Glimpses of Picturesque Java

The earliest known of Andre de la Varre's SCREEN TRAVELER travelogues is a good, if not exceptional example of the form. De La Varre was more interested in showing how ordinary people lived than his competitors, so we get to see a couple of minutes of men and women carrying huge loads on their backs, as well as women working carefully on batik.

The narration does not dig down into the lives of ordinary people, but has time for the steam trams of Batavia -- now Djakarta -- native princes' retinues and old ruins. De la Varre is not interested in impressing us with his vocabulary and makes his statements simply and plainly.