Page:Java, facts and fancies (IA javafactsfancies00witarich).pdf/35

plaining about "being waked too soon"—the sluggard in us rejoices at being bidden in the name of the natural fitness of things, to "go and slumber again." I will not attempt to decide which of those three possible causes is the true one; but so much is certain: even those who kick most vigorously at the rice-table, lay them down with lamb-like meekness to the siesta. I confess I was very glad myself to escape into the coolness and quiet of my room. Plain enough it was, with its bare, white-washed walls and ceiling, its red-tiled floor and piece of coarse matting in the centre, its cane-bottomed chairs. But how I delighted in the absence of carpets and wall-papers, when I found the stone floor so deliciously cool to the feet, and the bare walls distilling a freshness as of lily-leaves! The siesta lasted till about four. Then people began to hurry past my window, with flying towels and beating slippers, marching to the bath-rooms. And, at five, tea was brought into the verandah.

Then began the first moderately-cool hour of the day. A slight breeze sprang up and wandered about in the garden, stirring the dense foliage of the waringin-tree, and making its hundreds of pendulous air-roots to gently sway to and fro. A shower of white blossom fluttered down from the tanjong-branches, spreading fragrance as it fell. And, by and by, a faint rosiness began to soften the crude white of the stuccoed walls and colonnades, and to kindle the feathery little cirrus-clouds floating high overhead, in the deep blue sky where the great "kalongs" were already beginning to circle.

At six it was almost dark.

The loungers in the verandah rose from their tea, and went in. And, some half-hour later, I saw the ladies issue forth in Paris-made dresses, the men in the garb