Eastern islands near New Guinea, for
mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell. About one he would return home,
have coffee and cake or fried plantain, first changing his dress for a
coloured cotton shirt and trousers and bare feet, and then take a siesta
with a book. About four, after a cup of tea, he would walk round his
premises, and generally stroll down to Mamajam to pay me a visit, and
look after his farm.

This consisted of a coffee plantation and an orchard of fruit trees,
a dozen horses and a score of cattle, with a small village of Timorese
slaves and Macassar servants. One family looked after the cattle and
supplied the house with milk, bringing me also a large glassful every
morning, one of my greatest luxuries. Others had charge of the horses,
which were brought in every afternoon and fed with cut grass. Others had
to cut grass for their master's horses at Macassar--not a very easy task
in the dry season, when all the country looks like baked mud; or in
the rainy season, when miles in every direction are flooded. How they
managed it was a mystery to me, but they know grass must be had, and
they get it. One lame woman had charge of a flock of ducks. Twice a
day she took them out to feed in the marshy places, let them waddle and
gobble for an hour or two, and then drove them back and shut them up
in a small dark shed to digest their meal, whence they gave forth
occasionally a melancholy quack. Every night a watch was set,
principally for the sake of the horses--the people of Goa, only two
miles off, being notorious thieves, and horses offering the easiest and
most valuable spoil. This enabled me to sleep in security, although many
people in Macassar thought I was running a great risk, living alone in
such a solitary place and with such bad neighbours.

My house was surrounded by a kind of straggling hedge of roses,
jessamines, and other flowers, and every morning one of the women
gathered a basketful of the blossoms for Mr. Mesman's family. I
generally took a couple for my own breakfast table, and the supply never
failed during my stay, and I suppose never does. Almost every Sunday Mr.
M. made a shooting excursion with his eldest son, a lad of fifteen, and
I generally accompanied him; for though the Dutch are Protestants,
they do not observe Sunday in the rigid manner practised in England and
English colonies. The Governor of the place has his public reception
every Sunday evening, when card-playing is the regular a