With the Dutch in the East: An Outline of the Military Operations in Lombock, 1894, Giving Also a Popular Account of the Native Characteristics, Architecture, Methods of Irrigation, Agricultural Pursuits, Folklore, Religious Customs, and a History of the Introduction of Islamism and Hinduism Into the Island

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Luzac & Company, 1897 - 365 pages

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Page 120 - 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...
Page 48 - And they encamped under the tall waringin-trecs that border all the roads about Mataram, and with blazing fires frighted away the ghouls and evil spirits that nightly haunt the gloomy avenues. In the morning a great procession was formed to conduct the Rajah to the mountain ; and the royal princes and relations of the Rajah mounted their black horses, whose tails swept the ground. They used no saddle or stirrups, but sat upon a cloth of gay colors ; the bits were of silver, and the bridles of many-colored...
Page 47 - ... of yellow wood were changed for ivory, and those of ivory were changed for gold, and diamonds and emeralds sparkled on many of them; and he knew very well which way the tribute-rice went. But as he could not prove it he kept silence, and resolved in his own heart some day to have a census taken, so that he might know the number of his people, and not be cheated out of more rice than was just and reasonable. But the difficulty was how to get this census. He could not go himself into every village...
Page 50 - Rajah spoke again and told them, — that the great spirit had commanded that twelve sacred krisses should be made, and that to make them every village and every district must send a bundle of needles — a needle for every head in the village. And when any grievous disease appeared in any village, one of the sacred krisses should be sent there ; and if every house in that village had sent the right number of needles, the disease would immediately cease ; but if the numbei of needles sent had not...
Page 47 - ... sure of this, no one must know that there was any census taken at all. This was a very hard problem; and the rajah thought and thought, as hard as a Malay rajah can be expected to think, but could not solve it: and so he was very unhappy, and did nothing but smoke and chew betel with his favorite wife, and eat scarcely anything; and even when he went to the cock-fight did not seem to care whether his best birds won or lost. For several days he remained in this sad state, and all ' the court were...
Page 121 - ... 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 country have been so skilfully terraced and levelled, and so permeated by artificial channels, that every portion of it can be irrigated and dried at pleasure.
Page 48 - ... eat and sleep at the close of each day. And when all was ready, the princes and priests and chief men came again to the Rajah to tell him what had been done, and to ask him when he would go up the mountain. And he fixed a day, and ordered every man of rank and authority to accompany him, to do honor to the great spirit who had bid him undertake the journey, and to show how willingly they obeyed his commands.

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