Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/303

Rh were impressed by the methods of astronomers who rolled up their sleeves and did all kinds of manual labor themselves.

The traveler who sets foot in Netherlands India must, within three days of his landing, procure a permit to remain or travel in the country. No charge is made for issuing these 'toelatingskaarten,' but they are made out on government stamped paper, and a guilder and a half collected for the stamp. Upon arriving at a hotel the guest must give a complete account of himself and his movements in a register which is examined every few days by a government official—the resident or assistant resident. Through this means the movements of every traveler, Dutch or foreign, become known to the government. This elaborate and cumbersome system of espionage can not but discourage all except those having urgent business from visiting this interesting corner of the world.

Padang is the capital and principal city of Sumatra. Padang is the native word for plain. It was applied originally to the level stretch of sandy country in which the city is located. The oldest part of the city, the business section, lies along the north bank of a small river, where the native prahus with their cargoes of coffee, rice, spices, etc., from up and down the coast, lie securely sheltered by a high promontory (the Appenberg) across the river to the south. Only the barest ridge of sand, which has been raised by the surf, separates the city from the Indian Ocean. As the tropical seas are ordinarily calm, a murmur is all that usually finds its way to the ears of the inhabitants. To the east rise the steep, heavily wooded slopes of the Barisan range, a dense, greenish black chain from three to five thousand feet in altitude. A wild inhospitable region of tropical jungle it looks and is. In the early morning the sky is often clear, and the mountains free from clouds. At such times the symmetrical cone of the extinct Talang, further inland, is clearly visible. To the north the Singalang and Tandikat, and the Merapi with its plume of smoke, raise their green slopes against the sky.

In Padang are the home of the governor, the government officers, the headquarters of the army and the Staatsspoorweg or government railway. Here also are located the government warehouses, and a branch of the Java Bank, the government banking institution of the colonies. Padang is the center of the coffee trade of Sumatra. Most of the plantations, both government and private, are near the central portion of the island, the crops coming to this point for sale and shipment.

Although the city contains a population of over thirty thousand people, it is difficult to realize the fact; for, situated in a grove of cocoanut trees, it is almost entirely hidden from view. There are about 2,000 Europeans, practically all Dutch, and 5,000 Chinese; the