“I do not think so; but show me something out of your game-bag; then he will think that we are speaking of that.”
Duclari took his bag, pulled out two wood-cocks, and, handling them, as if speaking about his sport, he communicated to Verbrugge that he had been followed by a Javanese, who had asked him if he could do nothing to lighten the pressure under which the population groaned? “And,” he went on, “that means much, Verbrugge! Not that I wonder at the fact itself; I have been long enough in the Residency of Bantam to know what is going on here; but that a common Javanese, generally so circumspect and reserved in what concerns the chiefs, should make such a request to one who has nothing to do with it, surprises me.”
“And what did you answer, Duclari?”
“Well, that it was not my business; that he must go to you, or to the new Assistant Resident, when he arrives at Rankas-Betong, and there make his complaint.” [[83]]
“There they come,” said the servant Dongso, all at once. “I see a ‘mantrie’ waving his toodoong.”[5]
All stood up. Duclari not wishing it to appear that he had come to the frontiers to welcome the Assistant Resident, his superior in rank but not in command, and who was moreover a fool, mounted his horse, and rode off, followed by his servant.
The Adhipatti and Verbrugge, standing at the entrance of the ‘pendoppo,’ saw a travelling carriage approaching, dragged by four horses, which soon stopped, covered with mud, near the little bamboo building.
It would have been very difficult to guess what there could be in that coach, before Dongso, helped by the runners and a legion of servants belonging to the Regent’s suite, had undone all the straps and buttons, that enclosed the vehicle in a black leathern cover, an operation which put you in mind of the precautions with which lions and tigers were formerly brought into cities when the Zoological Gardens were as yet only travelling menageries. Now there were no lions or tigers in the van; they had only shut it up in this way because it was the west monsoon,[6] and it was necessary to be prepared for rain.
Now the alighting out of a van, in which one has jolted for a long time along the road, is not so easy, as he would [[84]]think who has never, or but seldom travelled. Almost as in the case of the poor Saurians of the Antediluvian period, which, by staying too long, at last became an integral part of the clay, which they had not originally entered with the intention of remaining there, so with travellers who have been sitting too long cooped up in a travelling carriage, there happens something that I propose to call assimilation.——At last one hardly knows where the leathern cushion ends, and his individuality begins. Yes, I even think that one might have toothache or cramp in such a position, and mistake it for moth in the cloth, or mistake moth in the cloth for toothache or cramp. * * *
There are but few circumstances in the material world that do not afford to the thinking man the opportunity of making intellectual observations, and so I have often asked myself whether many errors, that have become common with us, many “Wrongs” that we think to be right, owe their origin to the fact, of having been sitting too long with the same company in the same travelling carriage? The leg, that you had to put there on the left, between the hat-box, and the little basket of cherries;—the knee, which you held pressed against the coach-door, not to make the lady opposite you think that you intended an attack on her crinoline or virtue;—the foot, covered with corns, that was so much afraid of the heels of the “commercial traveller” near you;—the neck, which you had to bend so long [[85]]a time to the left because rain came in on the right side, all these are at last somewhat distorted. I think it well to change from time to time coaches, seats, and fellow-travellers. Then you can give your neck another direction, you can sometimes move your knee, and perhaps you may have a young lady near you with dancing-shoes, or a little boy whose feet do not touch the ground. Then you have a better chance of looking and walking straight, as soon as you get solid earth under your feet.