I went by coach to Buitenzorg, forty miles inland and about a thousand feet
above the sea, celebrated for its delicious climate and its Botanical Gardens.
With the latter I was somewhat disappointed. The walks were all of loose
pebbles, making any lengthened wanderings about them very tiring and painful
under a tropical sun. The gardens are no doubt wonderfully rich in tropical and
especially in Malayan plants, but there is a great absence of skillful laying-out;
there are not enough men to keep the place thoroughly in order, and the plants
themselves are seldom to be compared for luxuriance and beauty to the same
species grown in our hothouses. This can easily be explained. The plants can
rarely be placed in natural or very favourable conditions. The climate is either
too hot or too cool, too moist or too dry, for a large proportion of them, and they
seldom get the exact quantity of shade or the right quality of soil to suit them. In
our stoves these varied conditions can be supplied to each individual plant far
better than in a large garden, where the fact that the plants are most of them
growing in or near their native country is supposed to preclude, the necessity of
giving them much individual attention. Still, however, there is much to admire
here. There are avenues of stately palms, and clumps of bamboos of perhaps
fifty different kinds; and an endless variety of tropical shrubs and trees with
strange and beautiful foliage. As a change from the excessive heat of Batavia,
Buitenzorg is a delightful abode. It is just elevated enough to have deliciously
cool evenings and nights, but not so much as to require any change of clothing;
and to a person long resident in the hotter climate of the plains, the air is always
fresh and pleasant, and admits of walking at almost any hour of the day. The
vicinity is most picturesque and luxuriant, and the great volcano of Gunung
Salak, with its truncated and jagged summit, forms a characteristic background
to many of the landscapes. A great mud eruption took place in 1699, since which
date the mountain has been entirely inactive.
On leaving Buitenzorg, I had coolies to carry my baggage and a horse for
myself, both to be changed every six or seven miles. The road rose gradually,
and after the first stage the hills closed in a little on each side, forming a broad
valley; and the temperature was so cool and agreeable, and the country so
interesting, that I preferred walking. Native villages imbedded in fruit trees, and
pretty villas inhabited by planters or retired Dutch officials, gave this district a
very pleasing and civilized aspect; but what most attracted my attention was the
system of terrace-cultivation, which is here universally adopted, and which is, I
should think, hardly equalled in the world. The slopes of the main valley, and of
its branches, were everywhere cut in terraces up to a considerable height, and
when they wound round the recesses of the hills produced all the effect of