I spent one whole morning sketching a cottage which I found within a stone's throw of the hotel. Without any ceremony, I walked into the midst of the family circle, and seated myself under the shelter of a wood shed. Had I known enough Malay, I should certainly have first asked permission before I ventured upon such an intrusion, for I have found a sketching-book an almost universal passport to civility. As it was, I assumed an air of conscious innocence, which I trusted would soon remove any awkward suspicions which might arise in the mind of the owner of the house, and proceeded to unpack my sketching-traps. I then quickly sketched in the group on the verandah, consisting of the mother and children. Before I had finished they all ran away in alarm, and for the next half-hour the front of the house was entirely deserted. I suppose they made up their minds at last that I was harmless, for they gradually came back and resumed their usual manner of life. The mother was occupied with keeping two small children in order. Besides these, there was a little boy and a girl. This latter was the oldest of the family. She was not so shy as her mother; on the contrary, she arranged herself in a most becoming attitude against the front of the verandah. Every now and then the mother showed her teeth and spoke crossly to the baby, and once when it cried she whipped it with a bit of palm-leaf until it came to a better mind—which it did promptly. After a time, a Chinaman called and had a talk with the lady of the house. I think he wanted a load of firewood. An old lady also came. I could not fathom her business, but, from the interest she manifested in the children, I expect she was a relative of the family.
About noon the father came back with a load of wood. He was a man of the world, and knew all about the performance. After he had looked at the sketch, the children, and finally the mother, all came round my stool and had a good long look at my work. Even so the mother would not let the children dab their toes into my paints, or generally become a nuisance. For this unexpected manifestation of a sense of the fitness of things, I felt grateful to her, and, before I went away, found a way of recompensing the children for the sorrow they must have felt at being compelled to relinquish such a rare opportunity for getting into mischief.
Every morning I found some quaint figure with which to enrich my sketch-book—a sarong-weaver, or a beggar crouching by the wayside, or a Hadji, with his large umbrella and green turban, the latter marking the fact of his having accomplished a pilgrimage to Mecca. But, interesting as were these human studies, my pleasantest recollections of Buitenzorg centre in the visit which I paid to the Botanical Gardens, under the guidance of the curator, Dr. Treub.
My account of this, however, and of the gardens generally, I reserve for the next chapter.
NATIVES SQUATTING.
Footnotes:
[14] In [Chapter III].