Part 7 (1/2)

But the thing was not so simple. After an hour and a half of driving over mountain roads, the Malay pulled up suddenly under the shelter of a wayside inn. While I was wondering why he stopped, he coolly took out my luggage and planted it in the middle of the road in front of the sadoe.

After this very broad hint, I got out too.

”Mana Tji w.a.n.gi” (”Where is Tji w.a.n.gi”)? I said.

For answer he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder to the mountain.

”Brapa lama” (”How long”)?

”Suku jam” (”A quarter of an hour”), was the mendacious and unhesitating reply.

Meanwhile a cooly, who had been summoned from the ricefields, appeared upon the scene and took up my Gladstone bag. Nothing remained for me but to pay my mendacious Malay half the number of florins he demanded and follow my new guide.

As a matter of fact, Tji w.a.n.gi was ten miles away on the other side of the Goenoeng Malang, or Cross Mountain. This, of course, I did not know, and so I set off cheerfully up the side of the mountain. Although it was midday, the heat was not oppressive at this alt.i.tude (two thousand feet), and I was clothed for the tropics. When an hour had pa.s.sed and there were still no signs of the plantation, I began to feel less cheerful. I stopped and interrogated the cooly. He smiled blandly. _He_ at least was suffering from no misgivings. Like the young man in ”Excelsior,” he pointed upwards. We met some natives; I accosted them with ”Mana Tji w.a.n.gi?” They too pointed up the mountain. At any rate, we were travelling in the right direction. I noticed that the natives we met behaved very differently from the saucy sadoe-drivers in the towns.

As we pa.s.sed they stood on one side with their heads uncovered. When I spoke to them, they squatted down and sat with their legs tucked up under them and their hats off in a most uncomfortable way. I afterwards learnt that these traditions of Oriental etiquette were preserved by the Dutch and English planters in the interests of discipline. As the plantations are often long distances apart, the Europeans have to rely upon moral force to maintain their ascendency. Another half-hour pa.s.sed and still no signs of Tji w.a.n.gi. We had met no Europeans, and I was beginning to get uneasy, when we came to a second inn.

Here I ordered a halt. The shade of the projecting roof was very welcome. My eyes could not reach the dark interior, but they ranged hungrily--I had eaten nothing since my early breakfast--over the edibles laid out in front. There were fruits and cakes, little messes of vegetables, dried fish, and other odd-looking delicacies on plates. I decided on a big bunch of bananas. In payment I gave a half-florin--worth rather less than a s.h.i.+lling of English money--and I received in return quite a handful of silver and copper coins. I concluded that bananas were not expensive in Java.

While I was eating my bananas, my cooly set to work to make a _pikulan_, or shoulder-piece. He took a long bamboo and stripped off the leaves and branches with his _gaulok_, a long knife which every native carries at his waist. By the aid of this contrivance--borrowed from China--the Javan natives carry burdens up to half a hundredweight without apparent exertion for long distances. The spring of the bamboo eases the pressure on the shoulder. On the same principle, an Australian carries his swag with a lurch forward.

While he was busied with the pikulan, the cooly talked over the affairs of the _Tuan Ingris_ (English gentleman) to a crowd of natives. Suddenly I heard the word _kuda_. Fortunately _kuda_ (horse) was one of the words I knew: and I at once ordered the kuda to be brought. Half a dozen natives set off to find it. It turned out to be a very diminutive pony, but I was not prepared to criticize.

We set out from the inn under brighter auspices. The cooly slung my Gladstone bag at one end of the pikulan, and another small bag, with a big stone to balance, at the other. He moved with an elastic step, as if there was no greater pleasure in the world than carrying bags up mountain paths, and beat the kuda hands down.

Relieved of the fatigue of walking, I could admire the mountain scenery.

As we climbed higher and higher, the stretches of green country grew more extensive, and the blue mountains seemed to grow loftier in the distance. Once over the saddle of the mountain, we descended rapidly into a region of almost virgin forest. Ferns and large-leaved trees overhung the path; from the verdant undergrowth there sprang at intervals the vast round trunks of the rosamala trees. In the branches high above, and beyond the range of any gun, the wild pigeons fluttered and cooed. The s.p.a.ces between the great trees were filled by a background of dense forest.

About five o'clock the red roofs of the plantation came in sight. In another five minutes I was being-welcomed with Anglo-Saxon heartiness.

”Ah!” said H----, as he looked at my little pony. ”I sent you down a horse that would have brought you up within the hour. You should have gone to Tji Reinga.s.s; that is our station, not Soekaboemi. Johnston ought to have known. Come in.”

In H----'s comfortable den I soon forgot the various _contretemps_ of my journey to Tji w.a.n.gi.

CHAPTER IX.

THE CULTURE SYSTEM.

Financial system previous to the British occupation-- Raffles' changes--Return of the Dutch--Financial policy--Van den Bosch Governor-General--Introduction of the culture system--Its application to sugar--To other industries--Financial results of the system-- Its abandonment--Reasons of this--Present condition of trade in Java--Financial outlook.

As I have already mentioned, the Colonial Government succeeded the Dutch East India Company in the administration of Java towards the end of the last century. During the period antecedent to the British occupation, the revenue of the Government was derived from two monopolies: (1) that of producing the more valuable crops, and (2) that of trading in all products whatever. Meanwhile the ma.s.s of the natives were left entirely to the mercy of the native princes, by whom they were subjected to all manner of exactions.

The financial results of this state of things were seen in the fact that in 1810 the gross revenue of Java was only three and a half million florins,[16] a sum wholly inadequate to the requirements of administration.

During the five years of British occupation (1811-1816) Sir Stamford Raffles was Lieutenant-Governor. He at once introduced reforms. The native princes were displaced; the village community, with its common property and patriarchal government, was modified; a system of criminal and civil justice, similar to that in force in India, in which a European judge sat with native a.s.sessors, was introduced; the peasants were given proprietary rights in the soil they cultivated; and complete political and commercial liberty was established. An inquiry into the nature of the respective rights in the soil of the cultivator, the native princes, and the Government resulted in establis.h.i.+ng the fact that, of the subject territory the Government was sole owner of seven-tenths. Of the remainder, two-tenths belonged to the Preanger Regents, and one-tenth was occupied by private estates, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Buitenzorg and Batavia. In order to teach the native the western virtues of industry and independence, Raffles determined to introduce the Ryotwarree system. The property in the land vested in the Government was handed over to individual peasant proprietors. In return for his land each proprietor was made individually and personally responsible for the payment of his land tax, and his land was liable to be sold in satisfaction of his public or private debts.

[Footnote 16: 12 florins = 1.]

Before the English administration the peasant had paid--(1) a land rent for his rice lands to the native princes, amounting to a sum equivalent to one-half of the produce of sawah (irrigated) and one-third of tegal (unirrigated) lands; and (2) a tax of forced labour to the Dutch Government, which took the form of unpaid labour in the cultivation of the produce for export. Raffles abolished both, and in place of them he established a fixed money payment equivalent to a much smaller proportion of the produce of the land than had been paid before to the native princes alone.

The Dutch regained their East Indian possessions by the Treaty of London. On their return to Java, they restored the village community with its joint owners.h.i.+p and joint liability, and abolished all proprietary rights of the natives in the soil, only allowing owners.h.i.+p of land to Europeans. They contend that this attempt of Raffles to apply Western principles to an Eastern society had already proved disastrous.