Amsterdam. At supper everything was cooked with truffles, and the servants at the table also wore red waistcoats, the same as the coachman.
As I take a great interest in Indian affairs—on account of the coffee—I turned the conversation to that subject, and soon saw what to think of it all. This Resident told me that he had always done very well in the East, and therefore there is not a word of truth in all those tales about discontentment among the population. I turned the conversation to Shawlman. He knew him, and that in a very unfavourable light. He assured me that they had done quite right in sacking that fellow, for he was a very discontented person, who was always fault-finding, whilst in addition there was much to be criticized in his own conduct. For instance, he was always carrying off girls, and taking them to his wife, and he did not pay his debts, which surely is not very respectable. Now as I knew so well from the letter I had read how true all these charges were, I was greatly pleased to see how accurately I had judged in this matter, and was therefore specially satisfied with myself. And for this, I may say, I am well-known at my pillar . . . I mean for judging so accurately.
That Resident and his wife were charming, generous people. They told us much of their manner of life in the East. It really seems to be very pleasant there. They said their country place at Driebergen was not half as large as their “grounds,” as they called it, in the interior of Java, and for the maintenance of those grounds quite a hundred people were required. But—and this seems to prove clearly how much they were liked—those people did this altogether without payment, and entirely from affection. They also said that on their departure the sale of their furniture had brought them about ten times the value, because the Native Chiefs like to buy a souvenir of a Resident who has been kind to them. I told Stern this afterwards, and he contended that it was done by coercion, and that he could prove this from Shawlman’s bundle. But I said to him that this Shawlman was a slanderer, that he used to
