About ten o’clock in the morning there was an unusual amount of movement on the main road in Java that connects the division of Pandeglang with Lebak. “The main road” is perhaps a slight exaggeration in respect to the wide footpath that, from politeness and for want of a better name, one called the “road.” But when, with a coach and four, one started for Serang, the chief township in the residency of Bantam, intending to drive to Rang-Betoong, the new centre of Lebak, one might be fairly sure of arriving there some time or other. It was, therefore, a road. It is true that time after time one would be stuck in the mud, which in the Bantam lowlands is heavy, clayey, and sticky; it is true that again and again one would be compelled to call to one’s assistance the inhabitants of the nearest villages—even though they were not very near, for the villages are not numerous in those parts—but when at last one had succeeded in getting together some twenty agricultural labourers from the vicinity, it was usually not very long before horses and coach had once more been launched on terra firma. The driver would crack his whip, the “runners”—in Europe one would, I suppose, say “footmen,” or rather, there is nothing in Europe that corresponds with these “runners”—those incomparable “runners” then, with their short thick whips, trotted again by the side of the four horses, shrieked indescribable sounds, and beat the horses under the stomach by way of encouragement. And in that way one would jolt along for some time, until again the unpleasant moment arrived when one sank into the mud beyond the axles. Then the shouts for assistance would begin once more. One waited patiently till help arrived, and . . . jogged further along.
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