Page:Life in Java Volume 1.djvu/164

146 ourselves. At the gate was a very steep declivity, which our horses had galloped up on our arrival, a feat to which they were doubtless accustomed. We now descended this declivity, and strolled on to the village close by, where between one and two hundred families live. Their principal food, as we were informed, is Indian corn, which, when gathered, is left to dry under a roof of attap, supported by four poles, about twelve feet high, with slighter poles placed crosswise, from which the heads of corn are suspended. The inhabitants of this village are employed by Herr Van Rhee in his extensive gardens and fields. They seemed very shy at the appearance of strangers; and this was not to be wondered at, few of them, as I was told, having ever been beyond the outskirts of the native village of Passerpan.

Our host was a gardener on a large scale, having under him about fifteen hundred men, to whom he let portions of land, purchasing the