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Departure for Djakatra

   Red, blue, green and purple streamers were thrown from the deck to the quay and given from one hand to another, like entangled spider webs, carrying the lingering feeling of the passengers. At noon on the 25th April in the Fourth year of Showa (1929), Haruna-Maru[1] slowly left the pier of Kobe with a long echoing hoot. When the streamers were pulled apart and torn one by one and the last piece was broken, both those who were leaving and those remaining behind might have felt as if the ties of their hearts were cut. I was looking at the scene thinking over the ripples in peoples( minds without much sentiment as I had already made farewells to my intimate friends in my home town. Nevertheless, I could not but feel some sense of sorrow.

   The Inland-Sea of Seto[2] was quite calm and the giant 10,000-ton steamer was sailing between scattered islands, as if she were sliding on the surface. On board Haruna-Maru were our group of 23 people, headed by the sub-leader, Dr. Takeo Kato[3], who were going to participate in the Fourth Pacific Science Congress to be held in Java. Dr. Vaughan[4], one of the important organisers of the Congress, and Dr. Coville[5], Dr. Harvey[6] and others from America were also there. The guests of the boat also included His Excellency the Consul of Portugal and Mrs. Costa Cornellio, who were going home on furlough, Marquis Kido who was leaving to studying industrial museums and attending an international commercial conference, Baron Kawasaki who was travelling to see European arts, and Miss Usami who was going to study the education of infants. Thus, the passengers formed a big family of over one hundred people. Their relation was rather formal, however, as they were yet to get acquainted. Among them, my family was a major group, consisting of Yoneko, my wife, Gorōta, my first son, Dr. Hattori[7] and Mr. Emoto, B. Sc from my biological laboratory, Mr. Gomi, my butler, Miss Morimoto, my nurse, and myself.

Passengers on The Haruna-maru.

(Appended from the author’s private album)

   At Moji, Mr. Iso came to see us from the Tobata Factory of Meiji Sugar Co., by courtesy of Mr. Sōma, the chairman of the company. After cruising around the harbour in the company’s launch, we were guided to Shunhōrō in Shimonoseki. This mansion was the venue where Lee Hong Chang of the Qing Dynasty and Baron Itō had met in the 28th year of Meiji Era to sign the Peace Treaty[8]. They said the sitting room was well preserved and everything from the table and chairs to cigarettes and matches were placed, as they had been, on the anniversary day of the 17th April.

   Anchored close to our boat in Moji Port was another vessel, the Surabaya-Maru[9], on board of which were Dr. Shinkishi Hatai[10] and about fifteen members who were also going to attend the congress. The two boats were to depart at the same time but ours was bound to take the route via Shanghai and Hong-Kong, whereas the other would call at Taiwan. When I was alone in the saloon, Viscount Hoshina[11] suddenly appeared by climbing up the gangway. He said, “I am on the Surabaya-Maru. Regards to Kido and Kuroda[12]. See you in Java!” and went back in rush. I thought I was rather impatient but he was much more so.

   By the time the boat sailed away from Moji, the passengers had gradually became acquainted with each other by having introduced themselves and finding companions at deck-golf and quoits.

   Since the Sea of Genkai[13], quoted frequently as an example of a rough sea, was unusually calm, those who had anticipated seasickness and had brought a lot of medicines looked perplexed. Although the common destination for everyone was Java, many of our members from various universities and laboratories of different places met with each other for the first time. So, we decided to have a tea party to get acquainted in the middle of the Genkai, while the sea was calm. The gathering included some unfamiliar faces and everyone introduced himself together with their field of research. Geologists were the largest in number and biologists were next. One might imagine that it would be very formal if such a number of scientists met together. In reality, such people, having their own research discipline, do not mind others. Therefore, the atmosphere in the boat was peaceful and pacific. It was inevitable, however, that scientists tend to become research minded about everything. They are people who think about the density of the air and the refractive index of light when they see white clouds in the blue sky and beautiful waves in front of evening glows, consider the relationship between the tilting of the boat and the path of the ball when they play deck-golf, and try to recall the names of family and genus before they appreciate the beauty of hundreds of flowers.

Shanghai - On Haruna-Maru

   On the 29th April, the boat arrived at Shanghai before daybreak. I went up onto the deck and learnt that it was anchored in the middle of Huangpu River which was full of muddy water. At the top of the mast was the flag of the Rising-Sun and the entire boat was dressed with bunting. We were on the festive day of Tenchōsetu[14] at the port of a foreign country for the first time. Mr. Enami of Meiji Sugar Co., came to see us.

   Although the Huangpu is a river a little wider than the River Sumida[15], it can accommodate scores of military and merchant ships from various countries at a time. Ships coming in and going out, and launches crossing here and there indicated the prosperity of the port. Our launch went upstream passing through many ships. Battleships, destroyers and merchant ships from not only from Japan but also other countries were fully decorated and put up the Rising-Sun. Seeing them in this foreign port on the Emperor’s birthday, I felt very happy.

   Shanghai is a city where shoulders bump and shafts of carts crash (throughout the daytime and dresses scent and hair-ornaments illuminate( throughout the night. My son, who stepped onto a foreign land

for the first time was extremely amazed at the boisterous crowds. He first found, and looked a little afraid at, the facts that the captains of the launches, sailors, rickshaw-men and car-drivers were all Chinese, as anyone will feel when going abroad for the first time. Everything was wonderful for him and he was particularly interested in the trolley-buses. It is something like a hybrid between a tram and a motorcar which runs around along the road within a range so that the pole does not come off the wire. Trolleys are suitable for narrow streets as they do not need rails. It would help if they were introduced in Tokyo, where channels for rails are dug out and traffic is disturbed throughout the year. At the very least, trolley-buses do not generate unpleasant noises.

   The streets were so full of numerous people that I wondered where they had accommodation and where the rickshaws, horse-carriages and cars came from. We were walking slowly and indulgently, surrounded by the boiling crowd and bustle.

   Policemen of Indian descent wore a white cloth tied around their heads and the Annamese wore conical hats and something like a petticoat. They were skillfully controlling the traffic, holding a bar painted in black and white. Apart from their good techniques, they say that the reason why the occurrence of traffic accidents is relatively low in this city is related to the toadyism in which the stronger win. People in a rickshaw are richer than those on foot, those in a horse carriage are richer than those in a rickshaw, and those in a car are even richer; since the richer are stronger, the poorer must always give way to the richer. In fact, there were no pedestrians or rickshaws in front of the cars. Whether true or not, the atmosphere was such that pedestrians would be sued, if hit and killed on a traffic lane, for their carelessness and obstruction of the traffic. In other words, there are not many traffic accidents because people walking on the streets are always worried about protecting their lives and their property.

    We went to see the inside of the old city fort. It was a purely Chinese town, although the wall that had once existed had been demolished and the area was adjoined to the new city area. The streets in the fort area were extremely narrow and busy, small houses with gold-signboards and silver-trademarks( were arrayed like the teeth of a comb.

   There was a big poster at the entrance of the fort. Drawn on it were dreadful scenes such as a naked man having his fingers chopped off and his shoulder’s flesh sliced off, together with a legend relating to each incident. This was for anti-Japanese propaganda[16]. When we walked a little farther, a large map, entitled “Map of the Country’s Shame” was displayed on the wall on which the parts of former Chinese territories now occupied by foreign powers were painted in red. For Chinese nationalists, their hatred would be immense, because those parts were snatched bit by bit unreasonably and brutally through the weakness of the country, not by wars. The numerous people randomly walking in the street seemed indifferent, however, and did not bother us.

   In the narrow fort area, there were all kinds of shops selling everything from toys to antiques, for anyone from a child to an old man. In other words, there was nothing that one could not find. Among the shops, the kind selling foods were the most common, and those which were making fried foods by placing a large frying-pan in front, cooking something like noodles and steaming mantou[17] looked most flourishing. There was a Kuan-Yin temple in the central part of the town. From the placement of the guard-lions to the incense furnace, it was almost the same as those in Japan. Around the temple, they were selling many horseshoes, made of tin foil, putting them on a string. They said people would buy and donate the pieces when they had a wish. It seems to be the same everywhere that people are impudent and ask the god’s help to become a millionaire for one cent, or not to be discovered after stealing others( belongings and so on, while believing that the god knows everything. The idea to become rich by cheating a god with fake silver is a cheeky one but surely one that the god will not be angry but amused.

   Fortune-tellers with divining sticks[18] in front of them, tooth-drawers with a lot of drawn teeth, beggars, and so on were also there. In such a crowd, I saw a man carrying a bird in a cage. I heard that noble men in China carry beautiful birds on such an occasion when they visit somebody else, just as Europeans take dogs for a walk. From his appearance, the man did not seem to carry the bird for his own amusement. He must have been a bird trader. What easy going‑trades there are!

   I was a little tired and returned to the boat before many of other people were back. At dinner, special meals were served to celebrate the Emperor’s birthday. Led by the captain, we toasted and celebrated the reign of the Emperor with red rice and festive dishes.

Departing Shanghai - On Haruna-Maru

   At half past two on the 30th, Haruna-Maru which had been moored in the middle of Huangpu River, untied her ropes and went down the river on the ever-lasting muddy water. On both sides of the river, the young leaves of willow trees were to be seen, a vivid green colour, refreshed by thread-like soft rain, at an almost touchable distance. The time was spring at the mouth of Yangtze River[19]. The vast fields, the vegetation of blue-green water weeds and farmers( houses with clay-laid walls continued endlessly. The vast scenery looked rather dreary to the eyes of a traveller, reminding him of the life of ancient people.

   Junks passing the side of our boat had big eyes painted on both sides of their bows. They say these were not for mere decoration but for threatening the sea-monsters. Most junks had holes in their sails, but there was an extremely shabby one whose sail was heavily broken and only a bit of canvas was left, as if pieces of clothes were hanging on a sail-shaped rope. “Hey, look at the beggar’s junk!”, said someone. In that sense, I felt I was seeing a part of the easy-going mentality of the Chinese.

   The boat entered the mainstream of the Yangtze River which looked as though it were a sea and cruised across the turbid waves. From sunset-time, the river was covered by deep fog and nothing could be seen all around. The boat proceeded cautiously by continuously hooting its fog-horns. When the hoots of others were heard, the boat stopped the engine to determine which direction they came from. Occasionally, she made a quick turn to avoid collision when a junk appeared suddenly in front. In this way, the captain had to be more careful than in a stormy ocean.

   From day to day, the fog was either thick or half-cleared. The voyage was a little delayed and, at about nine o’clock on the fourth day from the departure, the boat arrived and tied herself up to a buoy in Hong Kong harbour. The city of Hong Kong which had been hidden in the clouds began to show itself gradually in the fading mist.

   It is said that the name of Hong Kong( originated in a waterfall running down the southern side of the island. When it was first discovered by a passing boat and the crew went to get water, the water was found to be as pure as dew so that they called it Hong Kow (香江), or aromatic river. Another says that it was first called Hyong Kong (驚港), amazing port), because it was an amazingly good port, and the name turned to Hong Kong (香港), aromatic port) later. What ever the reason, it is for certain that Hong Kong is a truly amazing port.

   Hong Kong Island is a small island with a circumference of only 27 miles, the highest peak being 1800 feet. There is no flat land and the whole island comprises a mass of granite rising straight up from the seashore. Since Great Britain acquired the island in 1841 after the Opium War[20] the British have constructed roads by crushing rocks, built houses by truncating the slopes and planted trees everywhere, changing a wild island which was formerly a pirates( den, within a matter of less than a 100 years, into the beautiful city of modern civilisation, as we see it today. The power of human is great, and the port is amazing indeed.

Hong Kong - On Haruna-Maru

   The landscape of Hong Kong seen from the ship reminded me of a nest of mason-bees. The windows of rectangular stone-built houses, densely placed from the shore to half-way up the slope of the island, looked similar to the holes of the nest. Various images came to my mind when I was looking at the fresh green of the trees surrounding the bee’s nest. Fairy-land! Would not fairies with wings pop out of the holes or a witch on a broom fly away? Unfortunately, we were not playing in a fairy-land and that which came to meet us was a launch of Mitsui & Co., steered by a Chinese man, to my disappointment, not a swan. We went for a trip around the island guided by Mr. Inoue, of Mitsui. His car ran, with its hood down, on the asphalt roads which were shining as if they had been polished. Some people from the same boat were also driving in the same or the opposite direction as they wanted. Palms and banyan trees from southern countries as well as pine trees and dwarf azaleas of northern origin were beautiful in vivid green and red colours, refreshed by the rain. It was quite stunning to see the efforts and endeavours of the British who had laid several roads around the granite island and constructed buildings by cutting the slopes and carrying up stones and bricks. We went to have a look at Kowloon at the opposite side of the coast. The four square-mile area at the tip of the continent is British territory and its periphery is on lease[21]. As Hong Kong island has become full, they are now expanding and building houses by cutting the rocky hills and making flat spaces. They first construct wide avenues and, then, steadily build shops and residential houses on the plots of land whenever they are made ready. Small beautiful houses of something between Chinese and European styles were arranged tidily. Some of them were already occupied and some others were for sale. In this way, the second British Hong Kong will develop on the solid, rocky slope of Kowloon within a matter of several years. One can see an example of firm British colonial policy on this site.

   At lunch time, we were invited by the branch of Mitsui & Co. in Hong Kong to the Nan-Tang Restaurant. When I looked at the wall in the comfortable atmosphere, there was a phrase written in Chinese characters which I tried hard but could not understand. It was incomprehensible not because I was drunk or dizzy but because the letters were just difficult. It said, 塞些事乎廬. They were so unusual that nobody on the table could read it either. The reason was not because we were all scientists and there were no literatory men. Mr. Her, the director of the Mitsui’s branch smilingly explained, “It is read as successful’ in Cantonese pronunciation.” No scholar could know! It was indeed successful in also keeping other people baffled also.

At the residence of Mr. Kinoshita, Hong Kong

(Appended from the author’s private album)

   We stayed the night in the residence of Mr. Kinoshita, the branch director of Nihon Yusen Co. The port, the lights of ships and the lanterns of houses seen from the balcony were sparkling in green and red, as if numerous stars were scattered on the ground. The exclusively spectacular scenery is such that one can see it only in Hong Kong.

   The next day, the boat sailed from Hong Kong in strong wind and rain.

The Voyage - On Haruna-Maru

   Travelling on a boat is enjoyable. Being separated from all other worlds, one has no duty or anything to do until the boat arrives at its destination. While people are playing mahjong or deck-golf, I am just spending time these days looking at the clouds and waves, as I have decided to do nothing during the voyage, creating white, blank pages in the history of my life.

   The members of our group comprising scientists, who were easy-going people even on land, are completely relaxed and enjoying their lives on the sea. One day Dr. Kato, the deputy-leader, proposed that each member would give a talk in turn, every day after dinner, about the topics of their research fields in an easy style that anyone could understand. This proposal, typical of an academic, was agreed by the other members and welcomed by many passengers who gathered every night in the hot restaurant and listened earnestly to the stories of clouds and mountains that are of no practical use at all for their daily lives, while wiping the sweat off their faces.

   The current language in the East-Indies is Malay. I had thought of teaching the language to my son for his convenience during his journey. My first son is called Gorōta. This uncommon name was given after the infant name of one of my ancestors[22]. When he was born, Ieyasu[23] asked a man called Aoki to suggest something strong. Without knowing what the question was for, Aoki replied that it could be a gorota-ishi[24] which was useful for the foundations of stone-walls. It was then adopted for the name of the ancestor. The present Gorōta grew straight, not round, five inches taller than his father and he is now looking down upon the bald part of the latter’s head. There were some other people who wished to learn Malay together with Gorōta. It was nothing but a time-killing programme and the next morning the unauthorised teacher, feeling self-satisfied, began a lesson for students who were professors and senior people with far less hair. The students’ requests were for the expressions for asking the whereabouts of restaurants and loos and for bargaining during shopping. They said it would be sufficient for travelling in Java if they knew how to put in, take out and cut. They learnt how to say these phrases within several days and then dismissed the teacher.

   Eating-time is good for time-killing. Kido, Kuroda, my wife and myself usually sit together at a table and Captain Okamoto often joins us. Kuroda is of the mood of a noble man and is not talkative. On the contrary, Kido and myself are not very elegant and are quite satisfied when the menu includes corned-beef-and-cabbage, a meal which the naughty old-boy, Jiggs, preferred to eat to escape from his wife’s fancy parties[25]. When we order this unsophisticated food, Kuroda follows our example and eats it with a smile.

Conversation on Haruna-Maru

(Appended from the author’s private album)

   A day after departing Hong Kong, we entered the tropical zone. The waves of the sea were clear deep marine-blue and the sky was a pale green-blue. When I was just leaning on the balustrade and watching the waves, Miss Motoko, Mr. Nakahara’s daughter[26], came to tell me that people at the bow were talking about a sea-snake, although she was not sure of the details. When we went there together, three old gentlemen were clinging to the bow and gazing at the winding bow waves. They were Professors Coville, Cooke and Black who were also going to attend the same congress. “There it is! Have you seen it?” “No, I haven’t. It must be the third one.” “Oh, what is that white one?” When I asked what they were doing, they said they were trying to see sea-snakes. I thought one needed to be awfully patient and tolerant to find a sea-snake coming up to the surface of the vast ocean from the running boat. There seemed to be a significant number, however, as they told me they had seen six within two hours. Besides sea-snakes, various creatures such as octopuses, sharks and flying-fish appeared. The old gentlemen were happy whenever they saw those objects. I did not know, however, for what purpose they were watching sea-snakes.

   The boat went further down to the south and arrived at Singapore, when the Trion went close to the horizon and the Southern Cross shone above the mast.

Singapore - On Haruna-Maru

   Whether because the tide was in our favour or because the engine turned faster, the boat arrived at the quay of Singapore on the evening of the 8th, earlier than the scheduled morning of the 9th. I recommended people to go to see some Malayan plays, instead of being bored and sweating inside the hot vessel, and I gave them the names of the street and the theatre in detail. When my family arrived there late together with Miss Usami, after handling miscellaneous matters, there were none of the people who should have been there. The plays were based on the myths of India and Malaya. The actors and actresses of the troupe were elegant Malays with clear eyes and neat teeth(, though their skins were a little dark. The name of the theatre was Opera Royal. It was located on the North-Bridge Road which was called Nobetsu Road among the Japanese. The programme started at nine and continued until twelve o’clock. This was the real “nobetsu-makunashi[27]” and the plays went on like movies.

   In the next box-seat, I saw the back of somebody whom, I thought, I had seen before. When he turned his face for us, I recognised he was the Crown Prince of Johor. It was so unexpected that the Malay words in my vocabulary did not come out smoothly. I greeted the prince by mixing Malay and English, my brow perspiring. I do not think I watched the second half of the play. When I got back to the boat, other people said they were taken by car to some place at the New World and obliged to watch something like Malayan dances and magic.

   On the morning of the 9th, all of our group members expressed our thanks to the captain and the crew who had taken care of us for more than two weeks, said good-bye to the other passengers with whom we had got acquainted, and left the boat. Led by Dr. Kato, the deputy‑leader of our party, we checked into the Europe Hotel, then individually went out for sightseeing. My first priority was to go to Johor. I drove the 15 mile distance across the Singapore Island on roads which were as flat and smooth as a finishing whetstone and covered overhead by the branches of trees planted on both sides of the road. There was a good bridge across the straight between Singapore and Johor which I had crossed by ferry eight years ago.

   The Sultan of Johor was away, having gone to England for the summer since March. Unfortunately, despite my having written a letter in advance informing him of this visit, I was not able to see him due to a mismatch of schedule. When I went to the control office and told them about my arrival, Mr. Said, the Secretary of the Sultan, Major Yaya and other people came to welcome me and said the Sultan would have been happy if he had been there. I was informed that the Prince was on the construction site of a new palace, and so went to see him. Lunching together at the Johor Hotel, we talked incessantly about our unexpected meeting in the previous night, our tiger hunting eight years ago in the Moor District and other subject in common. I was sweating profusely( due to my poor English and Malay, the latter which I had learnt only recently. I finished the courtesy call and came back to Singapore.

   The town of Singapore is a land of perennial summer where one sees banyan trees with thick green leaves, flamboyant trees with flaming-red flowers, the sky of scorching-hot colour, and so on. Singapore looks as though it were the exhibition pavilion of many races where 26 different languages are said to be spoken. The dark people had shining skins as dark as cockroaches, the copper-red people looked like golden Buddha statues, the slim had long arms and legs as in a cartoon, the fat were as round as a Dharma[28] statue, and there were also yellow and white people. Automobiles were running everywhere, horse-carriages were dashing here and there and naked rickshaw-men were hopping between vehicles with naked passengers. Crowded and congested, Singapore was full of a colonial air. One difference that I noticed from eight years ago was that the number of carriages had decreased and the buses had increased. Another change was that trolleybuses had developed to run rail‑less all around, the roads were better and transportation was more convenient.

   The traffic control of the town was a little strange. Policemen with a pair of rattan-made boards some four feet long, similar to the wings of a dragon-fly tied on their backs, were standing at busy points. They could indicate directions just by turning themselves without having to raise their hands. The wings had red glass balls of one inch diameter, five each on both sides, that would glow in the night by reflecting the head-lights of automobiles and be seen from afar. Each of the wings could be moved up and down separately so that on one side of the traffic could be stopped. The British are making enormous efforts with the roads and traffic.

   The Europe Hotel where we stayed was a large but old-fashioned hotel, rather like a vacant house. The structure of the building was strange and like a sandwiches, too. There was a low-ceilinged floor, located between the ground and the first floors, where bathrooms were located and the guests in the lower and upper floors came by climbing up and down the staircases, respectively. There was no door nor any hot water as it was in a tropical area and, instead of a bathtub, there was a big gold-fish basin full of water to be poured over oneself. Ignorant of the correct method, somebody was squeezing himself contentedly in the basin, folding himself in like a baby tortoise.

   There was a large bolster on the bed called a Dutch wife(, similar to a bamboo-lady[29] in China. It is a three-foot long pillow-shaped thing needed in hot countries to prevent the abdomen from getting cold. There were people who have thought this to be an extraordinarily long pillow, and used it as such, discarding the standard one. Many comedies of this kinds are played in places where customs and manners are different. At four o’clock in the afternoon of the 10th, our group departed for Java on board De Melchior Treub[30] of the Dutch K.P.M. Company[31].

The Sea of Bangka - On Haruna-Maru

   The ship was named after Dr. Melchior Treub[32] who served as the director of the Buitenzorg Botanical Garden for more than thirty years and brought it up to the number-one botanical garden of the world. There is a bust of Dr. Treub at the step of the saloon with his works inscribed on its base in the order of publication. Although it is not a very new vessel, the cabins as well as the wide saloon and every corner in the inside of the white-painted, 3,000-ton passenger boat were designed with full consideration for passengers to be able to travel in the tropics in a comfortable atmosphere and forget the pain of the heat. The jongos[33] are bare-footed Javanese with a batik strip wrapped around their heads like a cap. It seems strange to have them sit on the deck or in the corridors whenever they have no work. I was on the same boat when I came to Java before and by chance I am her passenger once again.

   Most of the passengers on board are attendants for the congress, such as Dr. Holttum, the director of the Singapore Botanical Garden, and many others who have joined from Singapore. For this voyage, the organizing committee has despatched members from Batavia to prepare everything on the boat and take care of the group.

   The ship entered the Strait of Riouw, a narrow channel between the Bintan and Batam Islands. The towering column of clouds glowed and, then, the afternoon sun set beneath the distant waves. The sunset in the tropical zone is calm and tranquil. There is no dusk nor dawn in the tropical zone. As soon as the sun sets behind the horizon, the skyline of five-coloured clouds and the burning waves quickly fade out into a grey colour and the curtain of night descends upon the sky and earth from the east. While the western hemisphere is still light, the eastern half turns dark with glittering stars shining above.

   That midnight, I crossed the equator for the second time[34]. When I woke up the next morning, the ship was proceeding towards the reputedly beautiful Strait of Bangka between the islands of Sumatra and Bangka, having passed the Strait of Riouw during the night. To the starboard was the low-lying coast of Sumatra and close to the port was Island of Bangka. The coast of Sumatra was heavily vegetated with gigantic trees fifty to sixty feet tall and the forest looked, from the distance, as though it were a cliff. When the ship passed near the shore, we saw the sea water was turbid and a reddish-brown colour. “Is it due to seaweed, or floating plankton?” “Maybe, not!” The scientists came and started a discussion, leaning on the balustrade. While they raised various assumptions and diverse arguments, one member gave a quite simple answer. According to his explanation, the sea-water was tinted the reddish colour by rotten river-water from the mangrove forests.

   The surface was calm and smooth as if it were covered by an oil film and a long wake was extending endlessly from the stern of the boat. As always, I felt as if the white line were a long, continuous string which maintained the relationship between the north and the south.

Arriving at Java - At Batavia

   After a thirty-six hour voyage from Singapore, the ship drew along side the pier of Tandjoeng Priok, the port of Batavia. The view of the port was not as heterogeneous as that in Singapore and there were not many different types of people, only the Javanese wearing kain kepala (m. batik cap) together with white-dressed Japanese and Dutch people. Dutch committee members wearing badges of the congress, Mr. Miyake, the Consul-General and many Japanese came to meet us. Perhaps it was probably the first time that such a large number of Japanese landed at Batavia at the same time. The delegates got into cars provided by the Dutch organisers and drove the six miles to Weltevreden along the tree-lined avenue beside the canals full with red turbid stagnant water. Then, they were put into the Hotel Koningsplein[35]. All the hotel rooms had been reserved exclusively for the congress and were occupied by the participants of the congress representing the various countries. It was quite lively as more than two-hundred and seventy members gathered at Batavia, including over 240 from overseas, of which 42 were Japanese, besides the Dutch members.

   It was already noon when the room allocation was finished and the delegates had received membership badges and materials. There was an exhibition of the various races of the East-Indies and the front of the hotel was crowded with ladies, gentlemen and children wearing colourful batik sarongs and putting up red parasols, modern youngsters with kain kepala, automobiles, and sados[36]. Unfortunately, we had no time to rest as we had to prepare for going out again in the heat of midday, as we were scheduled to start on a study tour to the Krakatau[37] volcano by catching a boat that same evening. Sweat was falling like a waterfall but I did not feel like wiping it off as it gushed out so profusely and incessantly.

Study Tour at Krakatau - On De Rumphius

   We had arrived at Batavia on the morning of the 12th and, at a quarter to four in the afternoon, left the hotel for Tandjoeng Priok with about one-hundred and eighty members distributed in ten-odd buses. The group left the port at half past five on board De Rumphius[38] of the K.P.M. shipping company and De Wega[39] belonging to the government. Someone said, “The Dutch government is very generous.” Indeed, they are treating their guest with full hospitality by employing a 2,500-ton vessel and a slightly smaller one. On De Rumphius were some one-hundred and fifty people. There were only a few women, because we had been told that the voyage would be difficult for women. My room-mate was Viscount Akamaro Tanaka, a limnologist, and a native of Owari, the same province as myself.

   The boats sailed over the calm sea for about one hundred sea-miles to Krakatau, negotiating the dangerous sea of the One-thousand Islands[40], where numerous coral reefs were scattered, and passing the strait between Java and Sumatra. There were many acquaintances who had met on the occasion of the Third Congress in Japan. Sporadically forming groups, we chatted while quenching our thirst with cocktails and gazing absorbedly at the beautiful sunset.

Reproduced from: Dammerman, K.W., Fourth Pacific Science Congress Java 1929 - Preservation of Wild Life and Nature Reserves in the Netherlands Indies

   When I went up on deck at five o’clock in the morning on the 13th, the lights of De Wega were to be seen in the dark ahead of us. I was looking around and discovered a silhouette of islands which became recognisable as the famous Krakatau. As the sky turned paler, the outline of the islands became clearer. No sooner had it began to become light than the night darkness went quickly. At a quarter past six, the sun appeared between the wiped clear sky and the horizon. Soon, it came up in a dignified manner, glowing as if a piece of burnt steel had been pulled out from the furnace. It was an extraordinarily simple sunrise.

   Krakatau is a group of volcanic islands lying in the Straits of Soenda between Java and Sumatra. It includes three islands called Krakatau (or Rakata), Sertoeng (or Verlaten Island), Rakata Ketjil (or Langs Island), an islet called Boatman’s Rock, and a new island called Anak Krakatau (Child of Krakatau[41]). The last one just appeared this January.

   The three islands which used to form the edge of a crater are arranged triangularly on a circle of seven kilometre in diameter. They probably originally constituted one large island but lost their links when the central part was blown off. Hence, the three peaks are leaning towards the centre of the triangle. The highest peak is Rakata which is 813m high and the other two are both about 200 metres. The island became famous in 1883 (the 16th year of the Meiji Era) when the volcano became active on the 20th of May and huge explosions occurred from the 26th to the 28th August. The sound was so loud that it was heard in Singapore and Australia. Three-quarters of the island was blown away, its two peaks called Perboewatan and Danan disappeared and the caldera turned into a sea of some 270m in depth. The explosion was followed by a great tsunami and about forty thousand people were washed away and drowned on the coasts of West Java and Sumatra. The island became well known and frightened people all over the world. Although the column of fire could not be seen from a very great distance, pumice and volcanic ash were carried up 80 km high in the sky and the ash finally reached the upper atmospheric current and turned around the earth three times. The colour of the sky changed and the sun looked a weird red colour[42], and caused people to think it was an evil omen[43]. They were quite anxious until the colour turned out to have been caused by the ash, and the name of the island is remembered by everybody. After being quiet for 44 years, the island became active again two years ago (1927) in December and Anak Krakatau first showed its head in the middle of the three islands in January this year (1929). (Anak Krakatau disappeared again in August of the same year[44].)

   The boat entered the old crater, or in the middle of the three islands, and anchored near the shore, right under the 2,400 foot cliff of the inner side of Rakata. Since the purpose of study differed, geologists moved aboard to De Wega and biologist aboard De Rumphius, respectively, before they landed.

   De Rumphius went to the outside of Rakata. We jumped acrobatically on a small boat on the roaring sea and landed on the south-east shore carried on sailors( backs without wetting our feet. All the living organisms of the island were killed at the time of the great eruption, buried under the burning ash, but now plants had grown again during the following fifty years to form a forest of casuarina trees of more than one hundred feet tall with other vegetation of various trees on its periphery. Both animals and plants were made natural monuments prohibited from collection but on this occasion special permission for free gathering was given. Dr. van Leeuwen[45], a botanist, Dr. Dammerman[46], a zoologist, and Dr. Stehn[47], a geologist, had been despatched from the Netherlands as guide and gave us explanations. It was particularly lucky for us that Dr. Miyoshi[48], a botanical expert was there so we were able to receive a lesson again just as we had in school. The relationship between the teacher and his pupils was unchanged.

   As I was not well prepared for collection and all the plants were too large for making into pressed specimens, I only asked my teacher about some curious flowers, leaves and fruits that I had found, and picked up some small seeds which could fit in my pockets. Other people were walking energetically in the bushes of vines and weeds, trying to get something interesting.

   Dr. Hattori and Mr. Emoto from my laboratory were looking with flea-catching eyes( for slime moulds, almost crawling on the ground. Among the zoologists, some were waving insect nets, some were scooping things out of the puddles, some were digging into the soil, all of them so enthusiastically. I saw somebody put something preciously in a telescope sack, where there seemed to be many unpleasant creatures such as that which looked like an earth-worm with legs and a coiled five-inch long centipede.

   I saw snails and lizards on the islands. One may wonder why big trees grow and such animals live once again on a remote island in the sea after all living organisms had once been extinguished by volcanic eruption. The reason is obvious if one sees, on the shore, twigs and fruits of various plants which arrived from near-by islands. The inhabitant( animals are the few which reached there safe after a long voyage from their mother lands by floating on fruits and rotten woods.

   One person said, “We are right above the volcano. We cannot escape if it erupts now.” Another replied, “It’s alright. It will be my satisfaction as a scientist if my bones become ash and turn around the earth three times.” It is true. Silently, I pushed a number of pumice stones into my pocket, because they would be a good souvenir from this famous volcanic island to which I would not come again.

   After having lunch on the boat, we landed on Sertoeng. There was nothing peculiar on this small island but pure wood of casuarina. Prof. Miyoshi said one specimen of this tree grew in Sizuoka in Japan. We looked for sea-shells on the shore but not a single one was found. When we got back on the boat at 5 o’clock, the group of geologists returned carrying lots of stones on their backs. They said they had a terrible experience being dunked all over in the water and hit by waves when they landed.

   The two boats, De Wega and De Rumphius raised anchor at seven and left Krakatau. I gazed at the island, which I would have no chance of visiting again, until it was lost in the distance.

People of the East-Indies - at Batavia

   When we returned to Batavia from Krakatau in the morning of the 14th of May, Dr. Hatai, the leader, and a group of about fifteen people who had come on board the Surabaya-Maru were already at the hotel. Thus, all of the over forty members from Japan were united.

   At half past five in the evening, there was a parade and a dance of tribes of the East-Indies islands at the public hall in Dieren-tuin[49] amusement park, an event specially organised by the Batavian Art and Science Society for the delegates to the Science Congress. I went there with Yoneko and Gor(ta, accompanying Mr. Miyake, the Consul-General. The location of the public hall used to be a zoological garden. After we walked for a while from the entrance through a promenade of royal-palm, we saw ahead of us a considerably large building. The four sides of the building were open and the ceiling was high to suit the tropical climate. Numerous lights of red, orange, green and purple colours were shining brightly and outside green trees with dew drops on their leaves illuminated strongly under the light. It was a fitting pleasure park for a southern night.

   When the Governor-General[50] arrived, a parade of the natives emerged, all tribes in their own costume. It was surprising that such a number of different people lived in the islands of the East-Indies alone. There were intrepid-looking Ambonese, noble Balinese, wild-looking Karo and Toba Batak, Dayak, Papua, besides people from Nias, Atjeh, Minangkabau, Jambi, Palembang, Legian, Serma, Lampoeng, Soenda, Java, Sangier, Donggala, Masamba (Toraja), Bone, Soemba, Kisar, Ceram, Jailolo and so on. There were beautifully dressed ones and brave-looking ones, and teams marching in a dignified manner carrying weapons on their naked bodies. There were twenty-four tribes in total. After the parade, their dances began.

   Ferocious tribes from Papua, Dayak and others were naked, and their battle dance and head-hunting dances were gallant formidable, and primitive. The quiet dance of the Minangkabau looked like a mixture of the loach-scooping-dance[51] and the bon-dance[52] of Japan. Particularly interesting was a part of Balinese dance in which they arrested a demon. As in the story of Ibaraki[53], two girls danced and, then, one of them turned into a witch and attacked by the other with a sword. The phrases spoken and their tones as well as the style of their actions were quite similar to the traditional play in Japan. The last performance, an elegant wayang wong[54] from the court of Solo, the capital of Java, was similar to the combination of bugaku and noh[55] of Japan. The event finished at nine.

   After that, the delegates from Japan were received by Mr. Miyake, the Consul-General. Prior to departure from Tokyo, the members had been invited by Dr. Sakurai, the Chairman of the Science Council, to a party organised also to welcome Dr. Vaughan from America, but as some of them came from remote places, not all of them were able to be there. By courtesy of Mr. Miyake, Dr. Hatai, the leader, and Dr. Kato, the sub-leader, whom we had elected, all of the members were gathered together for the first time.

The Opening Ceremony - at Batavia

   The Fourth Pacific Science Congress opened on the 16th of May in Batavia. Regarding the objective of the meeting, I would say it is rather broad. The congress is aimed at “the enhancement of the welfare of mankind around the Pacific coasts”. It is focussed on mankind, not nations. It often happens, when the merit of one nation is pursued politically and economically, that a benefit to a nation causes harm to others. This is not at all justified. The congress is intended to make everybody happy and everywhere peaceful by enhancing culture through scientific research, with no relation to politics and economy. From a practical point of view, it may sound pointless and a little vacuous, but the effect will surely appear one hundred years on, even though it may be invisible now. This is the significance of the power of science. The Pacific Science Congress is held once every three years in countries around the Pacific Ocean. The first one held at Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1920 was said to be something like a small meeting. The second one was held at Melbourne, Australia, and only a few members had attended from Japan. The third one was held three years ago in 1926 in Tokyo with several hundred scientists from various countries. The present Fourth Congress was scheduled to be held at Batavia and Bandoeng, Java. Scientists in Japan have been much encouraged through the experience of the Tokyo congress and more than forty of them have got together to come over. Though it may happen again in the future, never before have such a number of scientists gone abroad together.

Djakatra Country

   The Fourth Pacific Science Congress opened on the 16th of May in Batavia. This is the place that used to be called Djakatra, 咬𠺕吧where we Japanese have had a special relationship. I have written it in difficult characters but it is read as Djakatra or Jagatara[56], a name that has been well known for three-hundred years. Jagatara still remains in the name of jaga-imo and it is, in fact, the home country of our potato[57]. The name also reminds us of Jagatara-bumi[58].

   When the Shogunate government banned Christianity in September of the 15th year of the Kan-ei Era[59], amongst those people who did not agree to convert their religion and were expelled from Nagasaki was a girl called Oharu[60]. Being home-sick for Japan in exile in a foreign country, she wished to grow plants of her parents( country to remember her home where she would never go again. She wrote a letter requesting some seeds and sent it via a Dutch kabitan[61]. The letter tells us how she was lonely and nostalgic[62]. There must have been many other people who bore a grudge against their fate and whose bones were buried in this soil[63].

   This place, known in ancient times under the name of Soenda Kelapa came to be called Djaja-karta from around 1527. Djaja meant happiness and prosperity and karta, capital. Djaja-Karta was later corrupted in form into Djakarta and then to Djakatra[64].

   In this city with its various historical memories, the delegates of the various countries which possess territories around the Pacific coasts have gathered at half past eight in the morning at the hall of the College of Technology[65]. The appointed dress code was dark morning suits that were awfully hot even to look at. At nine o’clock, the Governor-General arrived and declared open of the Fourth Science Congress. He gave a congratulatory address and welcomed the attendance of delegates from faraway countries. Next was the greeting of Dr. de Vries[66], the chairman of this meeting, and then the representatives of other countries, including Dr. Hatai from ours, who were called in alphabetical order to give their speeches.

   As we attended the ceremony after changing into our winter clothes, despite the tropical glittering sun, we were in great discomfort as if one were being cooked in a steamer( and everybody was half dizzy from the heat. The ceremony ended, while I had not understand half of the speeches. I understood only half, or even less of what was being said at the ceremony.

   At five o’clock the same evening, the first general meeting was held at the same place. There was a report on the progress made following the 3rd Congress and related discussions. Then, various proposals were raised from delegates. It was convenient for us that English had been chosen as the official language in advance, but it was not at all easy, even though I had thought I would have to resign in effect to being deaf and dumb. Amongst the speeches, there were some that I could not even recognise as having been given in English until halfway through, and some which finished while I was wondering what the speech was about.

Legends:

  1. The Circle in front of the "Harmonie" Club

  2. The Palace of the Governor‑General

  3. Telephone Office, Deca Park

  4. Fromberg Park

  5. KPM Office (now Pertamina Building)

  6. Willemskerk (now Immanuel Church)

  7. City Hall

  8. Governor's Residence

  9. Museum

10. De Bouwploeg (the present "Boplo Market")

11. Netherlands‑lndies Art Circle

12. Van Heutz Boulevard Park

13. St. Carolus (Catholic Hospital)

14. Medical High School

15. Central Hospital (now Dr. Cipto Mangukusumo Hospital)

16. Opium Factory (now University of Indonesia)

17. Tjikini Hospital

18. Batavia Swimming Pool (Cikini Swimming Pool)

19. Zoo and Botanical Gardens (now Taman lsmail Marzuki)

20. People's Council Building

21. Concordia Military Society

22. Department of Finance called "Grote" or "Witte Huis"

23. Statue of Jan Pieterszoon Coen

24. Supreme Court

25. AStar of the East@ Lodge

26. Catholic Church (now Cathedral Church)

27. Major General Michiels Memorial

28. Battle of Waterloo Memorial

29. Atjeh Monument in Wilhelmina Park

30. Frederik Hendrik Citadel

31. Law High School (now Department of Defence)*

32. Hotel Koningsplein*

33. Japanese Consulate*

*) Added by the translator

Reproduced from: Vries, J. J. De (ed.), Jaarboek van Batavia en omstreken 1927, Kolff, Batavia 1927

Reception

   After the general meeting at nine o’clock the same evening, there was a reception by the Governor-General at his official residence. I went there with my wife accompanying Mr. Miyake, the Consul-General. After going up through the entrance hall and walking on the scarlet-coloured carpet, we entered a big hall floored with snow-white marble, shining under dazzling chandeliers. The domed ceiling was supported by several columns aligned along both the left- and right-hand sides of the hall and in the front was a portrait of the Queen of the Netherlands above the royal seats placed on a dias.

   Unlike the Governor-General in Taiwan[67], the Governor-General of Java reigns on behalf of the Queen in the name of Her Majesty. His status is second only to the Queen even in the Netherlands and higher than that of the Crown Princess. Even when the Princess comes, the Governor does not go to meet her. Since courtesy for the monarch was required, everybody wore a swallow-tail coat with real decorations. Soon, the Governor-General and his lady arrived accompanied by their officers, while the band played the Dutch national anthem. The couple stood just below the raised royal seats, while the members of the congress and the citizens of the city, all specially invited this evening, scattered sporadically wherever they liked, either sitting or standing, and chatted with each other. Cold drinks, sandwiches and cakes were served to the guests. Meanwhile, important guests were presented to the Governor-General one by one and given a chance to speak to him for several minutes each. After being introduced to the Governor-General, I was guided to meet Mr. Stautjesdijk, the Vice-Governor. He told me slowly in Japanese that he had been once in Japan for a year and a half. He said he still read newspapers and literature but speaking was not so easy. It made me feel nostalgic to hear the Japanese language spoken by a foreigner in a foreign country.

   After the Governor-General retired after eleven o’clock, all the guests also left, wiping away their sweat. “It is not at all comfortable to have to wear this winter dress in this heat!” On saying this, everybody took off their jackets.

   We, the members from Japan, were not at all relaxed in the stone-scorching summer heat, having difficulties in both language and customs. For the host organising committee members, to treat as many as more than 150 guests of considerably high social positions altogether was not that easy, so that some incidents were inevitable. There were some murmurs but I felt I could not complain, on seeing how hard Dr. Stehn, the organizing committee member in charge of guest affairs and his staff were working, drenched in sweat in the heat. Sometimes however keeping silence for negligence would cause for inconvenience, and making requests from time to time would make things smoother. Therefore, Drs. Hatai and Kato were acting as coordinators between the organisers and the guests. We would later sincerely express our thanks for the hospitality of the Dutch people who tried hard to entertain us during our stay, and also to Dr. Hatai and Kato for their efforts.

Visit to Buitenzorg - At Bandoeng

   We started for Bandoeng at eight o’clock in the morning of the 18th of May[68] from Weltevreden station[69] by a specially chartered train. Since Batavia is hot, it was only to be used for the opening ceremony and the general meeting was to be held in the cool of Bandoeng at a higher location. On our way, we stopped at Buitenzorg, where the Botanical Garden is located. It is reputed to be the best of its kind in the world. In Dutch, Buitenzorg means the care-free village(. Yesterday, there was a general tour of the Garden and a lunch reception hosted by the mayor of the city. Today, about fifty botanists visited the specimen storehouse and the laboratories.

   It took about one hour to Buitenzorg by train, where several buses were waiting in front of the station. The participants were brought to the entrance of the Garden and divided into three groups in accordance with their field. Guides were assigned to each of the groups before they started in separate buses. Almost like a pilgrimage, we were led by a flag-bearer. Just like a tourist group from the countryside, we went first to a zoological specimen warehouse[70].

   The committee members and the staff gave us detailed explanations. Although the collection was not large, there were interesting, rare specimens. After that, those easy-going scientists got into the bus quite arbitrarily, forgetting about the allocated groups and not knowing where the buses would go. The place I was taken to was the specimen storehouse of useful plants[71] which held several hundred specimens of fruits alone, along with numerous types of wood, fibres, teas, coffees, and other items. When we returned to the bus, the faces were yet again different. When the committee members asked for places that met the members( interests, all of us said, “Anywhere!”, because we felt already boiled and tired. We were brought to the Rubber Experimental Station, the laboratory of Dr. de Vries, the chairman. They showed us the experimental rubber plantation, the collection of sap, the whole process from the coagulation to the purification of rubber, and the testing of elasticity. It was at last noon to our relief. After taking a light lunch in a club-house in front of the Governor-General’s residence, we left the city at two o’clock in the heat of the day.

   The heat and fatigue seems to have decreased the amount of my brain by half and I do not feel like writing or even to think systematically. I can only manage to scribble odd facts that I have seen or heard at random. It is the same for the others: forgetting things, leaving behind books, hats and belongings somewhere are common daily occurrences. Such incidents can be best described by funny words such as, ton-chin-kan, ton-chiki, ton-ma, an-pong-tan, whichever Japanese or Chinese is not clear. According to Mr. Tokieda[72], the situation is inevitable because we are just like ‘a dumb man boiled in a cauldron’[73].

   After seven hours in a hot and dusty train[74], we arrived at cool Bandoeng, our white jackets grey. Our hotel was Hotel Preanger which took its name from that of the district[75].

Buitenzorg 1929

Reproduced from: Fourth Pacific Science Congress Java 1929 ―Excursion Guide

1.  Department of Agriculture and Commerce      a.    Office of Forestry Service             Office of Civil Veterinary                Service             Division of Commerce 2.  Botanical Garden         a. Palace of the Governor             General         b. Director=s House         c. Director=s Laboratory         d. Treub Laboratory         e. Physico-chemical Laboratory         f.  Zoological Museum         g. Herbarium and Museum             for Systematic Botany 3.  Division of Industry         a. Analytic Laboratory 4.  Museum and Inquiry Office for      Economic Botany 5.  General Agricultural      Experimental Station

6.  Institute for Plant Diseases 7.  Nursery Garden 8.  Secondary Agricultural         College 9.  Fisheries Laboratories 10. Forest Research Institute 11.   Veterinary Institute 12.   N. I. Veterinary College 13.   Experimental Station for       Poultry Breeding 14.   General Tea Experimental       Station 15.   Rubber Experimental Station 16.   Rubber Experimental Garden 17.   Railway Station 18.   Hotel Dibberts 19.   Hotel Belle View 20.   Office of the Government      Rubber Industry 21.   Post Office 22.   Library of the Department 23.   Club

   Bandoengis located at the height of 700m above sea-level, surrounded in all directions by mountains. It is the military centre of the Dutch East-Indies and the Ministry of Defence, the Staff Office, an ordinance factory and an airport are all located there, as well as a university[76] and other high-schools. Bandoeng is a healthy, dry-and-cool place free from diseases such as malaria.

Aeroplane - At Bandoeng

   Sora-tobi-no-karakuri, it is not a Malay word, a-tricky-machine-to-fly-in-the-sky, in other words, an aeroplane.

   The 19th was a Sunday and there was no meeting. There was an entertaining event organised by The Royal Dutch Indies Science Association for those interested to see the crater of a volcano called Tangkoebanpraoe, located about 20km away from Bandoeng, from an aeroplane. Although they said the air current around the volcano was stable and the flight was absolutely safe, there were not many participants. Since it was to go to see a dangerous place which is often compared to hell on a risky craft, people were afraid of being baked to a rice-cracker, or boiled alive.

   I had booked the fifth flight at a quarter past eight and I was picked up by bus at the hotel, twenty minutes before departure. In the bus, there were ten “cracker-candidates” including three ladies. There were only two Japanese, Dr. Niomi[77], from the Manchuria Railway, and myself, and the others were British, American, French and Dutch. We arrived at Andir Airport[78] after a ten-minute drive. The aircraft was a new type three‑engine Fokker of The East-Indies Airline Company[79]. Inside the office building were people who had flown and those who would be flying. As soon as the group of ten was called for the fifth flight and had taken their seats, the craft started to take off. The craft was shuddering while running along the ground but became quite quiet when the wheels left the ground. With no vibration, the craft went up higher and higher, while its shadow on the ground became smaller and smaller. We flew over paddy fields and palm plantations which looked like an array of blue, green and yellow coloured cards. When we went up above the clouds, the shadow of the craft was projected on them at the centre of a beautiful circular rainbow[80]. Since we were not able to talk for the noise of the engine, we communicated by pointing at what we saw.

   Within ten minutes, we came above the Tangkoebanpraoe, 2,076m high. There were two craters which had ceased activity in 1910 and inside them there were puddles, emitting sulphur. The east and west craters are called Kawah Ratoe (the king’s cauldron) and Kawah Oepas (the poisonous cauldron)[81]. They were shining in navy blue colour under the morning sun and their peripheries were covered by extremely heavy jungle vegetation which looked black. After flying twice around above the volcano, the aircraft slowed down its engine revolution and descended towards the airport. It was quite calm and there was no vibration. Our sightseeing of hell was safely over. We sent out the next group by saying, “Don(t worry! You will not be made into a cracker.”

   In the evening, Mr. Shigeru Sato who lived in this city came to offer to drive us around the town. He is a successful businessman, almost monopolizing the automobile transportation in West Java with 24 buses and several cars and accused of taking passengers from the railway. Dr. Matsumura[82], an entomologist from Sapporo, or Mr. Matsumura the Caterpillar, another Dr. Matsumura[83] of anthropology from Tokyo, or Mr. Matsumura the Bones, and myself were together in one car, with Dr. Inada[84] and others were in another. For the ten kilometres to the Astronomical Observatory at Lembang, the cars ran like arrows. The place was 2,000ft higher up and from there the whole city of Bandoeng could be seen spread below us. Having seen the town lights twinkle like stars after the sunset, we drove back. The evening wind was so cold that the elderly Mr. Matsumura the Caterpillar was shivering. He would have never had thought of being frozen in the tropics.

The Congress - At Bandoeng

   The Congress is being held at the Technical Highschool Bandoeng. The buildings constructed recently have Sumatran-style curved roofs, similar to those of Shinto shrines. Scarlet-coloured bougainvillea grew on the stone columns at the entrance and the eaves were covered by purple-blue morning glory[85].

The venue of the Fourth Pacific Science Congress

Technical Highschool Bandoeng

   Sessions are scheduled every day from eight o’clock to noon from the 18th. The field is divided into three categories, physical science, biological science and agricultural science, and they are subdivided into smaller sections. The physical science included geography, geology, volcanology, seismology, meteorology, oceanology, radiology and others, the biological science included zoology, botany, anthropology, ichthyology, natural monuments, and the agricultural science included agriculture, soil science, forestry and so on. Depending on the topics, the session is held independently in each section or by combining multiple sections. For example, the subject of coral reefs is discussed by oceanologists, geologists, physicists and biologists.

  The Sessions are held in parallel in separate rooms. Session are conducted by a chairman and a compiler, the latter assigned for each paper submitted. Besides the reading of papers submitted, sessions include the presentation and discussion of research results carried out on specified subjects. Members can attend sessions and discuss freely choosing their topics of interest. On occasion, resolutions are raised and brought to the general meeting.

   At first, I joined the discussion on “The problems of Krakatau” proposed by Dr. van Leeuwen, because I was interested in it after participating in the study tour. The topic was how living organisms had been extinguished after the eruption was the problem. One person said that they were killed when the burnt ash and stones fell down, another said that the ashes and stones must have already been cool after they had been hurled up 50km high, another said that the organisms were killed as they were covered by the 50m thick ash layer. There were various opinions but, when the time was up, the session was closed, leaving the discussion to be continued on the next occasion.

   In the area of agriculture, rice supply around the Pacific coast is getting to be a serious problem and there were a significant number of papers on both the agricultural and economic aspects of rice production. Some referred to the population problem, too. I thought I could not neglect it and attended this session, as rice is the mother of life(. It was a pity but I walked out when a participant from French Indo-China broke the rules and started to read in French. I moved on to Dr. Miyoshi’s presentation on natural monuments. He showed what resources we should protect in Japan one by one, with slides. There were many resources which should be protected as natural monuments and there were various comments from people from the various countries. I could write endlessly about the congress but I shall stop here.

   It is the rule to use English in the Congress. What disappointed me was that the English that I had been told and taught to be so in school ever since I was a child, turned out to be nothing but an armchair language(. It was good if I understood half. There were some lectures that I did not understand what was being talking about, or did not recognise as having been given in English until towards the end of the lecture. When I told Dr. Hatai that the English being spoken was too difficult for me to understand, he replied that he did not understand everything either, and that the English spoken by non‑native speakers (i.e., not English or American speakers) in particular was quite strange and not easy to understand[86]. I then felt a little relieved to know it was not just due to my bad hearing abilities. Mr. Matsumura the Caterpillar said, “Even in the Japanese language, discussion on a subject in a different field with which one is unfamiliar is not understandable, is it? It is not easy even for British and Americans, if one speaks quickly with a deflective pronunciation and accent.” I agreed, but I do feel like a ‘boiled dumb’ person every day. I have no problem, however, with the papers as long as they are printed.

   Daily, we studied and discussed in sessions of various fields and sub-fields in the morning. The last day, the 25th of May, the final general meeting was held in the hall from nine o’clock. After the address by Dr. de Vries, the chairman, twenty eight resolutions from various fields were reported by Dr. Went[87]. It was authorised that they would be submitted to each country’s science council and administration offices as the official resolutions of the Pacific Science Congress. Thereafter, the standing committee members were elected and the next conference venues were decided. The 5th and 6th Congress will be held in Canada and French Indo-China, respectively. Finally, the representatives from each country expressed their thanks for the special favours and efforts of the governments of the Netherlands and Java, as well as the hospitality of the mayors of Batavia, Buitenzorg, Bandoeng and other cities and many other societies in association with whom the congress was successfully carried out and bore fruitful results. The Fourth Pacific Science Congress ended successfully.

   A scientific congress provides an opportunity to learn about the situation of science in countries other than one’s own and the opportunity to meet famous scientists, in addition to the details of research, so the resolutions will no doubt have considerable impact. It is significant also that individual scientists can gain wider knowledge and be stimulated. At the same time, a scientific conference contributes greatly to automatically smoothen international relationship, by means other than so-called diplomacy.

Gala Party - At Bandoeng

   For this Congress, the Netherlands spent a tremendous amount of money, and the Governor-General as well as officials and non-officials everywhere, not to mention the chairman and the committee members, gave us most cordial services. There were minor cases of mismanagement and mishandling but they were trivial things as will happen when many people are hosted at the same time.

   Here, in Bandoeng, the Mayor of the city invited the members to theConcordia Club[88], for a Gala Party on the evening of the 21st. Ladies were in de corte and men were in tails. It is quite unfair that men must be wrapped up in dark-coloured, thick sheep’s wool, while the ladies are half naked. I thought I was able to be cool and comfortable, however, because I had anticipated what would happen and brought a Japanese montsuki[89].

   The first event was an orchestra organised by the members of the congress which was reasonably good. The second was a pantomime, entitled “The power of love” taken from a chapter of Mahabarata, an Indian legend. Lovely Javanese[90] girls[91] emerged. People of this district, the Soendanese, are the smartest race among the many inhabitants, with well developed bodies and a vivid appearance and there are many beautiful ladies with white skin and an elegant style, whilst in comparison some other races look like swollen responseless wood carvings which have been exposed to the scorching heat since ancient times. When they appeared gracefully on the stage, waving iridescent dresses with trailing skirts and long sleeves, I was surprised by the resemblance between them and our people. “A traveller in a strange country feels an abnormal gut-tearing pain[92].”

   Although my attire should have been cool, I began to sweat eventually because people who saw my formal costume for the first time kept asking me various questions. Japanese haori and shirushi-banten[93] are currently in fashion here. It is strange to see young ladies of blooming age walking in the street proudly carrying an indigo-dyed sign-board on their back, “Shin-Yoshihara[94]”.

The Parade of Ducks - At Bandoeng

   Sessions from eight o’clock in the morning and invitations in the evening made people dull and dumb for lack of sleep. On a day off from the congress, we visited a hot-spa town, Garoet, helped by Mr. Suganuma of Mr. Sato’s company. For the 17 miles to the destination, our car sped like arrows on the smooth road. There are lots of bamboo along the road which are useful in many ways and very important for the villagers. One use is for building materials. They put bamboo roofs on bamboo-pillared buildings and make walls and floors by weaving thin-split bamboo belts[95]. Bamboo-shoots can be eaten, and their sheaths can be used for wrapping things and as plates to put food on. An interesting application was to make a big flask of 1.5-foot circumference and 6-foot long bamboo by boring through the nodes, to carry back water from the mountains.

   We deviated from the main road for a little while and stopped by a lake in Bagendit. In Java, the water is generally turbid red with no elegance of ‘water is clear’ even though ‘mountains are purple’[96]. Exceptionally however, water around Garoet was quite clean and there were many ponds everywhere for breeding fish under the shade of the palm-trees. When we came close to the lake, people heard the noise of the cars and ran out of their bamboo-pillared, thatched houses with bamboo-made instruments in each hand. Two bamboo pipes, one short and one long, were dangled from a thin bamboo stick and make a rattling sound when shaken. This is called angkloeng. The tone is fixed and nine pieces form a set[97]. Each person held one and they shook their instruments alternatively to play music. When they sat and played music on the shore of the lake under the cover of the tjaringin[98] trees, children of 5 or 6 years old, of various shapes and sizes, naked or half-covered by shirts, danced clumsily to the music.

   They placed a board on two parallel sampan[99] and put chairs on it under the bamboo roof, so as one could sit on the water. Two girls stood in the front and the rear of the boat and steered it with a pole. The rattling of the angkloeng travelled over the surface of water and the elegant sound put listeners into a dreamy mood.

   Garoet town was not far from this lake. On our way, we saw an interesting thing, a parade of ducks. They say there are at least fifty or sixty and sometimes as many as several-hundred ducks waddling in a raw at any one time, driven on the road by a man. The ducks travel in this way day and night. It is stunning to think that they walk the long distance of some 240km from Garoet to Batavia on their webbed feet which are cited as an example of very slow movement. It is convenient for the duck master that he need not feed them, because they get into puddles and paddy fields on the way and pick up food by themselves. When they are tired, they have a rest and sleep here and there. While they travel this way for many days, they appropriately get fat, thanks to the free food from other people’s fields, and can be sold at a good price when they arrive at Batavia. Is this not an easy-going way of trade?

   We arrived at the Hotel Ngamplang which stood on a hill a short distance from the town of Garoet. Beyond the green plain was Goenoeng Goentoer, the volcano which erupted 80 years ago, and just underneath it was the famous hot water spa, Tjipanas.

   A cold breeze rattled the leaves, the moon was clear and insects sang their songs[100]. It was like the autumn of our own country. The temperature in the room was 67 degree fahrenheit. This was in a tropical area and the coolness or coldness was quite beyond our imagination. After resting, we returned to bustling Bandoeng the next day.

High-altitude Botanical Garden at Tjibodas - At Bandoeng

   The Congress finished on the 25th of May and on the same evening, all the congress members were invited to the Hotel Preanger. The table was ready at nine o’clock and, during the dinner, the chairman gave an address and the representatives of member countries expressed their thanks.

   Our leader, Dr. Hatai stood on behalf of the countries from the Western Pacific coast. I felt a little strange that Japan replied representing western countries, as we had thought our country was the country of the rising sun. Somebody said it was not surprising because it was a southern country where the sun cast its rays from the north. Whether the sunlight comes from the north or the south, we are a western country as far as matters of the Pacific coast[101] are concerned. The dinner ended at one o’clock in the morning.

   Before daybreak the next morning, I was awoken at five o’clock to start for a study tour to the High-altitude Botanical Garden located at Tjibodas. Due to the capacity of the accommodation facilities there, the number of participants was limited to fifteen people. The leader was Dr. van Leeuwen and the instructor was Dr. Dammerman, a zoologist. There were only three Japanese, Prof. Miyoshi, myself and Mr. Emoto. After travelling for two hours by train, the group of fifteen people were driven from Tjiandjoer station to Tjipanas, jam-packed in a bus for one hour. After climbing a hill road for a further hour, we arrived at the High-altitude Botanical Garden at Tjibodas, Prof. Miyoshi riding in a four-man sedan-chair and the others on pony-back.

   The Garden was opened in 1866 as a branch of the Buitenzorg Botanical Garden. As the place is located some 4,000 feet above sea-level at the foot of Goenoeng Pangrango[102], plants from temperate zones grow extremely well. Though a little primitive, there is an experimental station where one can stay and study. The inner area of the Garden is well maintained and plants collected from various countries are growing well. It is especially famous for the fact that the area, a primeval forest of more than 1,000 acres extending from the rear of the experimental station to Goenoeng Pangrango, is completely protected as a natural monument. I would like to try to preserve and protect a part of primeval forests in Japan in the same way so that we can do research there[103].

The study group at Tjibodas

   The vegetation in the rain-forest was so thick that inside it was almost dark even during daytime. On looking up, one could only see small bits of blue sky between the branches of tall trees. There were footpaths in the forest and the many trees on both their sides bore a label with a number and scientific names so that one could refer to the tables at any time. Collection was usually prohibited, in the interest of complete preservation and protection[104], but there was no restriction on this occasion and we were even accompanied by porters. The assistants in the experimental station knew the scientific names very well and kindly helped us collect specimens. We stayed in the experimental station that night.

   Since there were only four bedrooms available there, all visitors except for eight slept on camp beds brought into the laboratory. It was the same as when we went to the marine experimental station in Misaki[105] when we were students. Since it was too early to go to bed, we gathered in a group and chatted under the dim lamp. I fear I mention repeatedly about the coldness of the tropics, but the temperature dropped considerably in the night. When we went outside, stars were twinkling beautifully in the clear sky, just as in our winters, and our breath turned white in the air. It was so cold that everybody went back inside without staying long in the open.

   I was given a room to share with Prof. Miyoshi. There was only one double bed. It was strange to have to share a bed with Prof. Miyoshi who had taken care of me so well since I had been at university. I cowered in the corner because I could not bear it if I kicked his belly in my sleep. There were blankets for each side. As Prof. Miyoshi was old, I gave him the thicker one and took the thinner one for myself. It was however not only thin but also short, and my legs stuck out when I put it over me. When I pushed it down, my shoulders were uncovered. Therefore, I wore the trousers which I had taken off, put my jacket over my pyjamas and a bathrobe over that and folded myself like a prawn. Thus, I hoped I would be no danger to my teacher. The temperature went down at 50 degrees fahrenheit and it was pretty cold, but everybody was tired so that we fell asleep easily and slept until the morning.

   We got up at six the next morning as usual. Everybody was shivering and rubbing their hands. During breakfast, Mr. Baum[106] showed up late. Before this, we had given him a nickname, Mr. Spider, as the entomologist always carried a net to catch any insect in sight. Someone at the table asked, “Were you doing a before-breakfast job, Mr. Spider?” He replied, “Well, not really, it was breakfast actually.” Many insects were hopping about inside his bottle.

   In this experimental station, there was a guest book for visitors and one could find the names of famous biologists from all over the world on nearly every page. While I was perusing it, I found the signature of Prof. Miyoshi which he had placed on the occasion of his previous visit twenty-two years earlier in 1907. Having forgotten about it, he stood absorbed, gazing at the book. For him, it must have been an emotive memory.

   After breakfast, we went collecting again in the rainforest behind the station. After we had climbed for about two hours, we saw three waterfalls of several hundred feet high on a cliff. The middle one, named Tjibeureum (red water) was the biggest and more than 400 feet high, while the other two on the left and the right were called Tjibodas (white water) and Tjikoendoel[107], respectively. The name of the place, Tjibodas, originates from the waterfall. The water was clean and cold. We returned from the waterfalls to the experimental station which we left after lunch, and arrived back at Bandoeng in the evening.

Noesa Kambangan - Tjilatjap

   For the next study tour, members were divided into four fields, geology, biology, agriculture and anthropology, and each group went in different directions. It was on a separate, meet up, gather, then scatter( basis. I joined the biology group to study the marsh around Tjilatjap which was further on the south coast on the 28th of May, the day after we returned from Tjibodas. When the jongos knocked on my room at four o’clock in the morning, I got up rubbing my sleepy eyes. We started from Bandoeng station at half past five, before daylight came.

   The group was comprised of twenty-five people, led by Dr. Beumée[108], in which there were six Easterners, Messrs. Hatai, Hattori, Koriba, plus Mr. Tao[109], a disciple of Dr. Hatai from China, and myself. After three hours in a train and 130km by car, white clothes turned black and black clothes turned white with the dirt and dust. There was nothing particular to see on the way except for the monotonous palm fields. I felt fed up with fatigue and being treated with sand-cakes( served on my tired body.

   At noon, we arrived at a village on the river, Kalipoetjang, and put in a launch, went down the river towards Tjilatjap. On both sides was heavy jungle vegetation. As the boat went down the river, the height of the trees became lower and plants peculiar to marshes appeared. On the boat we received explanations for each of them, but unfortunately we could not get close and touch them. Mangrove grew densely. From their branches hung many fruits which were long and narrow shaped and sharpened towards their tip. When the fruit ripens and drops, it conveniently plunges into the mud and sprouts. The growth front of mangroves moves forward gradually and often eventually covers the whole surface of a river. This plant is famous for this reason.

   The lower basin of the river was a wide coastal lake where there were large and small villages of lake-dwellers ranging from ten up to a hundred houses. The inhabitants build houses in the shallow part of the lake and lay boards between them to provide a gangway to come and go. They travel by sampan to the land. They make their living by fishing but unlike Japanese fishermen who go off-shore, they catch fish by putting woven-bamboo traps in the shallow parts of the lake. They would have lived in this way for many generations, building houses and forming villages always over the water. Unfortunately our boat could not come close to the villages, so we could only look at them from afar and hear explanations. In the evening, we arrived at the pier of Tjilatjap. On the opposite shore, there is an island called Noesa Kambangan where a prison is located. Since the prison holds serious convicts, ordinary people are not permitted to enter. Special permission was however given on this occasion. Next day, we landed there wet all over, crossing the water which was something between a sea and a river. Many prisoners were working there. We visited there because the rafflesia[110], a famous parasitic plant grew there.

   Ordering the prisoners to open a path for us by cutting the weeds and bushes, we advanced several hundred metres to the place where the rafflesias bloomed. A parasitic plant, it has no leaves and nothing but a large flower showing itself on the ground. The flower was about 1.5 feet diameter, with five petals, and its colour was something like milk in which chocolate had been dissolved. The petals were thick and it looked like an aruheitō[111] or wax-work. The same kind of flower which exists in Sumatra may measure as big as 3 feet in diameter. It is well known as the largestflower in the world[112]. Here we also saw the famous ant-plant. When ants make their nests on the trunks of trees, they carry up seeds from the ground and put them on the surface of their nest. Then, the seed sprouts, the plant grows and bears fruit that can be food for the insect. It was just the time when the seeds had just sprouted, as if hairs were growing from the nest. After seeing them, we went to the southern coast on lorries. Violent waves dashed and splashed, vigorously moving clouds reared up high in the sky, no birds flew and no boat were on the water. The sea of the south looked dreary.

Giant water-lilies

The rafflesia flower

The Town of Tjilatjap - At Jogja

   On the same evening, we went for a walk in the town of Tjilatjap. Although it is the only harbour along the south coast of Java and an export port for coconuts and sugar, the town was very quiet and not at all well developed. By chance, we found a shop owned by a Japanese in the town. The owner was delighted by his unexpected guests and showed us inside. We learnt that there were three Japanese men, Messrs. Nishida, Kawai and Nagata who ran shops in the town. Six of us, including Mr. Tao, visited them. They were very pleased to see us and offered to guide us around the town. At our request, they took us to see a local wedding ceremony. To entertain the guests, a shadow-play[113] was being performed close to the street. When we entered impudently, by introduction of Mr. Nishida, twenty or thirty guests were gambling at tables. They said gambling was specially permitted on such a festival day.

   The shadow-play was going on indifferently not far from the gambling site. Under a three-foot high and eight-foot wide screen with a lamp hanging about two feet away, a man was sitting, while narrating an epic tale, casting shadows of puppets made of buffalo skin. The musicians sat behind the puppeteer. The invited guests were watching the shadows from the back of the screen, whereas passers-by were watching the manipulation of puppets from the front. The puppet-master was very happy to see these easy-going visitors from a far north country, and welcomed us cordially.

   After we left the venue of the wedding, we went to see a circumcision ceremony. Similar to a ceremony for reaching adulthood, it was a celebration for a boy for when he grew up and became a Moslem. There were dances and gambling too, and there were stall shops as well as crowds of people around the house.

   There were only three Japanese shops and nineteen Japanese inhabitants. Although small in number, they were running their own businesses, owning their own shops and employing native people, unlike the emigrants to America and other places. Here, they could establish themselves and enjoy their lives. If they worked honestly, they were trusted and could associate equally with foreigners[114], and also are respected by the local people. They said, “We feel lonely but we work hard here so as to be buried in this soil, waiting for other Japanese to come.” The next day, we said good-bye to these people and left Tjilatjap to move to Jogja, the capital of Java.

The study group and Japanese inhabitants at Tjilatjap

Jogja

   When our study-group arrived at Jogja on the 30th of May, other groups were also there. We did not know what mistakes had been made by the Dutch committee members, but there was confusion as many people had arrived before the arrangements for accommodation had been completed. This generated many big, bearded, lost people. There was a heap of luggage on the platform and even the Assistant Resident of the district was worriedly carrying bags by himself. With wide open eyes, as if he were a modern Western Amagawaya[115], the station-master was sitting on the heap, guarding the luggage so as not to lose a single piece.

   Fortunately, we, the Japanese members, were able to settle in a hotel, the Hotel Grande de Jogja[116], reserved for us by Mr. Masao Sawabe, an inhabitant of the city.

   While we were having a bath to wash away the sweat and dirt accumulated over the last several days, the stranded Westerners were brought in. The arrangements for readying their accommodation lasted long into the evening. We heard that many of them had problems, such as an Englishman who was taken into a house of a German and then had difficulty in communicating with his host.

   Mr. Sawabe, who is taking care of us, is a successful and important man in Jogja, having been in Java for fifty years. He has a general store, called Fuji Yōkō, but made his fortune in the batik business. He had a factory at the back of his house where scores of Javanese women were painting patterns on cloth with wax.

Hotel Grande Jogjakarta

(Appended from the author’s private album)

A street in Jogjakarta

(Appended from the author’s private album)

Drawing batik patterns

(Appended from the author’s private album)

Javanese masks

(Appended from the author’s private album)

   Since all the members were unit

ed here today, I decided to invite the representatives from Japan for bidding farewell to Dr. Kato, the deputy-leader, who was extending his travel to faraway Africa, for expressing thanks to Dr. Hatai, the leader, and for saying good-bye to the group members who were to disperse from here. When I consulted Mr. Sawabe as to how to do this, he offered his house as the venue. I thought it was too much but he insisted, saying, “Leave it to me!”

   At eight o’clock, we gathered in Mr. Sawabe’s house. It was thus ambiguous who was the host for the occasion. His house was a huge one, with more than enough room to invite several dozen guests. His family’s hospitality was to be seen on the table. The food was wonderful and quite amazed us. The menu was excellent. It included sushi, soba, udon, tsukemono and chadzuke[117]. We were so thankful, because we had been keeping ourselves alive every day on beef and chicken. It would be better to say that we had been dreaming continuously of these Japanese foods. “I had three bowls of soba and udon, and then three bowls of chadzuke. Everything was superb!”, said Dr. Hatai. As could be easily guessed, we others also ate like a horse or a bull without wasting time on drinking. Finally, we toasted each other and thanked Mr. Sawabe for his hospitality.

   Next evening, on the 31st at eight o’clock, the Minister invited all members for a wayang wong performance arranged by the order of the Sultan[118]. The stage was set up in the palace, one and a half feet above the floor and with an area of more than 80 square metres, with white marble laid all over. All four sides were open and the pillars and the ceiling were painted pure white and simply decorated with red and gold. The spectators( seats were located at the front, the left- and the right-hand sides, and at the back were the musicians( seats. Wayang wong was derived from wayang koelit. All the actors and actresses are affiliated to the court and usually do not play for the public. They emerged to the music on introduction. Some of them were half-naked with batik trousers and strips of silk hanging down from both sides of their waist, wearing a keris[119] on their waist and a crown on their heads. Some were dressed in armour with gold-coloured feathers on their backs, others had their faces painted in white or black, and others wore masks. Those that played the enemy were red faced, as in other countries, with yellow powder all over their bodies. They pressed their hands together when they appeared on the stage and then disappeared. They always walked on their knees, except when they were in action. They were concentrated in every movement. It was a gorgeous sight when tens of men ascended on the stage with spears and flags and other weapons. The programme was a part of the Mahabarata, an ancient Indian legend. The elegance of the play was similar to that of Nohgaku in Japan. Since the programme started at nine and was said to end at one o’clock in the morning and we were tired because of the heavy schedule, we excused ourselves half-way through.

Mistakes

   It happened when we were on the way from Soerabaja to Bandoeng. We were extremely thirsty as the train ran tediously in the heat of midday. When the train stopped in a station, there were fruitsellers selling oranges which looked very tasty.

   What is troublesome in Java is that in general we cannot communicate without Malay. Since there was a linguist, Mr. F who used to live in Java, in our group, we relied on him and asked for his help.

   Mr. F started negotiations with the orange-vender, an elderly woman. He said, “Fifteen cents for a orange is too much. I want it discounted to ten cents but the woman won’t budge.” Everybody pushed Mr. F, saying “Yes, it’s too much. Let us bargain!”

   Mr. F was trying hard with sweat shining on the top of his nose but the business did not go at all smoothly. Eventually, the departure time of the train came before they reached an agreement. Angrily, Mr. F threw a ten-cent coin and picked up an orange. The woman was astonished and quite taken aback by his behaviour. Then, everybody gave her ten cents and each took an orange, including Dr. Hatai, our leader.

   The train started. The old woman did not seem at all unhappy and she was gazing at the slimes of smoke. After we got a lot of cheap oranges and started to peel their skins, a Westerner in the next seat asked, “What were you doing there?” Our leader replied, “We gave ten cents for an orange because fifteen was too high.” The Westerner said smilingly, “The woman was saying it was five cents for one. I was wondering why you were giving her ten cents.”

   We were depressed and looked at the oranges which should have been cheaper. Mr. F was completely flattened. After that, credibility for his Malay was reduced to nil.

*                  *                  *

   While Dr. Hattori[120] was walking in the town of Jogja, he found an old woman selling vanilla fruit in the street. It was 78 cents a bunch but he produced a ten-gulden note as he had no small change. The woman left her shop and went somewhere for change. After a while, when Dr. Hattori was looking after the shop for her, the woman came back with a heavy hempen sack full of copper coins equivalent of ten gulden, making a rattling noise. Receiving a sack full of 9 gulden and 22 cents coppers is unbearable. He asked her to change them to silver coins but it was by means of gestures rather than language. Many people gathered wondering what was happening. Without a care for the heat in the air, men and women, young and old, and other vendors, surrounded them to watch the sign language between the stranger and the old woman. They were trying hard, full of sweat. As they became desperate, a Javanese policeman who had been watching them came, but he was also not able to communicate. Then, the policeman urged them to follow him. It was embarrassing but Dr. Hattori followed him together with the woman to the police station. The policeman offered a chair to Dr. Hattori and said something to the old woman. Reluctantly, she went into the market with the hemp sack and, after a while, came back with three pieces of one-gulden silver coins and coppers of 6 gulden and 22 cents. The policeman did not accept it and ordered her to go for change again. The women was embarrassed but went out again. Dr. Hattori was very sorry for causing such trouble, as many people gathered in the street in this hot day for his small shopping of only 78 cents, but he had to obey the policeman and waited without being able to say anything. After about one hour, the woman finally came back with silver coins. The policeman counted carefully and gave the change to Dr. Hattori.

   Dr. Hattori offered some silver coins to the policeman to thank him for his kindness but he refused and did not take them. Dr. Hattori could not speak but expressed his acknowledgment and left. He was exhausted after perspiring both hot and cold sweat in that way.

   I also thought of trying to meet the kind policeman to thank him once more but we did not see him again during our stay in Java.

   There were many other such mistakes and funny experiences of this kind, for difficulties in communication was much more serious than when we travelled in Europe. The above were some typical examples.

Trip to Tosari - At Tosari

   People who had gathered at Jogja scattered again for the last stretch of their study tour in the various directions of their choice. Since the itinerary was compact and the schedule was tight as usual, I left my wife and son. I joined the team for Tosari which is famous for its sand-sea. It was a group with no particular purpose in which easy-going people participated just for sightseeing.

   On the 2nd of June, after staying overnight at Soerabaja, we again journeyed by train and car and arrived in the afternoon at the town of Tosari. There was nothing as painful and as unpleasant as that drive. The passengers were jolted back and forth, left and right like beans in a roasting pan, while the cars climbed up the steep and bumpy roads passing through cloud and fog. Tosari is a place which resembles Hakone[121] but without a hot-spring. It does not form the typical shape of a town, as the houses of natives are dispersed here and there on and between the hills.

Reproduced from: Dalton, Bill, Indonesia Handbook 4th Ed., Moon Publ. Chicago 1988

   The accommodation was the Hotel Grande. There were about twenty bungalows on both sides of the road, facing the valley. Each had two rooms. The bungalows alone formed a village by themselves with no other houses, having the office and a restaurant in the middle. People trooped out for meals when a drum sounded. The name of the room I was allocated together with Mr. Ihara72 was Emma(. This place was virtually the entrance to hell, because the following day we were going to see a volcano and the name of the house lead to En-ma[122].

  We were woken up at half past two in the morning. Horses and sedan-chairs were waiting in front of the bungalows. It was half past three when all twenty members of the party were ready. The horses were lovely small ponies, which looked even smaller when big men rode on their backs, the riders’ legs nearly reaching the ground. A low-carrier-horse![123] It was a horse that one could use just like a pair of wooden clogs. In contrast, the chairs were great ones shouldered by eight men, whereas normally two men were enough to carry a Japanese litter. These were the vehicles for elderly people.

   There was sickle-shaped waning moon in the sky. The ponies climbed the hill, clop-clop, in the shadowy moonlight. The sound of gamelan music was in the air, sent by the wind from the villages in the valley below, where youngsters in the south country were dancing throughout the night[124]. We hastened up the hilly road in the dark, relying only on the dim light of the moon. At five o’clock, just before daybreak, the stars faded out one by one and night ended rapidly as soon as the east sky began to whiten.

   By climbing up and up for two hours, one comfortably on a chair like a nobleman and the others on the ponies in a humorous style like Don Quixote[125], we arrived at the Moengar Pass on the col of the outer crater of Goenoeng Bromo[126]. Below us, there should have been the famous sand-sea of caldera, but we saw only waves of clouds which as usual precipitated in the morning. When the sun beam began to radiate from the top of the distant mountain ranges, the clouds split and the sand-sea appeared. There was a fez-shaped dormant volcano, Goenoeng Batok[127]. The mount composed of volcanic ash was eroded by rain and had sharp gullies which looked like pleats. The appearance can be best compared to a pleated paper cup used for chocolate. Next to it was the volcano, Bromo, which was now active. We went down the extremely steep inner wall of the outer crater to the famous sand-sea. The vastness of a desert such as in Africa was not to be expected for this crater field, but it was a little disappointing to me that no atmosphere of true sand-sea was available, with umbrella-sedges growing here and there. Dense sand clouds rose from the feet of people when they walked.

   After a short walk around the foot of Batok, we reached the bottom of Bromo where a stone staircase was provided for the convenience of climbers. The crater was about fifty steps above. This was no particular wonder for us, as inhabitants of another volcanic country, but it was interesting that only sand, and neither lava nor pumice, had blown out of the crater to form the sand-mount and the sand-field, generating a vacuous, rather than wild scenery.

   After having seen it, we started on our way home. The nobles were carried graciously. Don Quixote’s were wandering around at the will of the clogs, while horse-keepers were trying to pull them into the right direction. Meanwhile, I galloped so as not to be harassed by the sand-dust. When I looked back on the top of the outer crater, there were several threads of sand smoke rising in the distance, indicating the movement of people. I arrived back at the hotel in first place at ten o’clock. The tip for the horse-keeper was as big as twenty cents!

Goenoeng Batok (front) and Goenoeng Bromo (back)

The sand-sea

Farewell Dinner - At Soerabaja

   On the next day, the 4th of June, we returned to Soerabaja. When I came back to the hotel, my wife said that I had to be careful as Dr. Hatai had been waiting in front of his room since the morning, having set a trap. In fact, the respectful teacher was waiting outside his room sitting stretched on a chair. As soon as he saw me, he said, “I have been waiting for you since this morning. It is about the Chairman’s invitation tonight. I have decided to ask you to give the address, because we have agreed to appoint new people to do so.” I courteously excused myself, saying that I had joined the delegation simply because it seemed better to add one more member, as in the proverb, ‘Even a withered tree is a decoration on a mountain’, and that I had made no such promise. He however would not accept this, saying that just a short speech would be enough. Eventually, I had to obey the leader’s order, although I was quite reluctant to do it in Japanese, let alone in English.

   I thought about clothes and decided to wear Japanese formal dress, expecting the address would finish while people were occupied by my unusual raiment.

   All of the programmes finished and, at eight o’clock, we were invited by the chairman to the last farewell dinner at the Simpang Club[128]. It was a large party which the Resident, the Mayor and all the important people of Soerabaja attended. The address of the chairman started halfway through dinner and the representatives of other countries followed, but I was not able to enjoy my meal as I was concerned with what I had to do. Then the chairman introduced me. Up until, “Mister President, Ladies and Gentlemen!”, I thought I did well. I went on to say that we, the Japanese members, were extremely grateful and had no proper words to thank the favours and facilities given by the chairman, committee members and all the local people during and after the congress, or something like that. I was not confident that my words were understandable for the Westerners, but the last part of my speech was clearly comprehended. When I asked the audience to join me to applaud ‘three banzai’ to celebrate the success of the congress, everyone, not only the Japanese, stood up and chorused “Banzai!” not only three but four or five times[129]. I was bathed in sweat. On the other side of the table, our leader was making a toast with champagne with a cool face.

   Thus, the last curtain of the Pacific Science Congress went down.

Shark and Crocodile City - At Soerabaja

   The programmes of the Science Congress were all over and I became completely free. We had played our roles, even if insufficiently. The members from Japan as well as from other countries dispersed into various directions, some of them going straight to their home countries and others returning again to the interior of Java.

   Soerabaja is the commercial centre of Java exporting important products from Java such as rubber, sugar, tapioca, palm oil, and so on, whereas Batavia is the political centre. Sh(kin Bank, Mitsui Bank, Mitsubishi Bank and Mitsui, Mitsubishi and many other trading companies had their offices in this city.

   Soerabaja means Shark and Crocodile[130]. There is a bridge named Djembatan Merah (the red bridge) on the Kali Mas (m. golden river) running through the city. It is not painted in red but called a red bridge, and the city’s name is Shark-and-Crocodile. They say it is because once upon a time the water turned red, when a shark and a crocodile had a fight for some reason.

   In Chinese characters, it is written as泗川, They say it is not for phonetic reasons, but for a meaning which has no bearing on either a shark or a crocodile or on their fighting. Instead, this script has been adopted for the practical use relating to the Kali Mas on which the Djembatan Merah stands. It is at least true that the river is quite important for the city. They say that the river relates to the four habits in the daily life of Javanese people, just as other rivers do in Java. It is a little scurrilous to say it but they wash their faces, cook their rice, wash their clothes and empty their bowels using the same water. Whether true or not, it is called 泗川[131]. In fact, the Kali Mas is not a beautiful river at all but a river in which gold-coloured water ripples by.

Trip to Bali - At Soerabaja

   Next day after the ending of the Congress, on the 5th of June, the K.P.M. shipping company offered a boat for the congress participants to go for a sightseeing tour to Bali. This small island located at the eastern end of Java was formerly a Buddhist kingdom founded by Buddhist refugees ousted by Moslems from Java[132]. The manners and customs are quite complex, as the rituals of Brahmanists, Muhammadans and Buddhists are mingled together. The boat, the De Rumphius was the same one which had carried us to Krakatau, and this time there were sixty passengers, fourteen Japanese included. Unfortunately, the tour which we expected to be an enjoyable one ended up for various reasons with bad results. The climate that had been mild until then suddenly turned wild, winds blew and rain poured down, shaking the boat mercilessly. In Bali, we were also caught in heavy rains and missed seeing many places. Moreover, I had an ache in my bowel from midnight of the 6th. I thought it was only my own trouble, but it turned out that my neighbours were also in the same condition. In the morning, everybody was pale. Nobody said, “Good morning”, and the common greeting was, “How is your tummy?” The problem was found to be caused by the food on the boat. Due to the rain and the food poisoning, the Bali tour turned into a terrible one, spoiling the kind arrangements made by the K.P.M. and giving unpleasant memories to many people.

A feast in Bali

A scene of Balinese life

Balinese girls

Courtesy Call at Solo

   There are two old capitals in Java, i.e, Solo of the Soesoehoenan and Jogjakarta of the Sultan. The orthodox royal family of Java is the Soesoehoenan (meaning “the pillar of the universe”), and the king of Jogjakarta who has the title of Sultan is a branch[133] of the same family. We arrived at Solo from Soerabaja on the 10th of June.

   Mr. Rihachiro Ogawa lives in Solo. Having been in Java for thirty years, he has been successful in the medicine and cosmetic trade with many monopoly rights all over Java[134]. He also owns a newspaper company which issues a Malay newspaper, Boendel (m. bundle, collection). Thus, he is one of the most influential men in this district.

Solo Station

(Appended from the author’s private album)

Toko-Ogawa

(Appended from the author’s private album)

The gateway to the Solo Palace

(Appended from the author’s private album)

   We had asked Mr. Ogawa to apply to get permission to call at Soesoehoenan. By his efforts, we were invited for the private wedding party of the Crown Prince Djade Kosmo, the son of the Soesoehoenan, to be held in the evening. Besides my wife and myself, the guests included Mr. Sawabe, from Jogja, Mr. and Mrs. Nemoto, a local farm owner, Mr. Ogawa and Mr. Toda. We were a little upset by the preparation of our raiment, as it was changed to a semi-formal white suit, not tails as we had expected.

   When we arrived at the palace, Prince Djade Kosmo, the Bride Princess and the Lord of Jogja were waiting at the entrance of the hall. When Mr. Ogawa introduced us, the Prince greeted us in English. The Bridegroom Prince had a black cap with gold stripes, similar to a fez in shape, and a short sword on his waist on which chains of fragrant flowers were placed in bunches. Besides the Japanese, other guests were about twenty Dutch people, as well as princes, princesses, ministers and so on, less than sixty people altogether. When the King and the Queen appeared, a minister led the guests one by one to salute them. Then, in the rather narrow hall, the Resident sat in the middle at the front, the royal couple on his right and left, respectively, and others on both sides in orderly positions. There was no table in front of us, but it was as if a meeting might be about to start. There, we presented two rolls of silk fabric brought from Japan. While I was wondering what would follow, cigars were served and, soon, the King stood up to guide the Resident to the next room.

   It was a wide room of more than 150 square metres, and there were four pillars ornamented in gold and green colours in the middle. The ceiling was decorated in the same way. Around the pillars, a number of square card-tables were situated ready for playing games. The guests formed groups sporadically, sat at the table and started playing card games. We were quite astonished at the style of the party with a dinner and card games, extremely modern for a royal wedding, even though it was said to be a private one. My wife asked me, “It seems unusual for a dinner. Did Mr. Ogawa do something wrong?”, the same question I was about to ask. I was worried that we might become dizzy if the scene continued. We just watched others play the games leaning on chairs, as we were not card players, when a prince came over and explained things in detail.

   Before long, the sound of gamelan echoed from a distance. An elderly woman came in on her knees from a door and four dancers followed wiggling their bodies. Their graceful step was the same as that of noh[135]. A prince said it was Serimpi. The dancers( figures were neat, each wearing a gold crown garnished with fragrant flowers, a silk strip wrapped around their half-naked upper-body up to the level of their breasts, a trailing batik skirt, a coloured gobelin on their waists, and nothing on their bare feet. Then, some other elderly ladies who played the role of prompters came behind on their knees. There was a slim table in the centre of the four pillars on which four cut-glass bottles filled with a red liquid and four cups of the same design were placed. The dancers entered the central area, separated at the four corners and pressed their hands together while sitting on the floor. They then stood up slowly to dance quietly and silently.

   The night at the royal palace in the country of perennial summer was cool and serene, as if it were the limpid autumn in our own country. The graceful dancers danced by waving their light clothes, and moving closely, or separately of each other under the Dutch lanterns, like butterflies fluttering around flowers. The dance turned into a duet and then into a solo. One of the dancers gently took up a cup and her partner poured the red liquid in it. She danced for a while holding up the cup and then gulped down the liquid.

   During the dance, chamberlains and servants brought cold sherbet and various kinds of juice, also walking on their knees and never on foot. What was more surprising to me was that, whether it was a part of the dinner or a refreshment, an hors d(oeuvre was delivered on a common Western plate with a set of knives and forks. The guests ate seated at their own places, while they were playing card games or watching the dance, by simply putting the plates on the corner of their table or even on their knees. More plates came in this way during the performance, and the course of the meal was completed. I felt rather odd as I was not accustomed to this style of dinner, but it was true that I had no time to be dizzy.

   The dance was still quiet. Suddenly, the dancers took up pistols from their waists and, after stepping around, raised the cock and fired all at once, making most of the guests quite astonished. They continued the dance quietly, however. Serimpi was over in about an hour. Then, Boedojo danced by nine dancers were shown. The performance was similar to Serimpi but, on that occasion, nobody was startled by a simultaneous firing as everyone had been expecting this. The next programme was the dance of Ardjoena, played by two boys. It was an action, similar to the form of bujutsu[136], brandishing swords and spears and yelling gallantly in harmony with the rhythm of the music. It was, however, the wayang wong played next that I really admired.

   When the tone of the gamelan changed, two young men with gorgeous clothes stepped gently into view from the far end of the corridor. One could be assumed to be about twenty-one or two and the other, seventeen or eighteen years of age. After they prayed for a while sitting on the floor, pressing their hands and hanging their heads, they raised their heads and stood up slowly with the music to start to dance. They each put a gold bird-shaped helmet on their heads, gold armour similar to the wings of butterfly on the backs of their half-naked upper bodies and a keris with numerous inlaid gem-stones which shone brightly under the light. I was impressed not so much by the beauty of their costume but by the appearance of these young men who looked so noble and handsome. The eye-shadow at the corner of their eyes added accent to their beauty. In front of the dazzling brilliance of the young men, even those female dancers who overshadowed “the three-thousands maids serving in the court[137]” must be eclipsed, just as stars were against the moon. I watched quite absorbed, like a man who had lost his soul, in such a way as my face must have looked odd to other people. When I came to myself, the prince in the adjacent seat tapped on my shoulder, and told me, “They are my brother and son.” I had thought they were not common people and, in fact, they were princes. What splendour!

   The two princes performed a brilliant dance. It was elegant and tender but it turned to be fearsome, when the scene moved to a battle-field, as the two bodies crossed and the edges of their keris hit and sparkled. The gracefulness was not lost, however, during such actions. The performance ended after the highlight scene and the two young princes retired quietly after giving a round of salutes.

   I spent the romantic beautiful night of the southern country as if in a dream, attending the royal entertainment in the golden palace. King, Queen, Princes, Princesses, royal dancers, . . .

   I had thought those were the words of fairy tales. Was I playing in a fairy land? Or was it an illusion? Feeling it was only half-real, I retired from the royal palace.

Wayang wong at the court of Solo

Wayang kelitik (“Wayang golek” in the original book was an error.)

Courtesy Call at Jogja - At Jogja

   In the seats of royal families at Jogja and Solo, everything persists as it was in the old days. Within the royal estate of Jogja alone, there live several thousand men who receive pensions from the Sultan. They tie their hair and, depending upon their positions, they put either a black or white fez-shaped cap or a batik strip, called kain kepala, on their heads, and a kain pandjang or dodot[138], a keris on the waist of their half-naked bodies but nothing at their bare feet. The highest paid is the General Minister receiving 7,000 florins (\7,000) a month, his total monthly income including other revenues being as big as Dfl. 20,000. The lowest pension is 75 cents. It is awfully small but it is for formality as a subject and the recipients have no duty but to present themselves at the palace once or twice a year. The changing of the guards of the palace is conducted at nine o’clock every morning. Headed by a band with flutes and drums, dozens of warriors march in the yard, the high-ranked ones accompanied by followers with spears and pajoeng[139]. The pajoeng of the royal family members are painted all over in a gold colour, whereas those of warriors are only partially gold and the gold area. As well as the number of followers, the area is larger as the rank is higher. They are all bare-footed, however. These are the kind of customs that we had in Japan before the Restoration.

   On the evening of the 12th of June, i.e., two days after our visit at Solo, we were permitted to meet the Sultan by the effort of the Governor-General of Java and the Resident of Jogja, Mr. Jaspers. Since the courtesy call was specially arranged for myself, my family members were also allowed to follow. The dress indicated was swallow-tail coat with real decorations for men and Japanese kimono for women. Since Dr. Hattori and others had no formal dress prepared, Mr. Sawabe ran around to get them ones. They looked excellent when they were dressed up, although their rented costumes were either a little loose or a little tight.

   Escorted by Mr. and Mrs. Jaspers, we arrived at seven o’clock at the vestibule of the palace of another dream-country, where men with spears stood on both sides. In the porch, the princes and the grand chamberlain were waiting for us and two servants to guide us were sitting on the floor with a hand torch. Letting the two servants hold candles, the princes guided us through a long brilliantly lit corridor, each of them taking our hands. On the scarlet carpet were strewn fragrant flowers of red and white colours of the south country. When we proceeded by stepping on the flowers, there was a huge reception room in which one could lay 300 tatami[140] mats. In the middle was a ceiling, decorated in blue and gold like a lid of treasure-chest, and the royal seat was located underneath. The Sultan was waiting for us in a chair placed in front of the royal seat, since it was not a formal occasion. As we came into his sight at the far end of the corridor and the brass-band played the national anthem of the Netherlands, the Sultan stood up and moved to greet us at the step leading to the room. When I was permitted to shake hands according to their manner of courtesy, Kimigayo[141] was played. It was our national anthem. I hung my head solemnly.

   The Sultan was formally dressed up with his military uniform. His elder-sister princess was present on behalf of the Sultana (Sultan’s consort). Then, I received a hand-shake from each one of the princes and princesses. The king sat in the middle and Mr. Jaspers and myself sat on the left and right sides, respectively. On the right of me were my group and on the left of Mr. Jaspers were the princes, princesses and other members of the royal family. On the advice of Mr. Jaspers, Mr. Sawabe sat behind me. I spoke to the king with my poor Malay. Whenever it became troublesome, Mr. Jaspers kindly came to help.

   Flowers were also dispersed on the white marble floor, which looked as pure as snow, generating an elegant fragrance. In front of the garden, there were two arbors on the right and left sides of the front in which tens of gamelan musicians were standing by with their instruments. The orchestra included a wooden xylophone six foot wide, a percussive instrument consisting of rectangular brass plates placed parallel on the chips of bamboo arranged in a red-painted frame, an array of several reversed-kettles, gongs, big and small drums, big and small flutes, lutes, etc. The 24 players formed an authentic team. The flutes were the only wind instrument, the lutes were the only string instrument and percussive instruments made up the main part of the orchestra.

   Musicians waiting to the right-hand side arbor came out with their instruments and twenty singers aligned to the front. There were also three girls. When the team members sat in their places, a master came from behind holding high a small table covered with a figured cloth, accompanying another man who held an umbrella overhead, with another man who was carrying burning incense. When the master sat at the front-centre and removed the cloth, there was a book on the table. He hung his head over the burning incense. The master was called dalang. Wayang wong which was about to start originated in a play dedicated to the gods, so that a dalang has a function like a priest. He would narrate the story, deliver the lines and direct the play. Two pair of actors appeared on the stage from both sides, hanging their heads down.

   There were no sounds in the huge hall and a solemn air filled the space, giving me a sober feeling. The calm was broken, when the king ordered, “Start!” The dalang replied, “Oh!”, slowly opened the book and began to read the text. The story was a chapter of Ramayana. Then, the music started and the singer sang.

   Wayang wong is something similar to nohgaku of our country but it is more understandable for us foreigners, as it is newer and the plays are based on stories. The music was low-toned and the harmony was a complex compound of wooden and metallic sounds, and the trailing note made the listeners absorbed. The play consisted of two scenes, the first being a fight of two warriors. In the break after the first scene, we presented two rolls of Japanese silk and, in return, we received a portrait of the Sultan. In the second scene, a white monkey assaulted the king of giants. It began with a quarrel between the two, who put their right hands on their waists and raised their left hands forwards. It turned into a gentle dance and then to violent action. During the performance, many of servants served drinks and cigars. Their manners in the court were the same as always and they walked on their knees and lightly pressed their hands. When the play reached its climax, the action became as violent as a storm and the king of giants was eventually killed, pierced by the keris of the white monkey. After the performance, everybody returned to their seats and the dalang closed the book and bowed. After a short calm, he responded again to an order given by the Sultan and retired quietly without noise. Then, a soft gamelan was started by the musicians from the left-hand side arbor.

   We expressed our deep thanks to the Sultan and other members of the royal family and, while the national anthem was played, retired from the royal palace, guided by the princes and walking on the flowers again.

*                  *                  *

   I stop my pen here on ‘A Journey to Djakatra’. I do not write about the Buddhist monument of Boroboedoer, the Hindu ruin of Prambanan, Buitenzorg Botanical Garden, etc. that I have described before in Hunting in the Jungle of Malaya[142]. I shall add more if I find something on my way to Singapore[143].

―At Buitenzorg

References

---

[1] A 10,421G/T steamer, launched on 5.11.1921 at Mitsubishi-Nagasaki Ship Building, and served as one of NYK’s Europe Liners. She linked: Yokohama-Kobe-Moji-Shanghai-Hong-Kong-Singapore-Penang-Colombo-Aden-Portside-Naples-Marseille-Gibraltar-London-Antwerp-Rotterdam. She was abandoned in July 1942, when stranded off Omaezaki, Shizuoka, Honshu, Japan. “Maru” is a common suffix for the names of boats in Japan.

[2] The channel between Honshū and Shikoku (See, Sea-route map).

[3] Professor of Geology, Tokyo Imperial University.

[4] Prof. T. W. Vaughan, Oceanology, University of California.

[5] Dr. Frederick. W. Corville, Principal Botanist, U. S. Bureau of Plant Industry, Washington DC.

[6] E. M. Harvey, Professor of Plant Physiology, Oregon State Agricultural College.

[7] Prof. Hirotaro Hattori, Director, The Tokugawa Institute for Biological Research. He was formerly a full-time professor at Tokyo Imperial University.

[8] After the Sino-Japan War (1894-95) in 1895. The peerage rank of Hirobumi

[9] 4,391 G/T steamer. Launched in November 1918 and served for OSK’s Batavia-line until sunk by a tornado to the south of Caroline Islands on 20 January 1943.

[10] Professor of Biology, Tohoku Imperial University.

[11] Viscount Masaaki Hoshina, Secretary, Tokyo Geographical Society.

[12] Dr. Nagamichi Kuroda, Ornithologist, Master of Hunt, Ministry of Imperial Household. Later, he succeeded the title of Marquis.

[13] The sea to the north of Kyūsh(. See, the Sea-route map.

[14] The Emperor’s birthday. The term as well as Chikyūsetsu (Empress’s birthday) has not been used after the World War II.

[15] A river which passes through Tokyo.

[16] After Japan’s ‘Twenty-one Demands’ against China in 1915, anti-Japanese movements grew and led to the Movement of 4 May( at Peking in 1919. The uprising at Hangkow against the Japanese army in 1927 was another symbolic incident

[17] c. A steamed bun stuffed with minced meat and vegetables.

[18] A bunch of 50 sticks as well as 6 blocks are used for divination based on the Yi-King or The Book of Changes

[19] When the author visited there in 1921 in the same season, he wrote that he remembered a Tang poem entitled, “Parting” by Sheng-Yu which may be translated as:

The time is spring on the Yangtze over the trees of willow,

Flowers of willow bring a traveller in a deadly sorrow,

The sound of a flute is on the air in the night of a villa,

You and I shall depart for Xiao-xing and Quin on the morrow.

(Translator’s study)

[20] After the British occupation, a treaty of peace was arranged in January, 1841, and the island of Hong Kong was formally ceded to England on 29 August 1842 with the signing of the Treaty of Nanking.

[21] In 1997, the New Territory leased in 1898 for 99 years was handed over to China, together with Hong Kong Island ceded in 1842, as well as the southern part of the Kowloon peninsula plus Stonecutters Island ceded in 1860.

[22] Yoshinao (1600-1650), the 9th son of Ieyasu Tokugawa. He was made the founder of the Owari-Tokugawa in 1607.

[23] See, Footnote 1 of INTRODUCTION, (About the Author, the Book and the Historical Background

[24] j. A round stone found anywhere in the ground.

[25] An American newspaper cartoon, “Bringing up Father”, also known as “Maggie & Jiggs”, was created in 1913 by George McManus (1884-1954). It was the story of a nouveau riche Irish immigrant and his social climbing wife. (http://www.retroactive.com/ jan98/bringfather2.html)

[26] Unknown to the translator.

[27] Japanese word, meaning lit. a continuous show without any curtain breaks. The word is commonly used for other incessant events and actions.

[28] Short name of Bodhidharma, an Indian Buddhist saint who introduced Zen to China in the 6th C. He is usually depicted or carved as a humorous round figure in Japan.

[29] A bamboo-lady is a cylindrical hollow basket of one foot diameter and five feet long. Contrary to the Dutch-wife, it is used for keeping the abdomen cool, by facilitating the evaporation of sweat, when people have a siesta in hot summer in China and Korea. It has never been introduced into Japan.

[30] A 3,242 ton steamer, launched in 1912 and served until 1948.

[31] Koninklijk Paketvaart Maatschappij. Established in 1888, the company possessed 157 vessels, including De Melchior Treub, and in 1927 operated 60 lines in the East-Indies and 7 lines world-wide. (Ishii, Yoneo (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Indonesia, D(h(-sha Publ. Tokyo 1991).

[32].See, page 134

[33] m. Houseboy, waiter. (This word is almost unheard of today.)

[34] m. Houseboy, waiter. (This word is almost unheard of today.)

[35] Formerly located at Koningsplein Zuid (present Jalan Merdeka Selatan) No. 10. (Advertisement in Officieele Reisgids 2 Nov. 1939-1 Mei 1940. Der Spoor-en Tramwegen 28e Uitgave, 1939). The site is now occupied by National Defence Institution buildings.

[36] A two-wheeled pony-drawn carriage.

[37] Widely called ‘Krakatoa’, whereas the local name was, and is, ‘Krakatau’.

[38] Presumably named after Georg Eberhard Rumphius (1626‑1693), a Germany-born naturalist, who served for VOC and lived three quarters of his life in the East Indies.

[39] A 1014 ton patrol-ship which belonged to the Government Marine launched in 1922. She was sunk by bombing on 26 January 1942.

http://leden.tref.nl/~jviss000/Gouvmar.htm, http://www.geocities.com/dutcheastindies/dutch.losses.html

[40] Poelaoe Seriboe, in local name, located to the north of Batavia.

[41] Anak = m. Child; children.

[42] At that time, the phenomenon was intensively discussed in the scientific journal, Nature, according to Dr. Bethany Nowviskie, Virginia University.

(http://www.people.virginia.edu/~bpn2f/GMH/ a1.html).

For instance, Gerald Manley Hopkins (1844‑1889) contributed a letter and described the colour of the sunset which he saw on 19 October 1884 in Dublin, in Nature, 30 Oct. 1884, page 663, as:

bronzy near the earth; above like peach, or of the blush colour on ripe hazels.

[43] Perhaps, the author remembered “St. Telemachus”, the poem of Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), in which the poet imagined that the situation had been similar in 400 A.D. when the Christian monk was led by an inner voice to Rome from the East and tried to stop the gladiatory game at the Colosseum, but was stoned to death by spectators: the game was banned by Emperor Honorius (reigned 395-423) who heard of this incident. Tennyson wrote:

Had the fierce ashes of some fiery peak

Been hurl’d so high they ranged about the globe?

For day by day, thro’ many a blood‑red eve,

 . . . . . ,

The wrathful sunset glared . . .

 . . . . ,  . . . . . ,

Bathed in that lurid crimson - ask(d Is earth

On fire to the West? or is the Demon‑god

Wroth at his fall?’ . . . ,

 . . . . .

(Tennyson A. The Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson, MacMillan, London (1894). In preparing this note, the translator received information from Prof. Jeff Matthews, Italy, http://faculty.umuc.edu/~jmathew/naples/blog18.htm, as well as from Mr. Allen McGill, Mexico.)

[44] Later, Anak Krakatau rose above the sea-level for the second time and reached 132m above sea-level by 1941. It erupted again in 1960. It was 190m in height in 1973 and is now over 280m.

[45] Dr. K. W. Dammerman, Chief, Zoological Museum and Laboratory, Buitenzorg.

[46] Dr. K. W. Dammerman, Chief, Zoological Museum and Laboratory, Buitenzorg.

[47] Dr. Ch. E. Stehn, Chief, Volcanological Survey, Bandoeng.

[48] Prof. Manabu Miyoshi, Em. Professor, Tokyo Imperial University.

[49] More precisely, “Planten- en Dieren-tuin”, located at Tjikini, Batavia (Cikini, Jakarta), the site of present-day Taman Ismail Marzuki Culture Centre.

[50] His Excellency Jhr. Dr. A. C. D. de Graeff (in office 1926-30).

[51] A comical solo pantomime played for entertainment in indoor parties in Japan.

[52] A carnival-style folk dance danced originally on the day of Bon, a mid-August Buddhism feast in Japan, to welcome the souls of ancestors.

[53] A title of The Ten New-Classic Ballet( created during the Meiji Era in Japan.

[54] Wayang wong (or orang) is a derivative of wayang koelit puppet shadow-play played by real actors and actresses. (See, page 120).

[55] Bugaku is a traditional Japanese stage-dance with music of 8th C. origin, maintained in the imperial court. Noh or Nohgaku is a traditional Japanese stage-play developed in the 13th C. and maintained in warrior houses. Kabuki of the same origin flourished in and after the Edo Era (1600-1868) among the public.

[56] The three Chinese characters were phonetically adopted for spelling Ke-la-pa (Soenda Kelapa) but were used for Djakatra even after the city name changed (Cf. Footnote 64). Chinese expressions for Djakarta and Batavia are 雅加達 and 巴達維亞, respectively.

[57] Imo is a general Japanese word for edible root vegetables. Regarding the arrival of the potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) in Japan, descriptions in literature that state “It was introduced in the Tensho Era (1573‑1592) or Keicho Era (1596‑1614), probably in 1598”, are not precise. Although Dutch ships arrived at Java for the first time in 1596, it was not until 1603 and 1611 that they built their trade-posts at Bantam and Djakatra, respectively. The name Djakatra must have become obsolete thereafter Jan Pieterszoon Coen established a fort and renamed the settlement as Batavia in 1621. After De Liefde arrived in Japan for the first time by drifting ashore in 1600, the visits of other Dutch ships followed in 1609, 1611, 1612, 1614, . . ., the opening of their office at Hirado being in 1609. The departing ports of the second, the third and the fourth fleets, i.e., Roode Leeuw met Pijlen with Griffioen in 1609, Orangnie with Black in 1611 and Roode Leeuw met Pijlen with Griffioen in 1612, were Johor, Patani and Bantam, respectively (Kanai, Madoka, Modern Japan and Holland (a text book for University of Air), University of Air, Tokyo 1993). With reference also to Dutch activities in Java, it is probable that the potato was carried, or the word Jagatara was prefixed, in 1614 by the fifth fleet from Djakatra in which Zeelandia (schip) had been accompanied by the Jaccatra (yacht), or in a later year. A possibility that the potato was brought to Japan earlier by the Portugese and later acquired the popular name, however, is not undeniable. In fact, it is said that the Portuguese brought Nanking potato to Nagasaki in 1576 and planted it in the herbarium in the Todos Los Santos Church in the city (Yoshimura K., et al., Nagasaki Origins, Nagasaki-Bunken-Sha, Nagasaki 1995). If it was the case, the port of origin was probably not Djakatra but Macao or somewhere else, because the Portuguese had visited the former place only between 1513‑27 when the town was still called Soenda Kelapa.

[58] old j. A letter form Jagatara.

[59] 1633 A.D.

[60] Oharu (Jeronima Marino) was born in Nagasaki in 1625 of a Japanese mother and an Italian father. In Batavia, she married Simon Simonsen, a VOC employee and a harbour-master, and gave birth to seven children. She died in 1697 at the age of 72.

[61] Chief of a foreign trading house. Kabitan, a corrupted form of the Portuguese word, capitão, originated during the Portuguese Era (1543-1639 in Japan), was also applied for the Dutch traders (first arrived in 1600), and the Dutch word, opperhoofd, was not adopted.

[62] The seeds of the plants that Oharu requested in her letter (in 1642?) were: Matsu (pine), Konotegashiwa (Chinese Arbor‑vitae, Thuja orientalis L.), Sugi (Japanese cedar) and Hookigi (belvedere, Kochia scoparia). The story was written in the Nagasaki Night Tales (1719), an essay by Nyoken Nishikawa, an astronomer and geographer, but the authenticity of the letter itself has been disputed since the author’s death because the composition with many citations from classic literature looks too beautiful for the writing of a young girl. The second letter written in her last years and signed as “Oharu, Widow of Simonsen” is however considered to be real: it included a large list of valuable presents to be sent to her relatives in Japan.

[63] Contrary to the traditional view that those people were wretched sufferers, civilised Japanese were especially welcomed in Batavia (Shiraishi, Hiroko, The truth of Jagarata-Oharu, Bensei Publ. Tokyo 2001). There, Oharu and many of her fellow women married rich Dutchmen, while Japanese men were highly trusted as traders and mercenaries (Iwao, Seiichi, The Japanese Immigrants in Island South East Asia under the Dutch in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Iwanami-Shoten, Tokyo 1987). Another famous lady was Cornelia, daughter of Cornelis van Nijenrode (Opperhoofd at Hirado, 1623-33) and his Japanese wife, who married a VOC employee, Pieter Knol: her family picture still exists as one of the masterpieces in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

[64] Soenda Kelapa was the name of the seaport of the Hindu Kingdom of Padjadjaran which controlled West Java from the mid-14th C. 1527 (or possibly 1526) was the year when the port was seized by an Islamic leader, Fatahilah, who later established the Sultanate of Bantam. (According to a private communication from Dr. Adolf Heuken SJ, a historian in Jakarta, it was long after the author’s visit that 1526 or 1527 was identified as the year of the seizure of the port: the source of the author’s knowledge is unknown.) Djaja-Karta more correctly means ‘the city of victory’ rather than ‘the city of happiness and prosperity’. In 1621, the site was renamed, after the Latin word Bataaf (Hollander) by Jan Pieterszoon Coen who established a fort there. The old name, Djakarta (now spelt as Jakarta) was revived in 1942 during the Japanese occupation. Buitenzorg was also changed to Bogor during the same time. The name, Jayakarta (new spelling), exists today as the names of a street and of a train station in north Jakarta.

[65] An obvious misprint in the Japanese text. It was actually the Law High School, located west of the Koningsplein, which is now occupied by the Ministry of Defense. The Technical High School was established in Bandoeng in 1920 (by donation of K. A. Bosscha, a successful tea-planter).

[66] A distinguished chemist and rubber expert, Dr. O. De Vries authored a comprehensive monograph, the title of English version being Estate Rubber, Its Preparation, Properties and Testing (1919). He was also a professor of chemistry, at the Medical High School, Batavia.

[67] By an Act on the Government of Taiwan issued in April 1896, the Governor-General was placed under the command and control of the Minister of Colonial Affairs of Tokyo. This status was maintained until the territory left the hands of Japan after the World War II.

[68] It was １７ May, according to the Proceedings of the Congress.

At present known as Gambir station, situated to the east of the Koningsplein (now Medan Merdeka).

[69] At present known as Gambir station, situated to the east of the Koningsplein (now Medan Merdeka).

[70] Zoological Museum and Laboratory

[71] The location could be either the Museum and Inquiry Office for Economic Botany or the Herbarium and Museum for Systematic Botany.

[72] Unknown to the translator.

[73] ’Boiling in a cauldron’ is said to be one of the methods of punishment in the hell. The quotation sounds like a title of rakugo (traditional one-man comic talk) but this is not certain.

[74] The train may have taken the Buitenzorg-Soekaboemi-Bandoeng route which was laid around the south of the West Java Hills, via Soekaboemi, instead of returning to Batavia and changing to the direct line to Bandoeng (via Tjikampek).

[75] A prestigious hotel in Bandoeng built in 1897 and existing to date. The famous Wrightian style building on the Groote Post Weg (the present Jalan Asia-Afrika) was designed by Prof. C. P. Wolff Schoemaker and built in 1930. According to a family member, Soekarno (1901-1970), a former student of Prof. Schoemaker at Technical Highschool Bandoeng, who later became the first president of Indonesia, participated in the project as an architect and made a significant contribution by introducing a new construction method.

[76] Technical High-School Bandoeng (Cf. Footnote 65)

[77] Dr. Kunitaro Niomi, Geological Institute, South Manchuria Railway Co., Dairen.

[78] Presently, Husein Sastranegara Airport.

[79] KNILM (Koninklijke Nederland-Indische Luchtvaart Maatschappij N. V.), established in the previous year in 1928 (eight years after KLM).

[80] The same phenomenon as Brockengespenst observed before the emergence of aeroplane only at some mountains, viz. Harz, Germany.

[81] Kawah = cauldron; kettle; crater. Ratoe (Ratu) is usually used for a queen but also a king. Oepas (upas) has the meaning of a messenger; an attendant; policeman, besides poison or toxin. Elderly people in Bandoeng say that they remember the meaning of Kawah Oepas as ‘the policeman cauldron’ rather than ‘the poisonous cauldron’.

[82] Prof. Shonen Matsumura, Entomology, Hokkaido Imperial University.

[83] Assistant Prof. Akira Matsumura, Anthropology, Tokyo Imperial University.

[84] The name in the original text could be a misprint. The person may be Dr. Keinosuke Ihara, Geologist, Imperial Geological Survey, Tokyo.

[85] Asa-gao (morning glory) in the Japanese text was probably a misprint with Hiru-gao (bindweed) being the correct plant.

[86] Dr. Hatai went to America for graduate studies of biology. He spent over twenty years there until he quitted the chair of a professorship at Pennsylvania University and moved to Tohoku Imperial University in 1922 (Aramata, Hiroshi, Episodes of Science in Great East-Asia, Chikuma-Shobo, Tokyo 1996).

[87] Prof. F. A. F. C. Went, University of Utrecht; President, Science Section, Royal Academy of Sciences, Amsterdam.

[88] Sociëteit Concordia, built in 1879 by Dutch architects, Van G. Last and C. P. W. Schoemaker. The building was renamed as Gedoeng Merdeka (Independence Building), and used as the venue of the Asia Africa Conference in 1955. It is located on the present-day Jalan Asia-Afrika, former Groote Post Weg.

[89] Traditional Japanese formal dress for men bearing the family crest on the back.

[90] Perhaps they were actually Soendanese. It is confusing for foreigners as the west part of Java Island is designated as Soenda (Sunda) according to the people’s ethnic name.

[91] The author used a word, Ojōsan (young lady) which has the nuance of politeness and friendliness.

[92] Possibly a phrase from an unidentified Chinese poem, or the author’s original.

[93]Haori, a traditional jacket. Shirushi-banten, a traditional casual jacket bearing patterns to denote a shop or a guild and used by workers.

[94] A famous red-light zone which existed in Tokyo from the Edo Era until the 1950s.

[95] In old days, bamboo was used also as material for large constructions. Bamboo-made suspension bridges were common in countryside. To celebrate the coronation of Queen Wilhelmina in 1890, an exact 1/10 model of Eiffel Tower was built exclusively with bamboo at Tasikmalaya, West Java (Njis, E. Breton de, Tempo Doeloe - Fotografische Documenten uit het OudeIndie 1870-1914, Amsterdam E. M. Querido’s Eitgerbers M. J. 1961).

[96] ‘Purple mountains and clear water’ is a Japanese idiom. ‘Blue’ may be better accepted in the Western sense for expressing the elegance of the colour of a mountain.

[97] Modern angkloeng have adopted the diatonic scale, while traditional ones had only four tones. It is said that angkloeng originates from the ancient inhabitants, the descendants of autochthonous known as Kalang (wild devils) who did not extinct in Java until well into the Hindu period (Campbell, D. M., Java: Past and Present, Vol. I, William Heinemann, London 1915).

[98] The Sundanese name for banyan tree (Ficus benjamina Linn), now spelt as “caringin”, which is the same as “waringin” in Javanese or (beringin( in modern Indonesian (according to Dra. Ms. Yuzammi, MSc, Bogor Botanical Garden). Traditionally, the area (West Java) was the territory of Sunda.

[99] A boat made by hollowing out the trunk of a tree.

[100] While the chirp of insects may sound noisy for Westerners, some types of cricket are particularly loved by Japanese people.

[101] During the same day’s Final General Meeting, a Canadian representative, from the east coast of the Pacific, mentioned, “Kipling (1865-1936) evidently never dreamed of anything of the nature of the Pacific Science Association when he said: East is east and west is west, And never the twain shall meet”.(The same phrase was also cited by the Governor General in his inaugurating address. (The proceedings of Fourth Pacific Science Congress Batavia-Bandoeng (Java) 1929, Vol. I).

[102] 3,019m

[103] The Owari-Tokugawa family owned huge mountainous lands in Hokkaido and in Kiso (in Central Japan).

[104] The trees have virtually all gone now!

[105] Located at the tip of Miura Peninsula in Kanagawa Prefecture.

[106] Dr. Jiri Baum of the Entomological Department of National Museum, Prague, Czechoslovakia. The author wrote his name as Baum-kun with a suffix used in Japan to call a man of the same or lower level with intimacy and friendliness.

[107] Lit. smooth water( in Sundanese.

[108] Dr. J. G. B. Beumée, Chief, Herbarium for Systematic Botany, Buitenzorg

[109] Mr. L. Tao, The China Society of Arts and Science, Shanghai.

[110] Rafflesia arnoldi, named after Stamford Raffles and Dr. Joseph Arnold who together discovered the plant in 1818 in Bengkulu, Sumatra. Stamford Raffles who governed Java during the British Occupation (1811-16) stayed in Bengkulu, Sumatra, until he acquired Singapore Island from the King of Johor and moved there in 1919.

[111] A kind of Japanese sugar sweet similar to English toffee, typically formed into a flower shape. The name has been derived from alfeloa which arrived from Portugal in the 16th C.

[112] In terms of height, Bunga Bangkai (Amorphophallus titanum) of Sumatran origin is even bigger, growing over 2 metres tall and up to 50 cm wide. The dishonourable name (corpse flower) originates from the bad smell which resembles that of a decomposing corpse. This plant is cultivated in the Botanical Garden, Bogor, West Java, and bears flowers every 3 or 4 years. It is said that rafflesias had also grown in the same Garden during the Dutch time but the efforts to culture it again has not been successful.

[113] Wayang koelit (See, page 104, 178).

[114] In the Dutch East-Indies, equality of status with Europeans was granted to Japanese citizens living in the Islands from 1899, whereas, in America, Japanese immigrants suffered from the Alien Land Law (California, 1913) and new immigrants were forbidden by the Japanese Exclusion Law (1924) (Vlekke, Bernard H. M., The Story of the Dutch East Indies, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1945, and other references.)

[115] A character in the Kabuki drama, Kanadehon-Chushingura, a story of loyalists’ revenge. A merchant, Gihei Amagawaya was asked by loyalists to collect weapons. When a loyalist who disguised himself as an enemy came and interrogated Gihei about the plot, to test his loyalty, the latter sat cross-legged dignifiedly on the chest in which he had hidden the weapons. He refused to confess, and said “I am a man. (How I can tell it to you.)”

[116] This hotel still exists presently under the name of Hotel Garuda on Jalan Malioboro No. 60.

[117] All of them are typical Japanese foods, sushi; sour rice balls with raw fish, soba and udon; noodles, tsukemono; pickles and chadzuke; cooked rice immersed in tea together with other small ingredients.

[118] In the Dutch East-Indies, the Sultan at Jogjakarta and the Soesoehoenan of Solo (Soerakarta) had semi-autonomous governments, so that they had their own ministers. After the Independence of Indonesia, Jogjakarta was given the status of Daerah Istimewa (Special District), but Solo was integrated in the Central Java because they had sided to the Netherlands during the time of “The Struggle for Independence (17 Aug. 1945 - 27 Dec. 1949)”.

[119]A short sword with a wavy blade, found in Java and neighbouring areas.

[120] “Hattori-san” in the Japanese text. The suffix, san used for both male and female has a more informal and friendly nuance than Mr. and Mrs.

[121]^.A hot-spa resort in Kanagawa Prefecture to the east of Mt. Fuji.

[122] Corruption of the Sanskrit word, Yama, i.e., the king of hell.

[123] “Low-carrier-horse” written with Chinese characters in, 下駄馬, can be also read as “clog-horse”, a horse which can be used as easily as a pair of clogs.

[124] Tengger (or Tenggerese) are the local tribe. They have rejected foreign influence and maintained Buddha Mahayana, a mixture of Buddhism and Hinduism, of Majapahit times (14-15th C.) until now.

[125] The hero of the famous novel, “Don Quixote” written by Miguel de Cervantes in 1605-1615 in which Don Quixote had a delusion to be a knight and took to the road on the back of a donkey in search of adventure.

[126] 2,392m.

[127] 2,440m

[128] Simpangsche Sociëteit. The building, built in 1907 and renamed in 1945 as Balai Pemuda (Youth Centre), still exists and is now used as a cinema and an exhibition room.

[129] The whole text of Tokugawa’s speech was as follows:

“Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen!

After the unusually successful meetings of the congress in Bandoeng, we have been enjoying the excursions through this wonderful country of Java. Representing the Japanese delegates, let me offer the most sincere thanks to Mr. President and the General Secretary, as well as to other members of Committee, for their elaborate preparation for the Congress.

We are no less indebted to our esteemed leaders of various excursions, who not only took trouble in producing exact and concrete guide-books, but also took us around in their respective fields. I hope they will accept our heartily thanks.

Our thanks are due also to the governor of East Java, the Mayor and the Local Committee of Soerabaja for their efforts to make comfortable arrangements in various ways.

Words are not sufficient for realizing our feelings, here in this hall of Farewell Dinner. To congratulate the greatest success of the Fourth Pacific Congress, let us stand up and make three cheers of ‘Banzai’.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I hope, you will favour us in joining us.”

 (As it was in the original text in the Proceedings of Fourth Pacific Science Congress 1929, Vol. I.)

[130] There are other theories. It might have originated from Negoro Suroboyo (Settlement of tired victors), a name given by Moslems after their victory against Majapahit, or Suro-ing-Boyo (Brave against danger) given for a VOC fortress, or Segura Baia (Safe port) taken from the Portuguese (A. Nagazumi Historical Walk of South-East Asia (1986), Tokyo Univ. Press).

[131] The Chinese characters mean ‘wash-away river’.

[132] Better called ‘a Hindu kingdom founded by the Hindus’, because the Buddhism had already been incorporated into Hindu in Java before Islam prevailed in the 15th C.

[133] The Kingdom of Mataram (new Mataram or Islamic Mataram) originated in 1578. After a series of wars of succession occurred amongst the royal family in the 18th C., Hamengkoe Boeono I was given a half of the kingdom and made the Sultan of Jogjakarta in 1755, in accordance to the Gianti Treaty imposed by VOC.

[134] Mr. Ogawa was originally a painter. After graduating from Meiji Art School, he took a boat in 1899 with an ambition to go to Paris and stopped at Singapore to raise a fund for himself for studying in France. After teaching painting and painting portraits for foreigners for three years in Singapore, he moved to Java, suggested by a captain of K. P. M., and continued the same works. In 1905, he decided to change his course to pioneer the trading of Japanese products by investing his savings which were already sufficient to send him to France. (Takeda, S. (ed.), Jagatara Episodes - The footmarks of Japanese in the Dutch East Indies, Tsurukawa-Insatsusho, Nagasaki 1968/ Yoshiya, Nobuko, The Dutch East Indies which I saw recently, Shufunotomo-sha, Tokyo 1941)

[135] See, Footnote 55.

[136] Traditional martial arts in Japan, including the use of a bow-and-arrow, a sword, a spear, etc.

[137] A line in a long poem, “Song of Everlasting Sorrow”, written by Po Chu‑i (772‑846) about the fate of the last Tang Emperor, Hsuan Tsung (685‑762

[138] Batik wrap-around. Kain = m. cloth, Kepala = m. head, Pandjang = m. long. Dodot, a large wrap-around, measuring, e.g., 4m (2m, was only used by the highest ranking royal family members.

[139] m. parasol, umbrella.

[140] Tatami, a rectangular traditional Japanese floor mat, the standard size being 181.8cm x 90.9cm.

[141] Lit. “The reign of His Majesty”, the national anthem of Japan.

[142] Part Two in this translation.

[143] The author was to extend his journey to Borneo, Celebes and Malaya.