excuse, the extreme discourtesy shown by the
management toward foreigners desiring to visit the plant.

It takes three and a half hours by express train from Bandoeng to
Buitenzorg, the summer capital of the Indies, and the journey is one of
the pleasantest in Java, the railway being bordered for miles by
marvellously constructed rice terraces which climb the slopes of the
Gedei, tier on tier, transforming the mountainsides into a series of
hanging gardens. When the shallow, water-filled terraces are
illuminated by the tropic sun, they look for all the world like a
titanic stairway of silver ascending to the heavens. Take my word for
it, the rice terraces of the Preangers are in themselves worth
traveling the length of Java to see.

Though Batavia is the official capital of Netherlands India, the
hill-station of Buitenzorg, some twenty miles inland, is the actual
seat of government and the residence of the Governor-General.
Buitenzorg--the name means "free from care"--is to Java what Simla is
to India, what Baguio is, in a lesser degree, to the Philippines. It
has often been compared to Versailles, and, in its pleasant existence,
in the enchanting effects which have been produced by its landscape
gardeners, in its great white palace even, one can trace some slight
resemblance to the famous home of le Roi Soleil. Buitenzorg is
conspicuously different from other Javanese cities, partly because,
being the seat of government, its European quarter is exceptionally
extensive, but primarily because it boasts the famous Botanical
Gardens, in many respects the finest in the world. Its avenues, shaded
by splendid trees, are lined with charming, white-walled villas, the
residences of the government officials and of retired officers and
merchants, set far back in lovely, fragrant gardens. The palace of the
Governor-General, a huge, white building of classic lines, faintly
reminiscent of the White House in Washington, is superbly situated in
the Botanic Gardens, the rear overlooking a charming lotos pond, its
surface covered with the huge leaves of the water-plant known as
_Victoria Regia_, amid which numbers of white swans drift gracefully;
while the colonnaded front commands a magnificent view of a vast deer
park which reminds one of the stately manor parks of England.

When you arrive at the Hotel Bellevue in Buitenzorg, be sure and ask
for one of the "mountain rooms." The view which is commanded by their
balconies has few eq