Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/216

 certainly not in July Yes, Duclari, the rainy season is there at its height in July, quite different from here now then, the perilousness of these roads was linked with my mortified ambition. I had often proposed to the Resident to construct at Natal a breakwater, or at least an artificial harbour at the mouth of the river, with a view to bring commerce into the district of Natal, which unites the battah districts with the sea. One million and a half of inhabitants in the interior do not know what to do with their produce, because the Natal roads are so bad. Now then, these proposals had not been approved by the Resident, or at least he asserted that the Government would not approve of them, and you know that the Residents never propose anything but what they know pretty well beforehand will be agreeable to the Government. The making of a harbour at Natal was in principle contradictory of the separate system; and far from encouraging ships there, it was even forbidden to admit ships with yards on the roads, unless in case of superior force. Yet when a ship came—they were mostly American whalers, or French ships that had loaded pepper in the small independent countries on the north side—I always caused a letter to be written by the captain, wherein he asked permission to take in fresh water. My anger about the miscarriage of my efforts to do something for the benefit of Natal, or rather my offended vanity at being still of so little consequence that I could not even have a harbour