Page:Life in Java Volume 1.djvu/80

62 for a full-grown man with a wife, and perhaps a brood of little ones. His name was Drahman, and he acted as my interpreter with the natives in the interior, the language in which I communicated with him being Malay.

All preparations for departure being made, my kind friend had our Rees-Wagen conveyed on board the S. S. Oenarang, in which we embarked on the 4th of October, and left the harbour of Batavia for Samarang and Surabaya.

Some people have asserted that, in order to see a country well, you ought either to go by yourself, or only with an intimate friend, but by no means with a lady, who is more likely to prove an encumbrance than anything else.

In nine cases out of ten, I doubt not but they are right; and as for travelling in Java, if your wife persisted in carrying about with her numerous portmanteaux, band-boxes, carpet-bags, &c., &c., you would certainly have little chance, in a Rees-