A TRIP TO PROBOLINGGO. 
543 
The Pahiton sugar works belong 1 to the heirs of the late Mr. 
Prsetorius. This gentleman had formerly been a high officer of Go¬ 
vernment, his last appointment having been that of Director of Cul¬ 
tures ; as such he had taken his pension, but after his return to Hol¬ 
land, the king had, in addition, conceded him a sugar contract in 
Java, to be worked with the machinery of De Rosen and Cail. 
The pensions which the servants of government enjoy, even after 
having spent the best parts of a life time in the east, afford but a 
very limited means of continuing the comfort and dignity to which 
they have been long accustomed. The increase of money payment 
being a thing which militates against the principles of government, 
they have for some years past been in the habit of conceding to old 
favorites or persons luckily possessed of court interest, advanta¬ 
geous sugar contracts in Java, with large advances to be repaid with¬ 
out interest. Amongst these favored few are, Mr. Prsetorius, Mr. 
Holmbergde Beckfelt, formerly Resident of the Prianger Regencies, 
Lieut. Col. Luacssen, General Naliuis, Dr. Kempenaar, a court fa¬ 
vorite, and now again lately Mr. Kruseman, a pensioned Director 
of Finance. As it does not always suit the Colonial arrangements to 
grant an entirely new contract, the parties get sufficient advances to 
buy out some old fabricant, when the establishment is remodeled 
and increased to suit the new objects in view. So it was with Mr. 
Prsetorius; he took over the existing sugar work at Pahiton from 
John Condoo, giving him in part payment the concession lately 
granted by government for a new contract at Panarukan. Mr. 
Prsetorius did not live long to enjoy the prosperity which was about 
to dawn upon him, having, in the early part of 1846, fallen a vic¬ 
tim to the baneful climate of Pahiton. It is very extraordinary, that 
at intervals, and particularly during the wet season, both natives and 
Europeans are subject to very virulent fevers. There is nothing in 
the appearance of-the country to give a clue to this insalubrity of 
the climate, nor does the rest of Probolinggo participate in this ill 
fame. The country is cleared and cultivated, dotted here and there 
with umbrageous village steads as is the case in all the rich dis¬ 
tricts of the island, no swamps collect stagnant water, the sea board 
is dry and above the reach of the tides, the beach being a clean sand 
and lofty mountains rise inland, at a distance of 5 or 6 miles. These 
mountains form the segment of a circle round the plain of Pahiton 
from the Iyang in the south, till they terminate on the sea shore at 
Gimung Tampora on the east. Whether this peculiar configuration 
