Let it be sufficient if I say that it was at one of these dinners or luncheons.
In our varied gastronomical experiences we found that the cooking on the English ships was usually bad, while that on the German ships was good, excepting the ship that took us from Naples to Mombasa.

The Dutch ships were the best of all and the Dutch hotels in Java were the best we struck outside of Paris and London.

In comparison with the Hotel des Indes, in Batavia, all the rest of the hotels of the Orient can be mentioned only in a furtive way.

It was a revelation of excellence, in perfect keeping with the charm and beauty of Java as a whole.
But we were speaking of things to eat.
At the Hotel des Indes they served us a modest little dish called rice tafel, or "rijs-tafel." You have to go to luncheon early in order to eat it before dinner time.

It was served by twenty-four waiters, marching in single file, the line extending from the kitchen to the table and then returning by a different line of march to the kitchen.