The Upper Part Is Built Round
Three Sides Of A Dutch Garden, And A Gallery Under The Tiled Veranda
Runs All Round.
A set of handsome staircases on the sea side leads to
the lawn-like hill with the old cathedral, and the bungalows of the
Governor and colonial chaplain.
Stephanotis, passiflora, tuberose,
alamanda, Bougainvillea, and other trailers of gorgeous colors, climb
over everything, and make the night heavy with their odors. There must
be more than forty rooms in this old place, besides great arched
corridors, and all manner of queer staircases and corners. Dutch tiling
and angularities and conceits of all kinds abound.
My room opens on one side upon a handsome set of staircases under the
veranda, and on the other upon a passage and staircase with several
rooms with doors of communication, and has various windows opening on
the external galleries. Like most European houses in the Peninsula, it
has a staircase which leads from the bedroom to a somewhat grim,
brick-floored room below, containing a large high tub, or bath, of
Shanghai pottery, in which you must by no means bathe, as it is found
by experience that to take the capacious dipper and pour water upon
yourself from a height, gives a far more refreshing shock than
immersion when the water is at 80 degrees and the air at 83 degrees.
The worst of my stately habitation is, that after four in the afternoon
there is no one in it but myself, unless a Chinese coolie, who has a
lair somewhere, and appears in my room at all sorts of unusual hours
after I think I have bolted and barred every means of ingress. However,
two Malay military policemen patrol the verandas outside at intervals
all night, and I have the comfort of imagining that I hear far below
the clank of the British sentries who guard the Treasury. In the early
morning my eyes always open on the Governor's handsome Mohammedan
servant in spotless white muslin and red head-dress and girdle,
bringing a tray with tea and bananas. The Chinese coolie who appears
mysteriously attends on me, and acts as housemaid, our communications
being entirely by signs. The mosquitoes are awful. The view of the
green lawns, the sleeping sea, the motionless forest of cocoa-palms
along the shore, the narrow stream and bridge, and the quaint red-tiled
roofs of the town, is very charming and harmonious; yet I often think,
if these dreamy days went on into months, that I should welcome an
earthquake shock, or tornado, or jarring discord of some rousing kind,
to break the dream produced by the heated, steamy, fragrant air, and
the monotonous silence.
I have very little time for writing here, and even that is abridged by
the night mosquitoes, which muster their forces for a desperate attack
as soon as I retire to the Stadthaus for two hours of quiet before
dinner, so I must give the features of Malacca mainly in outline.
Having written this sentence, I am compelled to say that the feature of
Malacca is that it is featureless! It is a land where it is "always
afternoon" - hot, still, dreamy. Existence stagnates. Trade pursues its
operations invisibly. Commerce hovers far off on the shallow sea. The
British and French mail steamers give the port a wide offing. It has no
politics, little crime, rarely gets even two lines in an English
newspaper, and does nothing toward making contemporary history. The
Lieutenant-Governor has occupied the same post for eleven years. A
company of soldiers vegetates in quarters in a yet sleepier region than
the town itself. Two Chinese steamers make it a port of call, but,
except that they bring mails, their comings and goings are of no
interest to the very small English part of the population. Lying
basking in the sun, or crawling at the heads of crawling oxen very like
hairless buffaloes, or leaning over the bridge looking at nothing, the
Malays spend their time when they come into the town, their very
movements making the lack of movement more perceptible.
The half-breed descendants of the Portuguese, who kept up a splendid
pomp of rule in the days of Francis Xavier, seem to take an endless
siesta behind their closely covered windows. I have never seen an
Englishman out of doors except Mr. Hayward, the active superintendent
of military police, or Mr. Biggs, who preserves his health and energies
by systematic constitutionals. Portuguese and Dutch rule have passed
away, leaving, as their chief monuments - the first, a ruined cathedral,
and a race of half-breeds; and the last, the Stadthaus and a flat-faced
meeting-house. A heavy shower, like a "thunder-plump," takes up a part
of the afternoon, after which the Governor's carriage, with servants in
scarlet liveries, rolls slowly out of Malacca, and through the
sago-palms and back again. If aught else which is European breaks the
monotony of the day I am not aware of it. The streets have no
particular features, though one cannot but be aware that a narrow
stream full of boats, and spanned by a handsome bridge, divides the
town into two portions, and that a handsome clock-tower (both tower and
bridge erected by some wealthy Chinese merchants) is a salient object
below the Stadthaus. Trees, trailers, fruits, smother the houses, and
blossom and fruit all the year round; old leaves, young leaves, buds,
blossom, and fruit, all appearing at once. The mercury rarely falls
below 79 degrees or rises above 84 degrees. The softest and least
perceptible of land and sea breezes blow alternately at stated hours.
The nights are very still. The days are a tepid dream. Since I arrived
not a leaf has stirred, not a bird has sung, the tides ebb and flow in
listless and soundless ripples. Far off, on the shallow sea, phantom
ships hover and are gone, and on an indefinite horizon a blurred ocean
blends with a blurred sky.
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