CHAPTER n.
SAMARANG AND SURABAYA.
On the 7 th of June, as the twilight was brightening
in the eastern sky, I left my new Batavia
home, and was hurriedly driven to the “ boom.” A
small steamer was waiting to take passengers off to
the mail-boat that goes to Celebes, Timor, and Am-
boina, the capital of the Spice Islands.
My baggage all on board, I had time to rest, and
realize that once more I was a wanderer ; but lonesome
thoughts were quickly banished when I began
to observe who were to be my companions, there on
the eastern side of the world, so far from thé centre
of civilization and fashion; and just then a real exquisité
stepped on board. He was tall, but appeared
much taller from wearing a high fur hat, the most
uncomfortable covering for the head imaginable in
that hot climate. Then his neckcloth ! It was spotlessly
white, and evidently tied with the greatest care ;
but what especially attracted my attention were his
long, thin hands, carefully protected by white kid
gloves. However, we had not been a long time on
the steamer, where evéry place was covered with a
thick layer of coal-dust, before Mr. Exquisite changed
his elegant apparel for a matter-of-fact suit, and made
his second appearance as a litterateur, with a copy
of the Gornhill Magazme. As he evidently did not
intend to read, I borrowed it, and found it was already
three years old, and the leaves still uncut. It
contained a graphic description of the grounds about
Isaac Walton’s retired home—probably the most
like the garden of Eden of any place seen on our
earth since man’s fall.
The other passengers were mostly officials and
merchants going to Samarang, Surabaya, or Macassar,
and I found that I was the only one travelling
to Amboina. The general commanding the Dutch
army in the East was on board. He was a very polite,
unassuming gentleman, and manifested much
interest in a Sharpe’s breech-loader I had brought
from America, and regarded it the most effective
army rifle of any he had seen up to that time. He
was going to the headquarters of the army, which is
a strongly-fortified place back of Samarang. It was
described to me as located on a mountain or high
plateau with steep sides—a perfect Gibraltar, which
they boasted a small army could maintain for an indefinite
length of time against any force that might
be brought against it. About five months later,
however, it was nearly destroyed by a violent earthquake,
but has since been completely rebuilt.
One genial acquaintance I soon found in a young
man who had just come from Sumatra. He had
travelled far among the high mountains and deep
gorges in the interior of that almost unexplored
island, and his vivid descriptions gave me an indescribable
longing to behold such magnificent scenery