**azalea**

 we went up to Lembang, high on the flanks of that wonderful volcano Tangkuban Perahu on Java, Indonesia. On the mountain it is perpetual Spring, and it is small wonder that the famed Franz Junghuhn (1809-1864), one of the intrepid naturalists who introduced the Cinchona - 'quinine plant' - to the Dutch East Indies for commercial exploitation to eradicate the devastations of malaria settled here. He had a house in the town, and built himself a hut even higher up on the very lip of the volcano's crater. It was the little monument to his honor near the footpath through a wonderful forest to the summit of the mountain for which we made our journey. There he rests under a little obelisk with only his name and dates; no mention at all of his great services to the study of nature nor of his efforts on behalf of Cinchona.
The wet and cold, dreich darkness of Groningen brought to mind the brightness of horticulturist Lembang. A brightness even in the local cemeteries. There's a Christian one just beside 'Junghuhn Square' (he himself was an atheist) and an extraordinarily pretty Muslim one just up the road.
This azalea - genus rhododendron - was seen overshadowing the grave of Dora Olga Rita Anna van Heuven van Staereling (9.iv.1910-12.ix.1996). I know nothing about her except that she was born from a mixed Dutch-Javanese marriage, that she had an 'illegitimate' child in Bandung, the city in the valley below Lembang, and that she came to the dark Netherlands on the "Ranchi" which had left Tanjung Priok two days before Xmas in 1950, arriving at Amsterdam on January 18, 1951.
She must have pined for the light of Lembang; I don't know if it took long for her to return or maybe only her ashes were devoutly brought back for burial. Whatever the case: she is at peace under a wealth of flowers. Her verse from Scripture is John 11, 25.
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