Page:Java, facts and fancies (IA javafactsfancies00witarich).pdf/34

Now, the natural reaction following upon a shock of this kind throws one back upon the previous state of things—in the case the ways and manners of the old country—and one stubbornly resolves to adhere to them. But, though this may be natural, it is not wise. I, at least, soon discovered for myself the truth of the old sage's saw: "Vérité en deçà des Pyrénées, erreur en delà," as applied to the affairs of everyday life; the more so, as oceans and broad continents, the space of thousands of Pyrenean ranges, separate those hither and thither sides, Holland and Java. The home-marked standard of fit and unfit must be laid aside. The soul must doff her close-clinging habits of prejudiced thought. And the wise man must be content to begin life over again, becoming even as a babe and suckling, and opening cherub lips only to drink in the light, the leisure, and the luxuriant beauty of this new country as a rich mother's milk—the blameless food on which to grow up to (colonial) manhood.

But to return to that first "rice-table." After the rice, curries, etc. had been disposed of, beef and salad appeared, and, to my infinite astonishment, were disposed of in their turn, to be followed by the dessert—pine-apples, mangosteens, velvety "rambootans," and an exceedingly picturesque and prettily-shaped fruit—spheres of a pale gold containing colourless pellucid flesh—which I heard called "dookoo." Then the guests began to leave the table, and I was told it was time for the siesta—another Javanese institution, not a whit less important, it would appear, than the famous rice-table—and vastly more popular with newcomers. Perhaps, the preceding meal possesses somniferous virtue; or, perhaps, the heat and glare of the morning predispose one to sleep; or, perhaps—after so many years of com-