登陆注册
5370200000053

第53章

There is an established system for coolies at fixed rates, the inhabitants of the surrounding villages all taking their turn to be subject to coolie service, as well as that of guards at the station for five days at a time. This arrangement makes travelling very easy, and was a great convenience for me. I had a pleasant walk of ten or twelve miles in the morning, and the rest of the day could stroll about and explore the village and neighbourhood, having a house ready to occupy without any formalities whatever. In three days I reached Moera-dua, the first village in Rembang, and finding the country dry and undulating, with a good sprinkling of forest, I determined to remain a short time and try the neighbourhood. Just opposite the station was a small but deep river, and a good bathing-place; and beyond the village was a fine patch of forest, through which the road passed, overshadowed by magnificent trees, which partly tempted me to stay; but after a fortnight I could find no good place for insects, and very few birds different from the common species of Malacca. I therefore moved on another stage to Lobo Raman, where the guard-house is situated quite by itself in the forest, nearly a mile from each of three villages. This was very agreeable to me, as I could move about without having every motion watched by crowds of men, women and children, and I had also a much greater variety of walks to each of the villages and the plantations around them.

The villages of the Sumatran Malays are somewhat peculiar and very picturesque. A space of some acres is surrounded with a high fence, and over this area the houses are thickly strewn without the least attempt at regularity. Tall cocoa-nut trees grow abundantly between them, and the ground is bare and smooth with the trampling of many feet. The houses are raised about six feet on posts, the best being entirely built of planks, others of bamboo. The former are always more or less ornamented with carving and have high-pitched roofs and overhanging eaves. The gable ends and all the chief posts and beams are sometimes covered with exceedingly tasteful carved work, and this is still more the case in the district of Menangkabo, further west. The floor is made of split bamboo, and is rather shaky, and there is no sign of anything we should call furniture. There are no benches or chairs or stools, but merely the level floor covered with mats, on which the inmates sit or lie. The aspect of the village itself is very neat, the ground being often swept before the chief houses; but very bad odours abound, owing to there being under every house a stinking mud-hole, formed by all waste liquids and refuse matter, poured down through the floor above.

In most other things Malays are tolerably clean--in some scrupulously so; and this peculiar and nasty custom, which is almost universal, arises, I have little doubt, from their having been originally a maritime and water-loving people, who built their houses on posts in the water, and only migrated gradually inland, first up the rivers and streams, and then into the dry interior. Habits which were at once so convenient and so cleanly, and which had been so long practised as to become a portion of the domestic life of the nation, were of course continued when the first settlers built their houses inland; and without a regular system of drainage, the arrangement of the villages is such that any other system would be very inconvenient.

In all these Sumatran villages I found considerable difficulty in getting anything to eat. It was not the season for vegetables, and when, after much trouble, I managed to procure some yams of a curious variety, I found them hard and scarcely eatable. Fowls were very scarce; and fruit was reduced to one of the poorest kinds of banana. The natives (during the wet season at least)live exclusively on rice, as the poorer Irish do on potatoes. Apot of rice cooked very dry and eaten with salt and red peppers, twice a day, forms their entire food during a large part of the year. This is no sign of poverty, but is simply custom; for their wives and children are loaded with silver armlets from wrist to elbow, and carry dozens of silver coins strung round their necks or suspended from their ears.

As I had moved away from Palembang, I had found the Malay spoken by the common people less and less pure, until at length it became quite unintelligible, although the continual recurrence of many well-known words assured me it was a form of Malay, and enabled me to guess at the main subject of conversation. This district had a very bad reputation a few years ago, and travellers were frequently robbed and murdered. Fights between village and village were also of frequent occurrence, and many lives were lost, owing to disputes about boundaries or intrigues with women.

Now, however, since the country has been divided into districts under "Controlleurs," who visit every village in turn to hear complaints and settle disputes, such things are heard of no more.

This is one of the numerous examples I have met with of the good effects of the Dutch Government. It exercises a strict surveillance over its most distant possessions, establishes a form of government well adapted to the character of the people, reforms abuses, punishes crimes, and makes itself everywhere respected by the native population.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 和陆村花恋爱啦

    和陆村花恋爱啦

    侍清欢这个小霸王仗着陆一川宠着她,天天逍遥自在,好不快活;每天,她的小脑袋里都有些乱七八糟的想法,还给傲娇竹马想了个专属昵称——陆村花。“陆村花同志,要一直乖乖待在我身边哦,不然我就把你喂小猪啦。”她戳着陆一川的脑袋兴致颇好。“把我喂你吗?好的好呀。”陆一川嘴角上扬,假装自己没有听懂。精分小白兔VS腹黑大灰狼嗷呜~
  • 妃嫁不可

    妃嫁不可

    她传闻是天煞孤星,刑夫克子,被亲生爹爹所害,怨气冲天!机缘巧合,一百年孤魂因此重生,原主的种种因果加之于她。复仇之事,本以为手到擒来,谁知却深中剧毒,锒铛入狱!就在她奄奄一息之际,他勃然大怒,找到了她。那夜,二人意乱情迷,醒后却不知该如何面对对方。两人情投意合,奈何小人当道,情敌作祟。逼婚、刺杀、被绑······复仇之路步步为营,有情之事芳心已许!
  • 邪月弯刀

    邪月弯刀

    【最燃武侠巨著,最热血江湖搏杀!】上半部手持弯刀,笑傲江湖;下半部穿越重生,纵横花都!系统在手,诸天强者皆是刍狗!欢迎大家收藏订阅支持!最快更新,极致爽文!
  • 家庭按摩保健全书

    家庭按摩保健全书

    生命在于运动,健康在于保健。自己的健康自己负责,自己动手,健康长寿。健康就是财富,无病就是幸福。求医不如求己,简单易学的家庭按摩方法,耳闻不如实践,只要家里有一人掌握此法,掌管全家健康,方便实用的全家保健秘籍。
  • 快穿之主神大人请低头

    快穿之主神大人请低头

    凉风微拂,你,是否还在那处,静静倾听着,那一串风铃的声音?。。。。。。
  • 太极通书

    太极通书

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 软玉生香

    软玉生香

    苏阮的一生过的跌宕起伏。她一生听得最多的话,就是蛇蝎狠毒。咒她怨她的人,能从京城排到荆南。重回年少,苏阮想了想。合该使坏的人,总不能轻饶了去?
  • 炒股大赢家

    炒股大赢家

    本书基于市场研究者的视野,聚焦于个人投资者的行为特点,创新性地将股市投资活动划分为“市场”与“投资者”两个终极要素,以及“选股”和“选时机”两个核心事务,化繁为简、深入浅出地介绍了股市投资的基本知识、思想方法与技术策略。本书的最大特色在于逻辑结构清晰,思路明确,案例典型实用,通俗易懂。同时,兼顾思想方法诠释与技术策略应用。
  • Wyoming

    Wyoming

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 蜀轺纪程

    蜀轺纪程

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。