Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/332

254 never do. I wonder what dreadfully honest sort of place I have come to, and hope it won’t hurt my character.

“Is it really you, Carel, and is this really Java?” I ask, for it seems so strange to be sitting opposite an old friend out here, smoking and drinking—but good it is to see again a friend, and one whose face and name can only recall such pleasant memories. I ask many questions, and he tells me many interesting things—but all the time, delighted and charmed as I am with the beauty and character of my surroundings, I am only too conscious of that terrible odour. It must be bad drains, is so strong, and has pervaded every inch of Batavia I have seen since I arrived at Pandjong Priak Wharf—the train, the streets, the canal, and now the hotel.

“It is a most interesting and beautiful place,” I say, “but it must be unhealthy with such terrific drainage—or want of drainage.”

“Drainage?” queries Carel.

“Yes, this awful smell that pervades the whole place—how can you endure it?”’

Carel leaned back in his chair and laughed till he was no longer pale, but quite rosy.

“It is not drains,” he said, “it is the durian— our famous fruit!”

Then he explains that this much-prized fruit, a large thing with a hard rind, is perfectly delightful and beloved by every one, only that it has this awful smell. At first you cannot go near it—I can well believe that—and when you do, it is long ere you have the courage to attack it. You generally give it up at first and fly from it, but once you overcome the smell, and taste the fruit, you are content. Perhaps so.

I, of course, asked to be shown the durian at once, but it was so overpowering that I was never