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Updated: May 18, 2025
The traveller was received by the Assistant Wodena, a native official who had been riding suspiciously behind and before the carriage during the last two miles. After reading the credentials of the stranger and finding that he could converse in Malay, the local magnate became quite cordial, and made X. free of the Government Rest House.
"There," exclaimed his guide, "see see for yourself"; and he did, for on the top lay a blue envelope duly registered and addressed to himself. Thus the hotel bill was paid, and he caught the train to Soempioeh. There he was met by Abu and messengers from the Wodena, who accompanied him to that officer's house.
To Usoof and his mother the great Wodena was kindness itself, and conversed with them in Javanese with much affability. X. wishing to see a real country village, and obtain speech with its people, away from the all-subduing eye of the local authority, promised to go that afternoon and visit the good lady in her ancestral home, and a few hours later he took the train for the next station, Tambak.
The whole country round was one vast expanse of padi, valleys and hills alike so far as the eye could reach, and it seemed to X. that no population could be sufficiently dense to consume such an apparently unlimited supply, but the Wodena assured him that none was ever exported.
The host who welcomed X. to his house was, as has been said, the Wodena, or local head native magistrate. A Malay in such a position would most certainly have had a courteous manner and have probably been an agreeable companion. This official, though he evidently intended to be cordial, was awkward and seemingly stupid. He also spoke bad Malay, and seemed an ill-educated man for such a position.
The Wodena and his visitor called on the chief Chinese of the town, of which race he informed him there were two hundred all told. These people scarcely resembled the Chinamen as known to X., since they had all been born and bred in the neighbourhood, and not one of them had experience of life beyond the island of Java.
On hearing this, the Assistant Resident promised to send a letter to the Wodena or native magistrate of the village, who lived at Soempioet and could let him stay in his house. This exactly met the wishes of X., who had been only wanting an opportunity to see more of the native life in Java, away from the track of hotels and tame curio sellers, who differed but little in one town from another.
This was well furnished with beds and tables, etc., but glass and crockery were not provided. The Assistant Wodena conducted the visitor round the village, which was a model of neatness. Each house stood in a garden, growing coffee, vegetables, and strawberries. The head of the village and a few others live in very good houses, and there seemed to be ponies without number.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people were packed tightly together, line after line, under little sheds, selling sarongs and cloths of every conceivable colour, with hats, mats, and native ornaments of all descriptions. It was an animated scene, and one not easily forgotten, and this was the first time, if the Wodena was to be believed, that any white man had seen it.
However these particular Chinese in Soempioeh bowed many inches low to the Wodena, while X. with bland self-consciousness appropriated a certain length to himself as the only white man in the place. This walk at Soempioeh was full of interest, and the Wodena kindly replied to the best of his ability to all the questions asked.
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