United States or Mexico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
From the crowded lanes, with their busy markets and hybrid population, we drive through the long line of campongs bordering the palm-fringed coast.
The largest ship can anchor close to shore, for the rugged boundaries of Banda descend by steep gradients into the crystalline depths. Chinese and Arab campongs border European streets of concrete houses, long and low, with flat roofs and external galleries.
The slave trade flourishes among these lonely hills, murder and violence are rife; the methods of warfare, comprising poisoned arrows, and bullets containing splinters of glass, denote absolute barbarism, and the enormous island, which ought to be a field of emigration for some of Java's twenty-seven millions, except for the coast campongs and the rice-grounds of the far interior, remains one of the waste places of the earth, in spite of a perfect climate and a teeming soil.
Little campongs of palm-thatched huts stand on piles at the water's edge, and skirt the over-shadowing forest; fairy islands, encircled with red-stemmed arén-palms, lie like green garlands on the indigo sea, dotted with the yellow sails of native proas, and the little train which conveys us to Padang, the western capital, seems an incongruous feature in a scene suggestive of primeval peace and solitude.
They are also by no means unskilful as workers in clay, wood, and metals, and as artisans generally, and are successfully employed by the Government in working the railways and post and telegraph services. For purposes of administration the island is divided into twenty-four residencies. Each residency is further divided into districts, and finally into campongs, or townships.
Brown campongs cling to mountain crest and precipitous ledge. These almost inaccessible fastnesses were colonised after the Moslem conquest by a Hindu tribe which refused to relinquish Brahminism.
The hereditary chieftains of Sumatran clans exercise a patriarchal rule of uncompromising severity, and combine in every district to form the Laras or local Council, the distance separating forest and mountain campongs often necessitating sub-division into a village assembly.
Immediately behind them are the campongs, in which are the crews; here likewise are kept the sails, gunpowder, &c. necessary for their equipment. On the very summits of the mountains, which in many parts rise abruptly from the sea, may be distinguished innumerable huts; here reside people who are constantly on the lookout.
He said he could, however; and as soon as he understood what was wanted, he went to the front, and the retreat was continued. It was a strange country to struggle through, for roads hardly had any existence. The rivers were the highways, and upon the banks the villages or campongs of the Malays were invariably placed.
A rash determination to drive across the Minahasa, and pick up the boat at Menado, involves unimagined difficulties. Having frequently experienced the pace accomplished by many a Timor pony of emaciated and dejected aspect, faith accepts even this unpromising team for the long drive of thirty miles. Quaint campongs, with bamboo fences and curiously arched gateways, flank the woodland road.
Word Of The Day