Now, the natural reaction following upon a shock of this kind throws one back upon the previous state of things—in the case the ways and manners of the old country—and one stubbornly resolves to adhere to them. But, though this may be natural, it is not wise. I, at least, soon discovered for myself the truth of the old sage's saw: "Vérité en deçà des Pyrénées, erreur en delà," as applied to the affairs of everyday life; the more so, as oceans and broad continents, the space of thousands of Pyrenean ranges, separate those hither and thither sides, Holland and Java. The home-marked standard of fit and unfit must be laid aside. The soul must doff her close-clinging habits of prejudiced thought. And the wise man must be content to begin life over again, becoming even as a babe and suckling, and opening cherub lips only to drink in the light, the leisure, and the luxuriant beauty of this new country as a rich mother's milk—the blameless food on which to grow up to (colonial) manhood.
But to return to that first "rice-table." After the rice, curries, etc. had been disposed of, beef and salad appeared, and, to my infinite astonishment, were disposed of in their turn, to be followed by the dessert—pine-apples, mangosteens, velvety "rambootans," and an exceedingly picturesque and prettily-shaped fruit—spheres of a pale gold containing colourless pellucid flesh—which I heard called "dookoo." Then the guests began to leave the table, and I was told it was time for the siesta—another Javanese institution, not a whit less important, it would appear, than the famous rice-table—and vastly more popular with newcomers. Perhaps, the preceding meal possesses somniferous virtue; or, perhaps, the heat and glare of the morning predispose one to sleep; or, perhaps—after so many years of complaining about "being waked too soon"—the sluggard in us rejoices at being bidden in the name of the natural fitness of things, to "go and slumber again." I will not attempt to decide which of those three possible causes is the true one; but so much is certain: even those who kick most vigorously at the rice-table, lay them down with lamb-like meekness to the siesta. I confess I was very glad myself to escape into the coolness and quiet of my room. Plain enough it was, with its bare, white-washed walls and ceiling, its red-tiled floor and piece of coarse matting in the centre, its cane-bottomed chairs. But how I delighted in the absence of carpets and wall-papers, when I found the stone floor so deliciously cool to the feet, and the bare walls distilling a freshness as of lily-leaves! The siesta lasted till about four. Then people began to hurry past my window, with flying towels and beating slippers, marching to the bath-rooms. And, at five, tea was brought into the verandah.
Then began the first moderately-cool hour of the day. A slight breeze sprang up and wandered about in the garden, stirring the dense foliage of the waringin-tree, and making its hundreds of pendulous air-roots to gently sway to and fro. A shower of white blossom fluttered down from the tanjong-branches, spreading fragrance as it fell. And, by and by, a faint rosiness began to soften the crude white of the stuccoed walls and colonnades, and to kindle the feathery little cirrus-clouds floating high overhead, in the deep blue sky where the great "kalongs" were already beginning to circle.
At six it was almost dark.
The loungers in the verandah rose from their tea, and went in. And, some half-hour later, I saw the ladies issue forth in Paris-made dresses, the men in the garb of society accompanying them on their calls, for which I was told this was the hour. The "front gallery" of the hotel, a spacious hall supported on pillars, was brilliantly lit. A girl sat at the piano, accompanying herself to one of those weird, thrilling songs such a Grieg and Jensen compose. And when I went in to the eight-o'clock dinner, the menu for which might have been written in any European hotel, I had some trouble in identifying the scene with that which, earlier in the day, had so rudely shocked my European ideas. I half believed the rice-table, the sarongs and kabayas, and the Javanese "boys" must have been a dream, until I was convinced of the contrary by the sight of a lean brown hand thrust out to change my plate of fish for a helping of asparagus.
