Page:Life in Java Volume 1.djvu/142

124 There are seven posts between Surabaya and Passeroewan, each calculated to be about ten miles apart from the other. We generally took half an hour to drive from post to post, the horses going at full gallop all the way, and as they were relieved by fresh ones at every station, our ride was, as may be imagined, rapid, agreeable, and exciting.

The coucer seldom exerted his voice with shouts like the "Vous en! allez—diable!—sacr-rre!" of the French diligence driver, or the "Anda! Mariano anda!" of the Spanish cochero, but used his whip freely, not on the poor beasts, but on the air, producing such long and repeated volleys of cracks as none but a Javanese coachman can produce, sending the horses on ventre á terre, and causing the dust to rise and roll behind us in clouds.

As the post-masters of the different stations had been apprised the day before of our coming—for, on ordering his first horses, the traveller is expected to state the intended day's journey, and