Baboe Dalima; or, The Opium Fiend

by M. T. H. Perelaer

Thus speaking he pushed open the second bamboo door which did not turn on hinges but was fastened to the door-post with loops and ran squeaking and scraping along a bit of smooth wood. This door gave access to a narrow passage which would have been in total darkness but for the hazy light of a few wretched oil-wicks which could only just be seen glimmering, through the chinks of the bamboo partition on either side. In this passage the atmosphere was still more stuffy and the nasty smell of the madat still more nauseous. The floor of the passage was so uneven, so slippery and so indescribably filthy, that it required the greatest care to keep on one’s legs at all, and to prevent oneself from slipping down full length into the soapy mud. This passage ran down the centre of the barn and on either side of it were rows of pens twelve in number, the entire barn being thus divided into twenty-four partitions. The partition walls did not exceed four or five feet in height, so that from one pen one could easily look into another. These compartments had each a door which opened upon the passage in which the European visitors were standing.

“May we open one of these doors?” asked van Beneden, as he stretched out his hand to one of them.

“You may not, sir!” cried one of the Chinamen who, having noticed the gesture, understood the meaning of the question.

“Hold you tongue, will you!” said Verstork, in a loud tone of voice. “You be off, out of the place altogether.”

And after the Chinaman had disappeared, he turned to his friends, and said: “I do not think you will care to go into those filthy holes. We can see well enough what is going on inside through the chinks in the partitions and doors, indeed, I believe, we shall thus see more than if we were to enter.”

“Look,” continued he, “there you have a smoker in the first stage of intoxication.”

Yes! there, on the baleh baleh, lay a Javanese. There he lay on the only article of furniture which the den could boast of, stretched out full length, and half reclining on his side. He had thrown off his head-cloth, and his Long black hair floated over the disgustingly filthy pillow on the bench. His eyes, which betrayed his ecstatic condition, were half closed, and every now and then, he brought with his right hand the bowl of his opium pipe to the tiny flame which was flickering on a bit of wick dipping in a little saucer of oil. As he did so his head, partly supported on his left hand, would be slightly bent forward, as he took the thick bamboo stem of the pipe between his lips. Then, very slowly, he inhaled the smoke of the kindling opium. After a few puffs, he put down the pipe and turned over on his back, his head thrown back upon the pillow. The smoker now closed his eyes entirely, and strained with might and main to swallow the smoke he had inhaled. As soon as he had succeeded in doing this, he lay quite still while a look of satisfaction and enjoyment passed over his countenance. That look of satisfaction, however, offered the strangest contrast with the whole exterior appearance of the man, even with the features on which it appeared. Before lying down on the baleh baleh, he had flung aside his vest, and now lay covered only by his shirt which was the filthiest and most loathsome rag imaginable.

The man was as lean as a skeleton, and would have been admirably fitted to take his place at the Danse Macabre. The faint light of the little palita showed every rib in his body, and the dark shadows which they cast, showed how deep were the cavities between that trellis work of bone. His arms were like sticks encased in brown leather-like skin. His legs were not visible, being covered by the sarong; but the appearance of the feet, which protruded from under the garment, proved that like the arms the legs also were nothing but skin and bone. When the man had, for awhile, held the smoke which he had swallowed, he blew it out again very slowly through his nostrils, a proceeding which it took some time to accomplish—then he turned over on his side and appeared to fall into a deep sleep. At that sight a female form, which had been crouching in one corner of the compartment, and had thus remained unnoticed, rose up and made for the door. The poor creature had been present there all the time—In her haste to leave the wretched little apartment, she nearly ran up against the European gentlemen.

“Oh, heavens! the devil!” she cried; but, in the darkness, she could not recognise anyone, and so she hurried into a neighbouring recess.

In that recess, the spectacle was more horrifying still. There, stretched out on the baleh baleh, lay an old Javanese. He was as angular, as emaciated, and as much wasted away, as the other man; but he was in another stage of intoxication. He had smoked more than one madat ball, hence he was in a different state of ecstasy. His hollow, sunken eyes glittered with unwonted fire; his breast heaved, and his face wore a bestial grin, the lower jaw protruding far beyond the upper stamping the features with the mark of the brutal passions which were raging within. The upper part of his body also was bare, but the violence of the passions which possessed him caused his entire frame to heave and quiver, and had made him cast aside even his sarong, so that now he lay there in the state in which the patriarch Noah was discovered by his sons.