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Updated: June 16, 2025
There are avenues of stately palms, and clumps of bamboos of perhaps fifty different kinds; and an endless variety of tropical shrubs and trees with strange and beautiful foliage. As a change from the excessive heat of Batavia, Buitenzorg is a delightful abode.
So far as I can gather, there were few excursions to be made from Buitenzorg and few sights, but in the afternoon he drove to see a famous stone covered with Hindoo inscriptions, the first indication brought to his notice of the real origin of this now Mahommedan people.
Here at Buitenzorg there is a school of forestry and another of veterinary science, each of these with practical demonstrations. Trees and plants in the gardens are grouped in scientific classes, the palms by themselves, the pines by themselves. Here the Victoria regia, the royal pond-lily, flourishes in its proper habitat.
At Buitenzorg, twenty miles further away, the conditions were similar, but lasted for a shorter time. In places much farther away the upper sky presented a strangely murky aspect, and the sun assumed a green color.
Seen from rising ground, they enrich the landscape with the beauty of their graceful elevations; from the lower levels of the town, and in contrast to the foliage of palm or bamboo, their sheer height is manifested by the intense blueness of the background they afford. Buitenzorg has long been the favourite resort of the officials and merchants of Batavia.
The tea-plant is a pretty little shrub, with its pale-primrose, cistus-like flowers, but in appearance it cannot compete with the coffee tree, with its beautiful dark glossy foliage, its waxy white flowers, and brilliant scarlet berries. Peradeniya Botanical Gardens rank as the second finest in the world, being only surpassed by those at Buitenzorg in Java.
There are no recognized steeplechases, but generally one or two events at each meeting are reserved for gentlemen riders, and private matches are sometimes arranged. In 1888 the commandant at Buitenzorg offered a prize for a cross-country race for the purpose of encouraging riding among the officers. The event, however, was won by an English planter.
So much that is misleading has been written about Buitenzorg the Washington of Java, that X. was woefully deceived. It certainly is a beautiful place indeed exquisitely so, but a traveller is scarcely satisfied with the beauties of nature when he pays to mankind for creature comforts which he fails to obtain.
I was told that it was not considered unpleasant, and that the only wooden floor in the island was in the Governor-General's palace at Buitenzorg. The Harmonie is a large square building, surrounded on two sides with porticos and verandahs, standing at the corner of Ryswyk. The main entrance leads into an extensive hall with white walls and a lofty roof supported by ranges of pillars.
It is also provided with a small library and herbarium. In reference to the strangers' laboratory, Dr. Treub remarked that he specially desired to see Englishmen avail themselves of it. German and French savants had come to Buitenzorg to study, but no Englishmen as yet.
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