Native gardener.
A continual temperature of about 90 degrees is not favourable to the growth of the finer faculties, in Northerner's brains at least. The little band of eminent men who have gone up from Java to shine in Dutch Universities must be regarded as a signal exception to a very general rule. Besides, the heat is so grave an addition to the already heavy burden of the day, that one requires all one's energies, both of body and soul, to conscientiously discharge one's ordinary duties; and there is no surplus left to devote to literary, artistic, or scientific pursuits. There are no theatres, no operas, no concerts, no lectures, no really good newspapers, even, in Java. There could not be, where there is so little active public life. So that a man's one relaxation after a hard day's work—unless he looks at dances and dinners in that light—must be found in his own house.
One continually hears the phrase in the East, "our house is our life." Naturally, therefore, the house is made as pleasant as possible, and as comfortable, not to say luxurious. Incomes are proportionately very much higher in Java than in Holland—without financial advantage as an incentive nobody would accept life under tropical conditions—and the better part of the money is spent on good living in the majority of cases. Even families of comparatively moderate means have a roomy house, a sufficient domestic staff, and keep a carriage and a good table.
And as to the heat, which assuredly is a discomfort, and no trifling one, the accepted mode of life does much to palliate it, not only by the regime of housing, feeding, and dressing, but almost as much by the way the day is divided. Work is begun early, so as to get as much as possible done in the cool hours; between nine and five everybody keeps indoors; and those who can snatch an hour of leisure after the one o'clock rice-table, spend it in a siesta. Only in the early morning, and in the evening does one see Europeans about. Not even the greatest enthusiast for cricket and tennis dare begin games earlier than half-past four.
Formerly this was different.
On old engravings, one may see the tall sombre houses which the first colonists built on those "grachts" now long since demolished. One may mark them walking home from a three hours' sermon in broadcloth mantles, and velvet robes, giving solemn entertainments in their trim gardens along the canal, with the sun in noon-day glory over-head, and generally ignoring the trifling differences between Amsterdam and Batavia. They fought very valiantly for their ancestral customs; but very few returned to tell of the fight.
Native footboy.
Since, people have reflected that a live Netherland-Indian is better then a dead Hollander. And, giving up a fight, in which defeat was all but certain, and success worse than useless, they have effected a compromise with the climate. In Java they do as Java does, from sunrise to sunset. But, with the congenial cool of the evening, they resume their national existence, the garb, the manners and the customs of Holland. At seven there is a general "va et vient" of open carriages bearing women in light dresses, and men in correct black-and-white to a "reception" in some brilliantly-lighted house; and for a few hours, the life of Home is lived again.
Outside is the black tropical night, heavy with the scent of invisible blossoms, pricked here and there by the yellow spark of some trudging fruitvendor's oilwick. The small fragment of Europe with that tall-colonnaded marble-paved loggia, with its gliding figures of men and women, is, stands an Island of Light among the waveless seas of darkness.