flock 

 in from their estates to the towns, those 

 within reach of Medan naturally seeking 

 the capital. 



Very few are free to celebrate every 

 hari-bazar, and when they do come into 

 town, usually arriving the night before 

 the "big day" with weeks of silence and 

 loneliness to make up for, they waste very 

 little of their time in sleep. Neither does 

 any one else whose room happens to be 

 in the vicinity of their gathering places. 



The club and hotels are filled, as they 

 were the night we arrived, with ruddy, 

 healthy-looking Dutchmen in fresh white 

 suits, sitting around big tables in unre- 

 mitting conversation, while vast quanti- 

 ties of gin and bitters and other beverages 

 are consumed, but with very little effect 

 on these hardy men of the open air. 



COMFORT AND PRIVACY IN A MEDAN 

 HOTEE 



Among its other advantages, Medan 

 possesses one of the best hotels in the 

 Netherlands Indies. The Hotel de Boer 

 is built upon the plan largely used 

 throughout Farther India — the dining- 

 room, cafe, office, and kitchen by them- 

 selves in one single-story building, open 

 on all sides to the air and shaded by large 

 covered verandas and splendid big trees. 

 Around this, forming three sides of a 

 square separated by a driveway from the 

 central building, the bed-rooms occupy 

 the entire depth of a second single-story 

 structure. 



