Java by Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore — Read

Rain blurred the landscape for all of the half-hour run from Tjibatoe down to Garoet, and we lost the panorama of splendid mountains that surround the great green Garoet plain, embowered in the midst of which is the town of Garoet, a favorite hill and pleasure-resort of the island. We did catch glimpses now and then, however, of dark mountain masses looming above and through the clouds, and of flooded rice-fields and ripening crops, with scarecrows and quaint little baskets of outlooks perched high on stilts, where young Davids with slings lay in wait for birds. Boys leading flocks of geese, and boys astride of buffaloes made other pictures afield, and in the drizzling rain of the late afternoon we were whirled through the dripping avenues to the Hotel Hork, home of Siamese royalties and lesser tourists, health- and pleasure-seekers, who visit this volcanic and scenic center of the Preanger regencies.

Our sitting-room porch at this summer hotel, with an endless season, looked on a garden, whose formal flower-beds, bordered with stones and shells, classic vases, and other conventions of their kind, reminded one at once of by-places in Europe; and so also did the bust of Mozart and the copy of Thorwaldsen's "Venus,"-until one noted their protecting palm- and mango-trees. This Garoet hotel is one of the institutions of Java, and the Vrouw van Hork and her excellent Dutch housekeeping are famed from Anjer Head to Banjoewangi. All the colonial types were represented at the long table d'hôte, and every language of Europe was heard. There were always nice neighbors at table, able and anxious to talk English, and the cheery Dutch ladies were kindness and friendliness personified. At no other resort on the island did we receive such a pleasant impression of the simplicity, refinement, and charm of social life in the colony. But, although two thousand feet above sea-level, in a climate of mildly tempered eternal spring, the ladies all wore the sarong and loose dressing-sacque in the morning, as in scorching Batavia or lowland Solo. Even on damp and chilly mornings, when a light wrap was a comfortable addition to our conventional muslin gowns, the Garoet ladies were bare-ankled and as scantily clad as the Batavians; and there were shock and real embarrassment to me in seeing in sarong and sacque the dignified elderly matron who had been my charming dinner neighbor the night before.