of trees, and low houses concealed behind mud walls.
Within this royal city no native of the lower orders is
allowed to ride, and our attendant, a Javanese, was obliged
to dismount and lead his horse while we rode slowly
-through. The abodes of the Rajah and of the High Priest
are distinguished by pillars of red brick constructed with
much taste; but the palace itself seemed to differ but
little from the ordinary houses of the country. Beyond
Mataram and close to it is Karangassam, the ancient
residence of the native or Sassak Rajahs before the conquest
of the island by the Balinese.
Soon after passing Mataram the country began gradually
to rise in gentle undulations, swelling occasionally into
low hills towards the two mountainous tracts in the
northern and southern parts of the island. It was now
that I first obtained an adequate idea of one of the most
wonderful systems of cultivation in the world, equalling all.
that is related of Chinese industry, and as far as I know
surpassing in the labour that has been bestowed upon it
any tract of equal extent in the most civilized countries
of Europe. I rode through this strange garden utterly
amazed, and hardly able to realize the fact, that in this
remote and little known island, from which all Europeans
except a few traders at the port are jealously excluded,
many hundreds of square miles of irregularly undulating
country have been so skilfully terraced and levelled, and
so permeated by artificial channels, that every portion of it
can be irrigated and dried at pleasure. According as the
slope of the ground is more or less rapid, each terraced
plot consists in some places of many acres, in others of
a few square yards. We saw them in every state of
cultivation; some in stubble, some being ploughed, some
with rice-crops in various stages of growth. Here were
luxuriant patches of tobacco; there, cucumbers, sweet
potatoes, yams, beans or Indian-corn, varied the scene.
In some places the ditches were dry, in others little
streams crossed our road and were distributed over lands
about to be sown or planted. The banks which bordered
every terrace rose regularly in horizontal lines above each
other; sometimes rounding an abrupt knoll and looking
like a fortification, or sweeping round some deep hollow
and forming on a gigantic scale the seats of an amphitheatre.
Every brook and rivulet had been diverted from
its bed, and instead of flowing along the lowest ground
were to be found crossing our road half-way up an ascent,
yet bordered by ancient trees and moss-grown stones so
as to have all the appearance of a natural channel, and
bearing testimony to the remote period at which the work
had been done. As we advanced further into the country,
the scene was diversified by abrupt rocky hills, by steep
ravines, and "by clumps of bamboos and palm-trees near
houses or villages; while in the distance the fine range
vol. i. ' s