Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/96

76 the Indies, the one splendid jewel in the Netherlands crown, and a possession to which poor Cuba, although corresponding exactly to it geographically and politically, has been vainly compared.

There were often interesting table d'hôte companies gathered at noon and at night in the long dining-room of the Buitenzorg hotel. While many of the Dutch officials and planters, and their wives, maintained the wooden reserve and supercilious air of those uncertain folk of the half-way strata in society everywhere, there were others whose intelligence and courtesy and friendly interest remain as green spots in the land. There was one most amiable man, who, we thought, in his love of country, was anxious to hear us praise it. We extolled the cool breezes and the charming day, and said: "You have a beautiful country here."

"This is not my country," he answered.

"But are you not Dutch?"

"Oh, yes."

"Then Java is yours. It is the Netherlands even if it is India."

"Yes; but I am from East Java, near Malang"—a section all of three hundred miles away, off at the other end of the island; but a strong distinction an extreme aloofness or estrangement exists between residents of East, West, and Middle Java, and between those of this island and of the near-by Sumatra, Celebes, and Molucca, all Indonesians as they are, under the rule of the one governor-general of Netherlands India, representing the little queen at The Hague.

Often when we spoke of "India" or "southern