Soekaboemi was only thirty or forty miles away, but I left Buitenzorg at eight o'clock in order to escape the discomfort of travelling in the middle of the day. It goes without saying that trains in the tropics do not carry you along as quickly as the Flying Dutchman or the Scotch express. But I found the carriages comfortable enough, being built in the American fashion, and furnished with Venetians to keep out the sun and let in the air. Except the station-masters, all the officials were Chinese or Javan natives. The guard who looked at my ticket wore the traditional peaked cap and cloth uniform, but over his European garments he had appended as usual his airy native costume. Of the four classes of carriages two are reserved for Europeans, one for Chinese, and one for the natives. In leaving Buitenzorg I made the mistake of taking a first-class ticket. In the first place, the carriage had not been dusted, and a cooly came in and disturbed me with his brush. He made such a cloud of dust that I had to beat a retreat. On my return I found the carriage clean, but the dust transferred to my baggage. In the next place, all the Dutch officials, and the planters and their wives, were travelling second class, and I was left to enjoy (?) my compartment in solitary grandeur. Had there been any one in the carriage, I should have found out that Soekaboemi was not the right station for H----'s plantation. As it was I could open and shut windows at will, and I was free to make the best of my opportunities for sight-seeing--an object towards which the slow pace of the train and the frequent and lengthy stoppages materially contributed. Indeed, the crowds of natives at the stations were as well worth studying as the mountains and plantations. I never saw elsewhere, even in Java, such rainbow mixtures of colours as they contrived to bring into their cotton jackets and dresses; and as for their plaited hats, there was every possible variety of shape and size, from an umbrella to a funnel. For the first few miles the line ran southwards between Salak and Gedé. On either side I could see stretches of mountain slopes luxuriously wooded, while the brown stream Tji Sadanie, a tributary of the Kali Besar, or "great river" of Batavia, playing hide-and-seek with the railroad, afforded more than one charming "bit" of river, tree, and mountain.