Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1909-04-16
TRIP TO THE ORIENT
Clarence E. Edwords Touring the
Eastern Countries.
ne IS OUR SPECIAL CORRESPO NDNT,
INTERESTINGLY WRITTEN IN WEEK
LY LETTERS, WHICH WILL AP.
PEAR IN THE RECORDER.

LY LETTERS, WHICH WILL AP.
PEAR in THE RECORDER.
Batavia, Java, December AT
last | am in the Garden of the ORR
emit" and indeed it is well named.
Java is fairest of that great group
Of islands stretching away from
Australia to the east coast OF ASIA.
This Malay archipelago is the great
est wonder of the world--the mys-
terry of the ages. 1t is vast, almost
unknown, yet the most peculiar
portion of the terrestrial globe. The
archipelago is composed of thous-
ands of islands, from greatest to
smallest, and contains eight million
square miles of territory. The won
derful andpopulous Malay race, most
peculiar of all the human family,
people this group of island in tenn
ing millions, with an ancestrywhlch
lies so deeply hidden in the night
of time that the degenerate natives
of to-day, living in huts of bamboo,
look with awe upon the ruins OF ar
chitectural grandeur which dot the
hills with remains of temples SO
vast and so beautiful, yet so an
Gent that all knowledge of their or
igin is lost to mans memory. Not
even legend remains to tell OF the
mighty civilized race of people who
built these structures whichsurpass
in beauty and grandeur the pyra-
mids of Egypt, the temples OF India
or the teecallis of Central America.
Bathed in the warm waters OF
the Indian ocean, and the China
and Java seas, far within the trop-
les and in the region of greatest
heats and most abundant rains, this
island may be classed as q county
different from the rest of the world,
different in race, government,
speech, climate and animate and
inanimate nature. 1t is without
doubt the most productive, the
most fertile, the most populous and
best governed island in the world
The Hollanders have shown civillza-
ton the true way of bringing an
alien and semi-savage race into
highest development with none OF
the degeneracy which marks usual
attemps at civilization.
Here the naturalist may find
strangest of specimens. Animals,
birds, reptiles and fishes that are
o be found nowhere else in the
world are here, in such numbers as
to be constant surprise. Here,
I
the pea fowl, which we see at home
adjoining lawns or parks, roam In
innumerable hocks in a state OF
wildness similar to the wild turkey
in America. The common barn
ward fowl of our home runs wllc
here, and shows the same trait that
marks it's civilized cousin that has
been trained through long genera
tons of domesticity. [ saw a beau
tiful brown leghorn cock in tint
woods recently and supposed, O
course, that it belonged to some ma
tive. | was told that it was wild
and that this was the original home
of the fighting cocks of civilization
The Guinea fowl, which disturb
the quiet of many a farm in tn
United States, is q native wild blr(
here, shy as the grouse or pralrl
chicken.
Monkeys in great droves roam
the woods, impinge upon the home
and make themselves the deligh
and pest Of the travellers. As w
| drove through a dense tropical for
est Yesterday a troupe of llttl
monkeys followed us, chatterln|