Burning of symbolical figures at a Chinese funeral.
At that time, when Chinese immigration threatened to become a danger to the colony, the then Governor-General, Valckenier, took some measures against the admittance of destitute Chinese, which, however well-designed, were so clumsily executed as to spread the rumour that the Government intended to deport even the Chinese residents of Batavia. A panic broke out among them, and then a revolt, in which they were soon joined by their countrymen from all over the island. After a desperate struggle, atrocities innumerable both suffered and inflicted, a siege sustained, and an attack of fifty and odd thousand beaten back by their two thousand men, the Hollanders succeeded in putting down the rebellion, and the enemy fled to the woods and swamps of the lowlands around Batavia. A few months later, however, a general amnesty having been granted, such of them as had escaped from famine and jungle-fever returned, and a special quarter was assigned to them, where it would be easy both to protect and to control them. There they have since continued to live.
"The deliberate stream sauntering along at its own pace on its way from the hills to the sea."
The houses of some rich Chinamen in the Kampong Bahru neighbourhood are truly splendid; the most modest ones still have an air of comfort. According to the ideas of the inhabitants, there are none absolutely squalid. All these houses are, at the same time, shops. They are, in a way, wonderful people, these sons of the Celestial Empire, merchants, in one way or other, all of them. There is, of course, a difference. There is the foot-sore "klontong" trudging trough the weary streets all day, and shaking his rattle as he goes, to advertise the reels of cotton and the cakes of soap in his wallet; and, again, there is the portly millionaire, who entertains army officers and civil servants in his own profusely-decorated mansion; but the difference is one in degree only, not in kind. Amid the pomp and circumstance of the one condition, and the squalor of the other, the individualities are the same, the attitude of mind and the habits of thought identical, the sum and substance of a Chinaman's life in Java being expressed in "the making of bargains." He could as soon leave off breathing as leave off buying and selling; trading seems to be his natural function. And this, one fancies, is the great difference between his race and ours; and the true secret of their superiority as money-makers. A Caucasian, if he is a merchant, is so with a certain part of his being only—during certain hours of the day, in his own office. A Chinaman is a merchant with his whole heart, his whole soul, and his whole understanding, a merchant always and everywhere, from his cradle to his grave, at table, at play, over his opium-pipe, in his temple. Trade is the element in which he lives, moves, and has his being. His thoughts might be noted in figures. The world is to him one vast opportunity for making money, and all things in it are articles of trade; which, in Chinese, means gain to him, and loss to everybody else. He has few wants, infinite resources, and the faith (in himself) that removeth trading towns. Small wonder if he succeeds.
I fancy it would be quite a practical education in the principles of business, to watch the career of one of these Chinamen, from the hour of his arrival at Tanjong Priok onward. At first, you see him trudging along with a wallet, containing soap, sewing cotton, combs, and matches. After a few months, you find him in your compound surrounded by the whole of your domestic staff, to whom he is selling sarong cloth and thin silks. When a year has gone by, a coolie trudges at his heels panting under a load of wares, the samples of which he subjects to your approval with the most correct of bows. Have but patience, and you will find him in a diminutive shop, where somehow he finds place for a settee in the corner, a mirror on the wall, and all around such a collection of articles as might fitly be termed an epitome of material civilization. Nor does he stop in that tiny shop. A few years later, he will be taking his ease behind the counter of a spick-and-span establishment in the camp; and, if, by chance, you get a glimpse of his wife, you will be astonished at the size of the diamonds in her shiny coil of hair. Our friend is on the high road to prosperity now, which leads to a big house separate from the shop. Before he is fairly fifty, he has built it, high and spacious, with an altar to the gods and to the spirits of his ancestors set in the midst of it, and a profusion of fine carving and gilding, of embroidered hangings and lacquered woodwork all around. He will invite you for the New Year's festivities now, and, if your wife accompanies you, introduce you to his spouse, resplendent as the rainbow in many-tinted brocades, and more thickly covered with diamonds than the untrodden meadow with the dews of a midsummer night. He talks about the funeral of his honoured father, which cost him upward of three thousand pounds sterling; and he will ask your advice, over the pine-apples and the champagne, about sending his son to Europe in one of his own ships, that the youth may see something of the world, and, if he so list, be entered as a student at the famous university of Leijden.