In The
Front Veranda, Festooned With Trailers And Orchids, Two Malay Military
Policemen Are Always On Guard, And Two Scornful-
Looking Bengalis in
white trousers, white short robes, with sashes of crimson silk striped
with gold, and crimson-and-gold
Flat hats above their handsome but
repellent faces, make up the visible part of the establishment. One of
these Bengalis has been twice to Mecca, at an expense of 40 pounds on
each visit, and on Friday appears in a rich Hadji suit, in which he
goes through the town, and those Mussulmen who are not Hadji bow down
to him. I saw from the very first that my project of visiting the
native States was not smiled upon at Government House.
The Government bungalow being scarcely large enough for the Governor's
family, I am lodged in the old Dutch Stadthaus, formerly the residence
of the Dutch Governor, and which has enough of solitude and faded
stateliness to be fearsome, or at the least eerie, to a solitary guest
like myself, to whose imagination, in the long, dark nights, creeping
Malays or pilfering Chinamen are far more likely to present themselves
than the stiff beauties and formal splendors of the heyday of Dutch
ascendancy. The Stadthaus, which stands on the slope of the hill, and
is the most prominent building in Malacca, is now used as the Treasury,
Post Office, and Government offices generally. There are large state
reception-rooms, including a ball-room, and suites of apartments for
the use of the Governor of the Straits Settlements, the Chief-Justice,
and other high officials, on their visits to Malacca.
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