ets, uniquely brilliant in grouping and colour. Gilded eaves of
Chinese houses, many-tiered Arab mosques, encrusted with polished tiles
of blue and purple, white colonnades of Dutch bungalows, and pointed
huts of woven basket-work within wicker gate and bamboo fence, mingle
in fantastic confusion to frame a series of living pictures.
Cream-coloured bullocks and spirited Timor ponies, in creaking waggons
and ramshackle carriages, pass in endless procession. Bronze-hued
coolies balance heavy loads on the swaying _pikolan_, a sloping pole of
elastic bamboo, and strolling players, rouged and tinselled, collect
crowds in every open space where a fluttering tamarind-tree offers a
welcome patch of shadow to each turbaned audience, clad in the
paradisaical garb of the tropics. Graceful Malay women flit silently
past, in pleasing contrast to their burly Dutch mistresses, clad in a
caricature of native garb which the appalling heat of Sourabaya renders
a more slatternly disguise than even colonial _sans gene_ accomplishes
elsewhere. Orchids spread broad spathes of scented bloom from grey
trunks of courtyard trees, and cascades of crimson and purple creepers
tumble over arch and wall. Insinuating Chinamen untie bundles of
_sarongs_, scarves, and delicate embroideries on the marble steps of
hotel porticoes, where the prolonged "shopping" of the drowsy East is
catered for by the industrious Celestial, when _tokos_ are closed, and
the tradesman sleeps on the floor amid his piled-up wares, for the
slumber of Java is too deep to be lightly disturbed, and the solemnity
of the long siesta seems regarded almost as a religious function. In
this far-off land of dreams it seems "always afternoon," and the
complacency wherewith the entire population places itself "hors de
combat" becomes a perpetual irritation to the traveller, anxious to
seize a golden opportunity of fresh experience. The sun sinks out of
sight before the sultry atmosphere begins to cool. The weird "gecko," a
large lizard which foretells rain, screams "Becky! Becky!" in the
garden shadows, and a cry of "Toko! Toko!" echoes from another unseen
speaker of a mysterious language, while wraith-like forms of his tiny
brethren make moving patterns on the white columns, as the hungry
little reptiles hunt ceaselessly for the mosquitos which form their
staple diet. Lashing rain and deafening thunder at length cool the
fiery furnace, blue lightning flares on the solid blackness of heaven