The
Ruined Cathedral Of Notre Dame Del Monte Is A Far More Interesting
Object Than The Dull, Bald, Commonplace, Flat-Faced, Prosaic, Dutch
Meeting-House, Albeit The Latter Is In Excellent Repair.
Even this
Stadthaus, with its stately solitudes, smells of trade, and suggests
corpulent burgomasters and prim burgomasters' wives in wooden hoops and
stiff brocades.
The influence of Holland has altogether vanished, as is
fitting, for she cared only for nutmegs, sago, tapioca, tin and pepper.
The variety of races here produces a ludicrous effect sometimes. In the
Stadthaus one never knows who is to appear - whether Malay, Portuguese,
Chinaman, or Madrassee. Yesterday morning, at six, the Chinaman who
usually "does" my room, glided in, murmuring something unintelligible,
and on my not understanding him, brought in a Portuguese interpreter.
At seven, came in the Madrassee, Babu, with a cluster of bananas, and
after him, two Malays, in red sarongs, who brushed and dusted all my
clothes as slowly as they could - men of four races in attendance before
I was up in the morning! This Chinese attendant, besides being a common
coolie in a brown cotton shirt over a brown cotton pair of trousers, is
not a good specimen of his class, and is a great nuisance to me. My
doors do not bolt properly, and he appears in the morning while I am in
my holoku, writing, and slowly makes the bed and kills mosquitoes; then
takes one gown after another from the rail, and stares at me till I
point to the one I am going to wear, which he holds out in his hands;
and though I point to the door, and say "Go!" with much emphasis, I
never get rid of him, and have to glide from my holoku into my gown
with a most unwilling dexterity.
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