The country for many miles behind Sourabaya is perfectly flat and everywhere cultivated; being a delta or alluvial plain, watered by many branching streams.

Immediately around the town the evident signs of wealth and of an industrious population were very pleasing; but as we went on, the constant succession of open fields skirted by rows of bamboos, with here and there the white buildings and a tall chimney of a sugar-mill, became monotonous.

The roads run in straight lines for several miles at a stretch, and are bordered by rows of dusty tamarind-trees.

At each mile there are little guardhouses, where a policeman is stationed; and there is a wooden gong, which by means of concerted signals may be made to convey information over the country with great rapidity.

About every six or seven miles is the post-house, where the horses are changed as quickly as were those of the mail in the old coaching days in England.
I stopped at Modjo-kerto, a small town about forty miles south of Sourabaya, and the nearest point on the high road to the district I wished to visit.