org--
Kotta Batoe--Buffalo--Sawah land--Sketching a
Javan cottage.

Once in Java, and a visit to Buitenzorg is a matter of course. In the
first place, Buitenzorg is to the Dutch possessions in the East what
Simla is to British India; and, in the second, it possesses a strong
attraction in its famous Botanical Gardens.

After a week of Batavia, the European or Australian traveller begins to
want a change. It is not that there is at any time any extraordinary
thermometrical heat to be encountered. It is simply that, not being an
orchid, he finds it does not suit him to live in the warm damp
atmosphere of a hothouse. What he suffers from most is the want of
sleep. Probably he has not learnt to take two solid hours of sleep in
the afternoon. He says to himself, "Pooh! this is nothing to the sun in
India." He remembers that when he was in Australia the thermometer
frequently registered 20 deg. higher than it does here. It is all nonsense
to call this a hot country, he thinks. So he hails a sadoe and drives
off to the Kali Bezar to see the agent of his steamship company, when he
ought to have been dressed in the luxurious freedom of pyjamas, and
sleeping peacefully upon his great square bed, with the mosquito
curtains securely drawn.

When night comes, the heat is apparently just as intense, and he lies
awake, saying bad words about the mosquitoes which buzz around him,
until the small hours of the morning. When his "boy" wakes him at six
o'clock, he feels as if he had had no sleep at all. All the same it is a
little cooler now; so he gets up to enjoy the fresh air outside in the
verandah. After he has had his coffee and some bananas or a slice of
pomelo, and taken his bath, he feels tolerably alive. This impression is
heightened by a gallop over the King's Plain; and by the time he has had
his breakfast he feels as "fit as anything." So he hardens his heart and
does the same thing again to-day, except that, knowing the uselessness
of trying to sleep before the temperature falls after midnight, he plays
billiards at the club until he is turned out, and then spends the rest
of the evening on a friend's verandah, seated in a long chair, consuming
long drinks, and smoking long cigars.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the average globe-trotter finds a
week of Batavia about enough at a time. He confides his emotions to his
friend, who is a resident. This latter says, "Can't sleep? You should go
to Buitenzorg; you'