And even without flower or plant, when you call me aside to show me through the trees the path that we shall walk upon by and by, but which now is still far from us in the depth, and which winds itself as a scarcely perceptible line through the field there below, then likewise I do not take this deviation amiss. For when at last we have arrived thus far, I shall know how our road has wound——through the mountain, how it is that the sun, that was a few minutes ago there, is now on our left; why that hill is now behind us, whose summit was just now before us … then through that deviation you have made it easy for me to comprehend my walk——and to comprehend is to enjoy.

Reader, I have often in my narrative left you on the broad way, though it has cost me much not to take you with me into the underwood. I was afraid that the walk would weary you, as I did not know if you would be pleased with the flowers and plants which I would show you; but as I believe that you will afterwards be pleased to have seen the path we shall walk upon presently, I am obliged to tell you something about Havelaar’s house. [[231]]

You would be very wrong to form your ideas of a house in the Indies according to European notions, and to think of a heap of stones, small rooms piled upon large rooms, with the street before it, neighbours right and left, whose household gods lean against yours, and a little garden with three gooseberry-bushes behind. With a few exceptions, the houses in the Indies have but one storey. The European reader will think this very strange, for it is a peculiarity of civilisation, or what passes for it, to consider strange all that is natural. The Indian houses are quite different from ours, but they are not strange; our houses are strange. He who was the first to allow himself the luxury of not sleeping in the same room with his cows, put the second room of his house not upon, but next to the first, for to build them all on the ground is both more simple and more comfortable. Our high houses owe their origin to want of space: we seek high in the air what we miss on the ground; and so every maid-servant, who in the evening shuts the window of her bed-room under the eaves, is a protest against this crowding, even when she is thinking, what I can readily believe, of something else.

In those countries, also, where civilisation and over-crowding of the population have not yet pushed mankind high up, because of the pressure below, the houses are of one storey, and Havelaar’s did not belong to the few exceptions to this rule. On entering, … but no, I will give a proof that I abandon all claims to the [[232]]picturesque, “Given,” an oblong: divide it into twenty-one parts, three in breadth, seven in depth. You give each of these partitions a number, beginning with the upper corner on the left-hand side, from there to the right, so that four comes under one, and so on.

123
456
789
101112
131415
161718
192121

The first three numbers together form the fore-gallery, which is often open on three sides, and whose roof is supported in the front by pillars. From there, one enters by two folding doors, the inner gallery which is represented by the three following numbers. The partitions 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, and 18, are rooms, most of them being connected by doors with each other. The three last numbers form the open gallery behind, and what I have not mentioned is a sort of closed inner gallery or passage. I am very proud of this description.[3]

I do not know what expression is used in Holland to give the idea conveyed in the Indies by the word “estate.” “Estate” is there neither garden, nor park, nor field, nor wood, but either something, or that, or altogether, or none of these. It is the ‘ground’ that belongs to the house, in [[233]]so far as it is not covered by the house; thus, in India, the expression, “garden and estate” would be a pleonasm. There are no houses, or very few, without such ground. Some estates contain wood, and garden, and field, and make you think of a park; others are flower-gardens; elsewhere, again, the whole estate is one large grass-field; and lastly, there are some very simple ones reduced to a macadamised square, which is perhaps less agreeable to the eye, but which promotes cleanliness in the houses, because many insects are harboured by grass or trees.

Havelaar’s “estate” was very large; yes, however strange it may sound, it might be called on one side boundless, as it was bordered by a ravine that extended to the shores of the Tji-Udjung, the river that surrounded Rankas-Betong with one of its many windings. It would be difficult to say where the ground of the Assistant Resident’s house ended, and where the common commenced, as the great ebb-tides and floods of the Tji-Udjung, which at this time had drawn back its shores as far as the horizon, and which at another time filled the ravine up to very near Havelaar’s house, changed its limits every moment. This ravine had always been a thorn in the eye of Madam Slotering,—that was very clear. The vegetable growth, everywhere so rapid in India, was always particularly luxuriant, on account of the mud that was left behind, to such an extent that, though the rising and falling of the water happened with a force that rooted up and carried [[234]]away the underwood, a little time was sufficient to cover the ground with a shagginess which rendered the clearing of the grounds, even near the house, very difficult. And this would have been no little grief even to one who was not a mother. For not to speak of all sorts of insects that generally flew during the evening round the lamp in such a multitude that to read and write became impossible, which is very tiresome in many parts of the Indies, there were a number of snakes and other animals in the underwood, not only in the ravine, but even found every moment in the garden, near and behind the house, or in the grass of the square in front.

Standing in the fore-gallery with the face to this square, one’s back was to the house; on the left was the building with the offices, the counting-house, and the place for meetings, where Havelaar had spoken that morning to the chiefs, and behind that was the ravine which extended to the Tji-Udjung. Exactly opposite the offices was the old mansion of the Assistant Residents, which was now temporarily inhabited by Madam Slotering; and as one could reach the estate by two ways that were approached on both sides by the grass-fields, of course every one who came on the estate to go to the kitchen or stalls that were behind the principal building, had either to pass the offices or Madam Slotering’s house. On one side of the principal building, and behind it, was the very large garden, which had excited the joy of Tine, because of the many flowers [[235]]which she found there, and above all, because there little Max could so often play.

Havelaar had made his excuses to Madam Slotering for not having yet paid her a visit; he would go there next morning, but Tine had been there and made acquaintance with her. I have already said that this lady was a so-called “native,” who spoke no other language than Malay. She had intimated her desire to keep her own household, to which Tine readily agreed. And she did not comply for want of hospitality, but chiefly out of fear that she, just arrived at Lebak, could not receive Madam Slotering so well as she considered she ought under the peculiar circumstances in which she was placed. True, this lady, who understood no Dutch, need not have apprehended any harm from the narratives of Max, as Tine had said; but she understood that more was required than not to harm the Slotering family, and the scanty kitchen, in connexion with the intended economy, made her consider the intention of Madam Slotering very wise. It is also doubtful whether, had the circumstances been otherwise, the intercourse with a person who spoke only one language, wherein nothing is printed that civilizes the mind, would have conduced to mutual pleasure. Tine would have kept her company as much as possible, and would have spoken much with her about the “kitchen” and “puddings,” but this would always have been a sacrifice, and it was therefore thought much better that matters had been arranged [[236]]through Madam Slotering’s voluntary retirement in such a manner as left every one in perfect liberty. Yet it was curious that this lady had not only refused to take part in social dinners, but that she even made no use of the offer to have her food prepared in the kitchen of Havelaar’s house, and this reserve went a little too far, as Tine said, for the kitchen was large enough. [[237]]