he fancy straw matting of the East.
Bed-rooms open on either side from this hall, and at the back, opening
out upon a spacious court-yard or garden filled with gaily coloured
flowers or stately palms, is another wide verandah where meals are
served. The bath-rooms, kitchen, stables, store-rooms and servants'
quarters lie beyond the garden. There is everywhere a generous
appreciation of space, and doubtless the good health enjoyed by the
Dutch ladies and their families so markedly in contrast to the British
colonists on the other side of the Equator is largely due to the more
comfortable homes in which they are settled. In Java, the bath-room is a
special feature, and only those who have travelled much in tropical
countries can appraise it at its true value. It is all in keeping with
the thorough cleanliness of the Dutch people, a feature which impressed
itself upon us wherever we travelled throughout the island. Detached
from every house of any pretensions, there is a smaller pavilion. It
usually stands in the grounds in front and nearer the roadway, and in
former times was spoken of as "the guest house." Nowadays, either
because the Hotels are more comfortable than in olden times or because
the railway system has led to a style of life that calls for less
hospitality for travellers, the guest house is more often let to
bachelors, who find it easier and cheaper to maintain a small
establishment of this sort than the bachelor messes or chummeries of
Singapore and Penang.

Weltervreden may be compared with a gigantic park, and there are
residences sufficiently imposing to please the lover of architectural
beauty, even if there is no assertive Clock Tower to emphasise by
contrast the hovels of Singapore's region of slums. The idea of keeping
the various races to their Kampongs may be contrary to British ideas,
but in Java it appears to work satisfactorily enough. It is only in
recent years that certain British colonies have been allowed to set
apart reservations for European residence, and it would be well if the
Government of the Federated Malay States, before it is too late,
introduced the Kampong system in laying out new towns throughout the
Peninsula.

A motor-car ride through the residential quarter and round the suburbs
of Batavia gives one a good idea of the extent of the town, and,
incidentally, of the merging of East and West in the population. Former
Dutch residents have left their impress in more respects than