Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/120

 war in the land to trample down the paddy even while it is green, nor sickness that renders the patjol useless. Nor are there sunbeams hotter than is necessary to ripen the grain that shall feed you and your children, nor banjirs to make your lament: ‘Show me the place where I have sown!’

“Where Allah sends water-torrents that tear away the paddocks where He makes the soil hard as the barren stones  where He makes His sun burn to scorch all growth  where He sends war to turn up the fields  where He smites with sickness that makes the hands limp, or with drought that kills the ears  there, Chiefs of Lebak, we bow the head in meekness, and say: ‘He wills it thus!’

“But not so in Bantan Kedool!

“I have been sent here to be your friend, your elder brother. Would you not warn your younger brother if you saw a tiger on his path?

“Chiefs of Lebak, we have oft made mistakes, and our country is poor because we made so many mistakes.

“For in Tjikandi, and Bolang, and in Krawang, and in the outlying districts of Batavia, there are many who were born in our district, and who have left it.

“Why are they seeking work far from the place where they have buried their parents? Why do they flee from the dessah where they were circumcised? Why do they select the coolness under the tree that grows there, rather than the shade of your forests?

“And yonder in the north-west across the sea, there are many who should be our children, but who have left Lebak to wander about in remote regions with kris and klewang and rifle. And they die miserably, for the power of the Government is there to defeat the rebels.