The volcanic lake Telaga Warna (the lake of colours) near the Puncak pass in West Java owes its modern-day fame in part to the novella Oeroeg (1948) by Hella S. Haasse, where it is called Telaga Hideung. Telaga Warna has been a tourist destination from the nineteenth century on and draws tourists to this day. Numerous travellers have recorded their visit to it in writing, and photos of Europeans posing near it abound. The smooth and tranquil water, which reflects the green of the surrounding jungle and thus gives the lake its name (‘lake of colours’), was widely praised for its beauty.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, physician Isaäc Groneman made a trip to the lake and described the experience in his book Bladen uit het dagboek van een Indisch geneesheer (Pages from the Diary of an Indies Physician, 1874). He walked towards the lake along a slippery footpath and through an ‘impenetrable wilderness’ of high trees, until he suddenly found himself face to face with ‘a tranquil and smooth expanse of water, which reflects no other colour than the immortal green of an overpowering vegetation that leaves not a single spot on the walls of this quiet abyss uncovered’. The sheer beauty of the volcanic lake was overwhelming: ‘It seems to us as if time stops moving; it is as if an unknown power tethers us to the suddenly beloved place, to nature’s faithful mother’s breast, and as if her comforting spirit calls out to you: To live here, to die here, far from the world, this is happiness!’
1. Indigenous servants at Telaga Warna, during A.E.F. Muntz’s Java trip, 1901-1902. [KITLV 19466]
2. European party at Telaga Warna, around 1915. [KITLV 114381]