Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/199

Rh a great factor in the remarkable increase of population in the last half-century; but it took many years of precept and example, strict laws, and a rating of native rulers and village chiefs according to the cleanliness of their kampongs, before the native hamlets became tropical counterparts of Broek and the other absurdly clean towns of Holland. These careless children of the tropics are obliged to whitewash their houses twice a year, look to their drains and debris, and use disinfectants; and with the dainty little basket houses, one of which may be bought outright for five dollars, and the beautiful palms and shrubberies to serve as screens from rice-field vapors, each little kampong is a delight in every way.

Men and boys toiled to the passer, bent over with the weight of one or two monstrous jack-fruits or durians on their backs. A woman with a baby swinging in the slandang over her shoulder had tied cackling chickens to the back of her belt, and trudged on comfortably under her umbrella; and a boy swung a brace of ducks from each end of a shoulder-pole, and trotted gaily to the passer. The kampongs, or villages, when not hidden in palm- and plantain-groves behind fancy bamboo fences, were rows of open houses on each side of the highway, and we reviewed native life at leisure while the ponies were changed. The friendly, gentle little brown people welcomed us with amused and embarrassed smiles when our curiosity as to sarong-painting, lacquering, and mat-weaving carried us into the family circle. The dark, round-eyed, star-eyed babies and children showed no fear or shyness, and the tiniest ones—their