CHAPTER XI. LOMBOCK: MANNERS
AND CUSTOMS OF THE PEOPLE.
HAVING made a very fine and interesting collection of the birds of Labuan
Tring, I took leave of my kind host, Inchi Daud, and returned to Ampanam to
await an opportunity to reach Macassar. As no vessel had arrived bound for that
port, I determined to make an excursion into the interior of the island,
accompanied by Mr. Ross, an Englishman born in the Keeling Islands, and now
employed by the Dutch Government to settle the affairs of a missionary who had
unfortunately become bankrupt here. Mr. Carter kindly lent me a horse, and Mr.
Ross took his native groom.
Our route for some distance lay along a perfectly level country bearing ample
crops of rice. The road was straight and generally bordered with lofty trees
forming a fine avenue. It was at first sandy, afterwards grassy, with occasional
streams and mudholes. At a distance about four miles we reached Mataram, the
capital of the island and the residence of the Rajah. It is a large village with wide
streets bordered by a magnificent avenue 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