The Australian National University (ANU) Library - Asia-Pacific Digital Collections: Boyes/Some Notes on Java

IT was in 1595 A. D. that the Dutch first appeared in Java and established their settlement at Bantam, in the west of the island. Thence they proceeded along the coast to Madura at the far eastern extremity, and here they were guilty of a barbarous massacre of the inhabit-ants. In 1598 A. D. they returned to Bantam, and not long afterwards obtained a position on the swamps of Jakatra, where in 1621 A. D. they founded their town of Batavia. After the fall of Majapahit in 1478 A. D. the island of Java had broken up into a number of petty states once more, which for the next century and a-half, time after time, were united into larger kingdoms, only once again and again to suffer disruption. The Dutch availed themselves of these internecine quarrels to advance their own interests, and in 1646 A.D. they negotiated their first treaty. This was followed by other treaties, ranging from 1677 A. D. to 1691 A. D., securing the cession of large territory and monopolies of pepper, sugar and cloths. The English during this period had been at Bantam, where they settled in 1602 A.D., but in 1683A.D. they retired from the competition with

the Dutch and withdrew from Java altogether just as Holland obtained control over the whole island, with the exception of the Sultanates of Surakarta and Jokhyokarta in the east and the Preanger territories in the south-west. In the middle of the eighteenth century the Dutch were engaged in a prolonged war with the object of subduing the eastern portion of the island. Up to 1742 A. D. the whole of this portion of Java was held by the Susuhnan. The Dutch, taking advantage of the ambition of a young prince of the reigning family, by name Manhu Buni, urged him privately to lay claim to the province of Matarem as his appanage, a province which the Dutch wished to detach from the Susuhnan. Manhu Buni, nothing loth, made his claim, which was, as calculated by the Dutch, scornfully rejected. A civil war was commenced, which gave the Dutch the opportunity they wanted, and, after twelve years, they succeeded in partitioning the dominions of the Susuhnan into three- portions. One, now called the Sultanat of Surakarta, sixteen districts, remained with the Susuhnan; another, seven districts, went to Manhu. Buni as Sultan of Jokhyokarta, and the third portion, thirty districts, by far the largest slice of the whole, embracing a stretch of 250

miles of coast line, was ceded to the Dutch, by whom it has been ever since held. The Sultans after the issue of this war held their reduced dominions as vassals of the Dutch, until, in the third decade of the present century, a second war left the Princes with practically nothing left of their old territories except their private domains, During the eighteenth century the Dutch Indies were administered by the Dutch East India Company, their charter including Sumatra and many of the islands in the Archipelago. This century of maladministration landed the Company in 1795 A. D. in debt to the amount of 16o millions of florins, or 13 millions sterling.

The Company was dissolved and a Commission was appointed from Holland, which merely suggested reductions and failed to cut away the root of the evil, which was the monopoly system. The deficits still went on, and then attention was turned towards the methods pursued in British India. Ignorance, however, of these institutions, combined with prejudice in favour of exclusive trading, defeated amendment, and another Commission, which sat in 1803 A. D., maintained the forced contingents of produce, the forced services and the monopolies of pepper and coffee. Certain reforms

in the judicial and the police administration were recommended, as also were the separation of the Government proper from the direction of trade, which was to be handed over to a Board of Revenue and Commerce. The resolution on this report abolished monopolies: but it fell through, and Marshall Daendels was sent out to institute reforms and protect the natives. He did nothing, says Raffles, but squeeze them a little tighter. In 1811 A. D. Holland became a province of France and the English at once occupied Java, which they held for three years, restoring the island to the Dutch in 1814 A. D.

The occupation of Java by the English seems to be a convenient point in its history at which to take a brief survey of the country in its economic, social and political aspects as they presented themselves to an observer at that time, and as they are described by Sir Stamford Raffles in his graphic account of Java and the Javans in his Minutes, written as Governor-General of this island and of the other islands of the Archipelago. The island of Java measures 666 miles in length, varying in breadth from 135 to56 miles, and is 50,000 square miles in area. It forms the western end of that belt of volcanic islands which encircles the Malay Archipelago, and which is traceable through Bali,

Lombok, Sombawa, Flores, and Timor. From one end to the other it is mountainous, there being few plains which are unbroken for many miles by one range or another. All these ranges are volcanic, and the number of volcanoes are innumerable, over forty of them being more or less active at the present day. Semeru, the loftiest, is 12,238 feet high. The eruptions of some of them have been very terrible within the memory of living Javans, the latest being that of Krakatoa, an island lying in the Straits of Sumatra. In the eastern part of the island is a singular crater, that of Grobogan, more than a mile across, the greater portion of the area of which is covered with a crust of caked volcanic earth, while in the centre is a large lake of boiling mud, similar to, but much vaster than, Tikitiri in New Zealand, from which great globes of mud rise almost free of the hideous cauldron and fall back with appalling throbs into the seething mass, only to be forced up again and again by the power of the steam below. In 1822 the outburst from Galung-gung destroyed 114 villages and 4,000 lives were lost. Another eruption in 1867 killed 1,000 people in the district of Jokhyokarta, and in 1872 the eruption of Merapi was very severe. Off Banjuwangi submarine earthquakes are very frequent, and

twice, within a very few years, both the ocean telegraph cables between Java and Australia have been destroyed at a point not many miles distant from the eastern extremity of Java.

The soil of the valleys is extraordinarily fertile, consisting entirely of the disintegrated debris of the mountains and continually renewed year by year by the washings from the hillsides. The eastern end of the island is more fertile than the western: and yet the western is magnificent, even when it is compared with the richest plains of Hindustan. It may be said, indeed, that the soil is absolutely inexhaustible everywhere. No manure is ever given nor is any required, for the water, which is trained on to the cultivated lands from the sides of the mountain by the most elaborate system of irrigation ducts, brings its own manure with it in the shape of the most fertilising pulverised volcanic soil. The teak forests are very fine, occupying at the present time, it is estimated, some 2,300 square miles. The denudation of this magnificent timber land has been proceeding almost as recklessly as in our Australian Colonies, but fortunately the continuous moisture of the undergrowth checks damage by forest fires.

The hills not only ensure fertility to the valleys, but they furnish every climate short of the Sub-Arctic. The volcanic peak of Bali is 11,000 feet high, and throughout the island these magnificent cones, each like a Vesuvius, but ten times larger, rise into the sky, springing themselves from uplands which are elevated from three to five thousand feet above the sea. The result is that, though the island is so near the Equator, the climate of many places is quite temperate, and in those parts is exceedingly healthy and suitable for Europeans. So much is this the case that in 1672 A. D., when Holland was overrun by the French under Louis XIV., the Dutch actually contemplated transferring the whole of the population en masse to Java. in the low grounds near the coast the Hollanders would have plenty of opportunity of introducing the familiar canals of the home country, and this they have actually done in all the principal seaport towns, such as Batavia, Samarang and Soerabia, with, however, very doubtful advantage, for the malaria in these cities is very bad, and it cannot be lessened by these canals, which are cut through the inhabited quarters in many directions.

The wet season lasts from October to April. There is incessant thunder and lightning, but

the storms are not violent and the seas of this part of the Archipelago are almost always smooth and quiet. These waters are therefore well suited to the native form of boat, the "prahu," in which the Javans boldly venture out fishing fifty or sixty miles from land, absolutely certain of getting a steady breeze in the latter part of the day to bring them landwards. The Javans never seem to have advanced in ship-building beyond the "prahu," which is an open boat; and this indicates that all external commerce must have been carried on by other nations seeking Java, such as the Malays, Bugis (of the Celebes), Indians, Chinese, and Arabs. The Javans themselves never ventured beyond their own coasts and the islands in the immediate vicinity in the search of trade. Descended, as most of them must be, from the daring mariners who crossed the Bay of Bengal in search of new lands, it seems strange that this should have been the case. Java was in former times the granary of the eastern islands, and in addition to rice she exported in Raffles' time, for the use of the other Malay islands, salt, oil, tobacco, timber, Java cloths, brassware, &c., while she imported from the same islands tin from Banka, Bugi cloth from the Celebes, ponies from Sumbawa, gold dust, diamonds,

camphor, tortoise-shell, dyeing woods, nut-megs, cloves, mace, beche de mer and edible birds'-nests. These last mentioned articles of commerce sold in Raffles' time for their weight in silver, the Chinese being the buyers. Java, as well as other islands in the Archipelago, produces these, and Holland used to get a revenue of 200,000 dollars per annum from this item alone. The bird which constructs this nest is a swallow which builds in the caverns in the rocks. The nests are gathered sometimes twice a year, just after the young are fledged, but care must be taken not to drive away the birds by too frequent disturbance.

The ancient Javan commerce was all but annihilated by the Dutch restrictive system, native traders being forbidden to traffic in any of the articles included in the Dutch monopolies, e.g., coffee, salt, indigo, opium, timber, four kinds of spices, pepper, tin, Surat silks, Indian cloths and Japan copper, while numerous prohibitory orders were issued about navigation to and from certain ports, shackling every movement of commerce. The ordinances obstructed trade in the interior quite as much as on the sea and at the ports, endless transit dues being levied on all merchandise at every stage. These transit dues were farmed out to the

Chinese, who levied pretty well what they pleased, and into whose hands the unrestricted trade of the country, excerpt the local bazaar trade, naturally passed.

Marshall Daendels constructed with forced labour a magnificent grand Trunk Road from one end of the island to the other, and crossroads of a similar kind were made leading to the main ports; but the natives were not allowed to use these metalled lines of communication. They were compelled to follow their own tracks. Nothing strikes the traveller so much, even at the present day, as the perfect state in which these military lines of communication are kept: the very sides of the road looking as if they were swept and sodded, the grass banks topped with neat bamboo fencing and each tree protected while young with the same kind of trellis-work. All this is effected at a nominal cost to the Government, the whole being carried out by the Corvee system. But no less remarkable is the entire absence of cart traffic on these lines. It is evidently still forbidden. Pack animals alone are allowed. The system of post travelling is as well arranged as the roads are good. At every five miles a covered archway spans the road, under which on each side are stabled the Government

stage ponies. The traveller's hired carriage, generally a small phaeton, draws up under this staging house, out of the sun and sheltered from rain; the six ponies, which are the ordinary team, are changed, and away speeds the traveller over the well-kept track. The fares for these journeys are not high, and the stranger is inclined to think much good of a Government which looks after his comfort so successfully.

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Some notes on Java: Section 2