The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

^/IIG THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. [chap.passage direct to that place from Singapore, I should probablynever have gone near them, and should have missed some of themost important discoveries of my whole expedition to the East.It was on the 13th of June, 1856, after a twenty days' passagefrom Singapore in the Kemhanrj Djepoon (Rose of Japan), aschooner belonging to a Chinese merchant, manned by aJavanese ci'ew, and conmianded by an English captain, that wecast anchor in the dangerous roadstead of Bileling on the northside of the island of Bali. Going on shore with the captain andthe Chinese supercargo, I was at once introduced to a novel andinteresting scene. We went first to the house of the ChineseBandar, or chief merchant, where we found a number of natives,well dressed, and all conspicuously armed with krisses, displayingtlieir large handles of ivory or gold, or beautifully grained andpolishefl wood.The Chinamen had given up their national costume andadopted the Malay dress, and could then hardly be distinguishedfrom the natives of the island—an indication of the close affinityof the Malayan and Mongolian races. Under the thick shadeof some mango-trees close by the house, several women-merchantswere selling cotton goods ; for here the women trade and workfor the benefit of their husbands, a custom which MahometanMalays never adopt. Fruit, tea, cakes, and sweetmeats werebrought us ;many questions were asked about our business andthe state of trade in SingajDore, and we then took a walk tolook at the village. It was a very dull and dreary place ; acollection of narrow lanes bounded by high mud walls, enclosingbamboo houses, into some of which we entered and were verykindly received.During the two days that we remained here, I walked out intoshoot birds, and spythe surrounding country to catch insects,out the nakedness or fertility of the land. I was both astonishedand delighted ; for as my visit to Java was some years later, Ihad never beheld so beautiful and well-cultivated a district outof Europe. A slightly undulating plain extends from the seacoastabout ten or twelve miles inland, where it is bounded by afine I'ange of wooded and cultivated hills. Houses and villages,marked out by dense clumps of cocoa-nut palms, tamarind andother fruit ti'ees, are dotted about in every direction ; Avhilebetween them extend luxuriant rice-grounds, watei'ed by anelaborate system of irrigation that would be the pride of the bestcultivated parts of Europe. The whole surface of the country isdivided into irregular patches, following the undulations of theground, from many acres to a few perches in extent, each ofwhich is itself i^erfectly level, but stands a few inches or severalfeet above or below those adjacent to it. Every one of thesepatches can be flooded or drained at will, by means of a systemof ditches and small channels, into which are, diverted the wholeof the streams that descend from the mountains. Every patchnow bore crops in various stages of growth, some almost ready