Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/211

 abomination to him. There were many things like this which, at Lebak, were obtainable by the undue exercise of authority, but not for sale at a reasonable price, and under such conditions Havelaar and his Tine submitted willingly to the absence of them. Had they not experienced worse privations? Had not the poor woman spent months on board an Arab vessel, without other couch than the ship’s deck, without other shelter from the sun’s heat and the showers of the west monsoon than a small table between the legs of which she had to stick tight? Had she not in that vessel been compelled to be satisfied with a small ration of dry rice and dirty water? And had she not in those and many other circumstances always been contented, so long as she might only be together with her Max?

Yet there was circumstance at Lebak which caused her vexation: little Max could not play in the garden because there were so many snakes in it. When she became aware of this and complained of it to Havelaar, he offered the servants a reward for every snake they would catch, but already in a few days he paid so much in premiums that he had to cancel his promise for the future, for even in ordinary circumstances, and without the present urgent necessity of economy, these payments would soon have outrun his means. So it was decided that in future little Max was not to leave the house, and that for fresh air he was to content himself with playing in the front veranda. In spite of this precaution Tine was still anxious all the time, and particularly in the evening, as it is well known how often snakes will crawl into the houses and conceal themselves for warmth in the bedrooms.

It is true, one finds snakes and similar vermin everywhere in India, but at the larger head-centres, where the populations live close together, they are of course more rarely found than in the wilder regions, such as Rangkas-Betoong. If, however, Havelaar could have decided to have his grounds cleared of weeds to the edge of the ravine, the snakes, though no doubt still appearing from time to time in the garden, would never have been found in such num-