and
veneration, for it huddles there, in the midst of that awful solitude,
like some monster in its death agony, gasping and groaning.

The transition from the lofty solitudes of the Tengger Mountains to the
steaming, teeming thoroughfares of Surabaya, the metropolis of eastern
Java, is not a pleasant one. For Surabaya--there are no less than
half-a-dozen ways of spelling its name--though the greatest trading
port in Java, from the point of view of the visitor is not an
attractive city. Neither is it a healthy place, for it has a hot,
humid, sticky climate, it lacks good drinking water and enjoys no
refreshing breeze; mosquitoes feed on one's body and red ants on one's
belongings; malaria and typhoid are prevalent and even bubonic plague
is not unknown, the combined effect of all these showing in the sallow
and enervated faces of its inhabitants. Yet it is a bustling,
up-and-doing city, as different from phlegmatic, conservative old
Batavia as Los Angeles is from Boston.

Unlike the houses of Batavia, which stand far back from the street in
lovely gardens, the houses of Surabaya are built directly on the
street, with their gardens at the back. Most of the houses of the
better class are in the Dutch colonial style--low and white with green
blinds and across the front a stately row of columns. Every house is
marked with a huge signboard bearing the number and the owner's name,
thus making it easy for the stranger to find the one for which he is
looking. There are no sidewalks and, as a consequence, walking is
anything but pleasant, the streets being deep in dust during the dry
season and equally deep in mud during the rains. I do not recall ever
having seen a city of its size with so much wheeled traffic. Indeed,
the scene on the Simpang Road about three in the afternoon, when the
merchants are returning to their offices after the midday siesta,
resembles that on Fifth Avenue at the rush hour, the broad
thoroughfare being literally packed from curb to curb with vehicles of
every description: the ramshackle little victorias known as _mylords_,
the high, two-wheeled dog-carts, with their seats back to back, called
_sados_, the two-pony cabs termed _kosongs_, creaking bullock carts
with wheels higher than a man, hand-cars and rickshaws hauled by
dripping coolies, and other coolies staggering along beneath the weight
of burdens swinging from the carrying-poles called _pikolans_, and
every make and model of motor-cars from o