In time before our departure I had requested the Government a 14 days leave to spend abroad in Singapore, which I was granted.
Ch. could then stay another 14 days with the children, whilst I would get our house in Bengkalis in order as well as possible.
The journey to Singapore didn’t present anything in particular; we were picked up from the boat by Opa Baumgarten and Annie, which moored at the jetty of Tandjong Pagger Wharf; here the damage was still visible which the huge fire had caused in 1878, and which I forgot to mention at the right moment; it was the largest fire I had ever seen and which lasted more than 3 weeks; the damage consequently had been enormous and ran into several millions.
Arriving in Opa B.’s the new home there was enough room for Ch. and the children, but I had to stay with a cousin of Ch., the sollicitor and notary Edwin Koek, who lived in a magnificent villa with a huge hilly garden in the neighbourhood of the Palace of the Governor; at the foot of the hill was a tidy two story pavilion, which was given to my disposal.
It contained a lounge with decent furniture and piano, dining and bedroom and seperate annexes; all of them nicely located and with a riant view. No wonder Ch. came to visit me in the morning as much as possible to further go with me in to the city to buy things for our new little house.
Of course I also paid a visit to our good Consul General Mr. W.H. Read during my stay in Singapore; besides I had a message for him from the Headofficer in charge of the Military Administration in Batavia being the request to hand in the final account of the engineer’s expenses as soon as possible, of which expenses more than $ 10.000 were unaccounted for.
I then learnt that the vice consul Hermens was guilty of this; he had hit the bottle in the last year and had neglected all cases in such a way, that Mr. Read had discharged him from his job; the administration consequently had gone completely haywire and Mr. Read called for my help to put the case back to order.
I composed a letter for him, in which was shown that the whole amount, according to the cheque books for engineer’s expenses was spent and consideration was given to validate these expenses afterwards. To this they decided favourably.
When I saw my father in law again he looked a lot older; he obviously couldn’t get used to his retired life and was unsatisfied about his smaller house, whilst the conversation had diminished gravely. Charlotte noticed that from this or the other the most and I remember that to my question to her the day before my departure to Bengkalis, what she though of Singapore now she replied:”I hate it”.
Not only with my father in law I noticed a decline, with my brother in law William Smith who was married to Louise and had a large amount of children, it was even worse; through the decline of the Malacca tinmining he had lost his whole fortune and I found him back as a paid secretary of the Town-Club, which supplied him with a minimal piece of bread.
Lucky he had his beautiful house and garden which was in his wife’s name, which got him out of trouble and everything later on turned out allright, when the shares of the mentioned tinmines again rose exorbitantly.
One of the first days in May I left for Bengkalis by myself, where I arrived in the evening and was picked up from the boat by my collegue van Deutzch.
We went in a sloop to the wharf but the harbour light on the pier didn’t seem to burn, although we arrivedat a wrong point of the coast in the middle of the Chinese drysheds on poles with troeboek, of which they make caviar. With great difficulty we walked against the high primitive ladders and reached almost immediately after the house of my collegue, which in furture also would be our home.
Dinnertime had passed and after we settled down, we sat down and laid our legs over the thin ballustrade of the small front veranda; the moon shone clearly.
Mr. v.D., a real cynical man, found this fact a reason to demonstrate that this moon then was far too beautiful for this horrible country; he was exceptionally talkative, as in company he never opened his mouth; he also said that he had found the receptions of col. Ermeling so pleasant: one received a glass of cold water and a delicious glass of port and didn’t have to say anything. This describes the character of my predecessor sufficiently.
V.D. was an accurate man in his service and the change over went particularly speedy, which eventuated on the 10th May.
Out of the simple furniture of v.D. I bought everything on his sale that I could use; he also owned two cages with a very large amount of pigeons, which he offered me to take on, since the dirty mess these animals caused in the house I didn’t want to have a bar of it and that’s why the animals were sold per dozen in the sale; nobody wanted the cages and therefore these stayed, so that I still had about 300 pigeons before the arrival of Ch. so we were eating at least twice a week pigeon pies.
The staff in Bengkalis consisted of Resident Kroesen, the Secretart Twijsel, the Military Commander Lindgreen, the Officer of Health Enthoven and the Commander of the government’s steamship and further of a number of departmental clarks, steersmen and clarks, who all took part in the local conversations and were also member of the Social Club.
The only civilian was a certain Stoffel van Akkeren, a real indigenous specimen, who delivered all the government’s orders and also was contractor of the camp which was being built; he often went to Singapore and then he did all kinds of shopping for the residents and their ladies; he was in one word very useful.
After 14 days Ch. arrived with the children; our palace had been so far furnished, that she could take on her function as housewife immediately and we could soon start paying visits, which were many in this provincial nest.
As a particularity I can mention here that the family of the mentioned Stoffel v. A. received us wearing suede gloves.
The conversation at this place was in general very friendly, to which the Resident and Mrs/ Kroesen contributed a lot by having dinners and card evenings. If Stoffel would be amongst the guests, we then did not play at ombre or profits, but a kind of general game was organised, in which we played so called Kikereki, in which sometimes large amounts were going round, thus one was obliged to take part in this dice game out of respect for Stoffel.
I was personally on very good terms with the Resident and in business he was very polite and helpful. Like he let me use his steamlaunch to go to Siak to inspect the engineering service.
I had a very pleasant stay there with controller v. Rijn v. Alkemade and returned in the evening of the second day to Bengkalis.
During the returntrip an accident happend, namely: the steamlaunch ran in full speed against the embarkment, sothat I was thrown off the sofa, on which I was lying, over the table against the cabin’s latch and got a wound on my head; on top of that the launch had landed in a sloping position against the embankment and the tide was going out, which could cause the launch to slide backwards and could sink altogether. The coxswain didn’t appear to be very handy and therefore I took over the orders temporary and had the launch tied up wit all the ropes and chains available on board; the cabin however did run partly under water, although at the rise of the waterlevel the launch came free again and the water from the cabin ran away by itself. I had to keep the bandage on my head for 10 days.
I still forgot to mention that under the civilian personnel the senior civil worker of the dept. of buildings and works Chr. Bollee, with whom I made an inspection tour of the Eastcoast together not long after my journey to Siak.
First I went to Medan, where the temporary military buildings looked very poorly next to the houses and offices of the Deli company; also in Seroewai and in Pangkallan-Siata, from where my journey was further expanded and it is understandable that after my return in Bengkalis a nice lot of work came up. My suggestions to referring these cases were at once approved in Batavia, awaiting more permanent establishments.
After my inspection trip I found my three children with a stubborn skin rash; the doctor blamed the water, what even after cooking and filtering kept a brown colour; with our eldest the rash was so bad, that her whole back was open; luckily Dr. Enthoven discovered a cream which worked well; on other occasions I had very little trust in this aesculapius; he was replaced after several months by his collegue v. Beuningen v. Helsdingen.
He had not been long in our location when one afternoon I was sitting on my front veranda I saw a Chinese ran past chasing a young pig; the animal escaped underneath a fence and when the Chinese wanted to follow, tumbled over and gave a loud cry; I was immediately at the spot and found, that the man had fallen on a broken bottle with his bare top; he had a large wound, through which his bowels were protruding, which I pushed inside again with a clean hanky and had the doctor called at once, he bandaged him and took him to the hospital, where he healed in a incredible short time.
For this the Chinese was so grateful, that since then had honoured the doctor and us every Sturday with a large piece of pork meat and he maintained this until our departure.
As a houseboy we also had a Chinese, a nice young man who made an honourable habit of keeping his skull as smooth as possible; our house was completely built out of wild wood, in which large black beetles ( koembangs ) lived and collected their honey; one of those beetles landed on our Atioe’s head and stung him badly, from which he got a fever which lasted for days.
On 5th December the kids celebrated their first St. Nicolas, before that they were still too young; it was a party organised by the management of the social club and no costs were spared; it was the first and only time I acted as the holy Saint and was able to offer a suitable present to all members, whilst the children received plenty. Milly and Carey didn’t recognise me; they were both extremely shy and afraid, but at home they did most of the talking.
In the beginning of 1883 Milly came to stay with us again because Ch. was expecting her 4th child, which took place on the 3rd of March 1883, when my only son and namekeeper was born, to whom I gave the name Johannes Godfried, according to family tradition.
With the delivery Dr. v. Beuningen assisted, though he didn’t tighten the little boy’s navelstring well enough, sothat Ch., screaming from her bed called:” The poor boy is bleeding to death”: I tightened the string somewhat and this business came good.
Ch. was soon back on her feet, but Emily got a problem with her large toe so she couldn’t walk anymore; out of exaggerated purity she didn’t want to be treated by the doctor, however, improvement didn’t occur sothat in the end she had to consult Dr. v. Beuningen.
The daily treatment of the toe caused both hearts to ignite and after a short while it came to an engagement, which was followed by a wedding even before our departure from Bengkalis and took place in Singapore. Due to the less favourable financial circumstances of Papa Baumgarten Ch. gave half of her large trousseau to Emily.
I was talking about our departure from B.; the reason for this was that the building of the camp there had nearly finished and therefore had suggested to transfer my post to Medan, where much more had to be built in furture. This suggestion had been approved and already 14 days after Johan’s birth I had departed alone to my new post leaving Ch. and the children behind for the time being; so the engagement of our family member was celebrated without my presence.
Before I continue I have to add in between that the situation in Holland had changed in the last few years.
My favourite sister Mina had died on the first February 1882 and brother in law de Jongh remarried already on the 11th October the same year with my younger sister Marie.
My eldest sister had finally joined in Hymen’s bands with the retired tit. Major Tj. v.d. Werff; it was a coicidence that in those days I received a small inheritance from my aunt in Almen, Harmkemeuje; I parted with this inheritance in favour of a wedding present for both my sisters.
In Medan I could straight away move into quite a good, although small house, which was situated along the mainroad between the Cantine and the lane to the Deli company.
The house consisted of a front, internal and back veranda with two large and 2 small rooms; one of the large ones was meant as the children’s bedroom, the small one behind it as guestroom and both other rooms for our bed and dressing rooms.
I furnished the little house as much as possible, taking in account our furniture in Bengkalis, which more than likely would be transported free of charge.
After a month’s stay I asked for 10 days leave to pick up Ch. and the children from Bengalis; Emily meanwhile had left for Singapore. The Resident had given the use of the largest steamlaunch for my trip and my whole possession and prosper was loaded on it and we made the crossing to Laboean-Deli in beautiful weather, free of costs.
In my house was no space for an office, therefore I decided to put up a temporary office at my own costs, in the yard next to my house made from nibongpalm poles with a higher floor, walls from nypa palmmats and a palmleaves roof, because I had not been appointed an office I enjoyed a rental indemnity as major and the profitable difference was enough to finance the office within one year.
My first job was to make a project for a permanent settlement on the Polonia estate on the other side of the Deli river; however when it came to the crunch there was no money to execute the decision.
I then got an order to improve the temporary barracks again and to build seperate small houses for the officers like the office I had just described; with the building and also for the office I had ltnt. G.W.F. de Vos as helper, he was married with miss L.v.d. Broek; they were a nice couple of people and later on I became good friends with them.
Quite soon after my arrival Engineer Dates came for the building of the Deli railway, who shortly after that organised a party for the occasion of putting the first spade in the ground for his railway.
Quite a lot of champaign was drunk, sothat even the highly placed persons drank too much; actually only the lieutenant-adjutant Broos and I the only ones, who stayed sane and we were witnesses of an odd fight between the Military commander Perelaer and the Resident Kroesen. The first one had the habit to make his opponent cross by holding his hands stretched out beside each other and then saying:”Jawel”; the Resident answered him this time swearing:”Say something else than Jawel!”
The following day Perelaer inquired with Broos if he perhaps had said or done something impolite, which we both denied; otherwise he wanted to offer his excuses; so the fight sizzled out
Under ltnt. col. Perelaer were serving capt. v.d. Hout and Klencke with the Infantry and the first one was an annoying guy, who nevertheless was a very good comedy actor and took a lot of effort to organise performances, and for this went every morning to the ladies to persuade them to join the play.
He even got Ch. to take a large rol for her account, which she accomplished well in the Gezelligheid in Deli society, although she could not pronounce the U sound properly.
Captain Klencke was a good guy, who like playing cards a lot, whilst his wife was more a flirting type; this gave rise at a party in the club to take the micky out of her. In those days it was fashionable that the ladies wore a so called Paris queue ; she had exaggerated this fashion so much that her backside looked like a table, on which a joker put a cup of tea, with which she walked around the hall and caused huge amusement.
Mr. Velders was the Assistent Resident of Deli, a selfmade man, coming from the Governmental navy, who, when he boarded a ship again at once forgot that to blow your nose you had to use a hanky and asked in the early morning for a small dish with coconut oil, with that he greased his head; he was known as a walking State’s journal and seemed to be doing well in his job, through which he even brought it to Resident of Bantam.
His wife had the partucular habit of turning the men’s uniform buttons around when having a conversation with them.
I didn’t know them for too long as the man was succeeded by the already known Mr. Michielsen.
In view of the precarious situation in the Tamiang distric I was given orders to visit the area every time when this would be important for the service. One of these trips I made as per usual by a steamlaunch, in the company of the Bisshop from Batavia, Monseigneur Staal.
In fromt of the river mouth of the Tamiang we had to lie at anchor to wait for the high tide, when suddenly a large school of stingrays, who were obviously chased by porpoises and were fleeing at shallow water and came nearby; many flew over our launch and about 5 fell on deck, who of course were a catch for the crew; one of them was cleaned for us and fried and we had it for a delicious lunch.
Monseigneur was a nice talker and told me amongst others that in Semarang a few years ago I had called in a pastor who was collecting money for the poor because of the fierce heat and had offered him a cold drink and some rest; “Such cases are not forgotten by us catholics”, he added.
On the return trip he taught me the Jeu de quinze, in which one announced: Tourner la boite, which many really didn’t understand, nowadays this puzzle is generally known and is called the English Bachelor’s puzzle.
During another trip to Tamiang the health officer Rahder came aboard the Laboean-Deli steamlaunch, who was posted at Seroewai; he introduced his wife to me, saying: “Don’t you think she is far too nice for these overseas regions?” I straight away understood that this aesculapicus was not sane, this which was proven later on.
When we arrived in Seroewai and I enjoyed the hospitality of the controller Heckler, it so happened an indigenous party would take place; one of the program feats was a Sedateh-dance by Achinese. In this a 10 year old boy was surrounded by about 20 adult men who were dancing at least half an hour around the little boy whilst sending the little man all kinds of loving arm signals and looks; it was in one word disgusting; still it is tolerated by the civil administration.
At the end of the party European fireworks were ignited, which had been especially ordered by the fireworker Gorde in Batavia. Heckler had asked me to look after the ignition, but oh dear, the second rocket was refractory, turned around and landed in the middle of the large chest with unignited fireworks, which immediately set fire to it. So the whole festival segment fell in water, or rather on fire.
At the end of 1883 was a vacancy for a doctor at the Deli company, I knew about the intentions of my brother-in-law, so I suggested him to apply for this job, which he within a short period after that, got landed.
He received 1000 guilders per month wages, but had to repay the government’s service 1000 guilders back for his used training; this money the Deli company lend him.
He was first placed in Medan, where he also had to treat workers of the Deli railway, though soon enough he was transferred to Leboe-Dalam, where a second hospital for the company had been set up.
If the v. Beuningens were a little more socialising people, he would certainly have become the head of the large hospital in Medan and the sisters would have been of help to each other, now the distance was too large.
I visited him at Leboe-Dalam only once, when I had to take the return journey from the Tamiang area via Langkat and had to stay about 4 days in this place awaiting a nearer shipping occasion. In that time I made three remarkable visits.
The first one concerned my brother and sister in law as said; they had an excellent house with annexes next to the well equiped hospital; the annexes however were open too much, sothat the night before my arrival a calf had been dragged away by a tiger, besides it was very lonely, since brother and sister in law had not started visiting anyone.
My second visit concerned my yearmate of the K.M.A. Haarsma, who was married to an English woman. At the K.M.A. he was known as never to set the Thames on fire; however he was now an administrator of one of the biggest tobacco plantations of the Langkat company.
With these folks I enjoyed a delicious dinner in the company of a trained frog; for this amazingly large species Mrs had made a wooden staircase, where against the creature hopped up and so he took part at the menu; besides that he sat all day in a corner catching mosquitoes and was no trouble to anyone.
I still have to mention the third visit to the administrator Meyer, who with me as a corporal had come on the Dordrecht II to the Dutch East Indies; he quickly became a sergeant, then left the service and had climbed up in the tobacco.
I had dinner with him under a huge flynet, in which the dishes were brought in in a crawling manner because of the large amount of mosquitoes; the dinner was sprinkled with delicious wine from his homeland Sachsen. I mention as a particularity, that later on he got the general nickname Lineaal-Meyer, because he accidentally had hit a coolie with a ruler in such a way that he died of his injuries; it delivered him a lawsuit, at which he was aquitted, however he did have to pay the costs, which ran in many thousands, because there was no court of justice in Deli and and a lot of witnesses were called to Batavia.
Beginning 1884 Charlotte was pregnant again and we had asked her sister Willy to come and help her in the household during that time. The delivering took place in the middle of September and Ch. was assisted by our Danish neighbour Dr. Cohn.
When the little Lotje was born it was clear she could not breath at once, so the doctor held the child by the feet and then shook it back and forth, which was crowned by success; the child on the whole seemed to be rather weak.
Through a telegram of the chief of Wars I was temporarily transferred to Atjeh. Since the mailboat had just left I suggested to ltnt. col. Perelaer to send me by steamlaunch to Edi and there to pick up the boat to Atjeh. The ltnt.col. thought this was against the contract with the Ned. Ind. Steamship company and despite my claim that it was urgent, I could only leave with the next mailboat via Riouw sothat the journey was only commenced on December 8th. Thus I passed Singapore twice and could visit the family; however it was a long way around.
During this journey the mailboat stayed the night on the street of Telok-Semaweh to take on a load. Ater dinner a few officers came from the Navy wharf to visit us and one of them suggested we do a game of dice, which suggestion was taken up.
We played kikeriki as known in Bengkalis, in which every player in turn was the bank with a certain amount of stakes; every player gets 3 cards and the banker turns a fourth open, is this lower than the the player’s 3 cards then he wins the amount, which he has left from the stakes; if however the banker’s turned card is higher or from a different colour than the one of the player, then he has to put the money mentioned by him in a pot; as soon as the banker thinks the pot is fat enough, he lets the so called first ship depart and when every player has put in a bid 3 times the remainder of the pot is the banker’s profit.