In the beginning the little one grew very well, looked after by her mother and a young and excellent servant, who carried the child around the yard in the morning and evening. In that yard we also kept a monkey which was attached to a bamboo stick in the ground, above which was a box; this animal was extremely jealous of the baby and sometimes broke loose, which was becoming dangerous.
The sailing ship the Kosmopiliet III coincidentally wasin the streets and we had the commander Dienske as a guest; I asked him if he would like to have our monkey and he took the animal with him on board after dinner; who could guess our amazement when we saw the funny thing sitting in his box the next morning. He had simply jumped overboard and had swum back to the shore; brought back and tied up he made the journey to Holland with Dienske and the story doesn’t mention anything else about this pseudo-human.
In the beginning of 1879 the 24cm canons for the coast battery had arrived in Tjilatjap and one of them had to be transported to Babakan only for shooting excercises; this costed quite a lot of time and effort; the roads were too weak, the bridges not strong enough and the raft across the Serajoe river totally useless; the care for the supply of one and the other had been charged to the Dep. v. B.B.; the engineers were only to look after a large hardstone spill coushion, which had been designed in one piece by colonel Ermeling; it was round with a diameter of about 1.90m and about 50cm thick.
To transport this monsterpiece of stone, it had to be first completely cut to size in the quarry of the engineers on the island of Noesah-Tembangan, this succeeded and when the stone was ready it was put on it’s side, however it suddenly started to roll because of carelessness of the workers and killed a chainworker, who was standing in the way.
The stone arrived without trouble in Babakan, however here the able Ermeling had miscalculated; after a few shots the spill coushion was clearly useless because the stone was busted in several places.
On one of my weekly visits I witnessed and noticed how many unable aimers the Atillery counts. To eliminate mistakes
one gets told to always aim in the same direction at the trials and it was a coincidence this happened to be my former guest v. Dapperen.
For the second time again I had a double household and couldn’t pay for my furnishing from the 4 months advanced wages, which I had to take on when I arrived in S.
So I was forced to get a loan and did obtain that against reasonable conditions from the retired headmaster Schoenmaker, the father in law of ltnt. H.R. de Vries, who was my subordinate. He was a good all round ambitious officer, who took much work out of my hands and during the course of the years became a faithful friend to me.
After I returned from Oengarang I foud the official annoouncement that the chief of Arms would come to Semarang to hold an inspection; on top of that a personal writing came from colonel v. Kappen, in which he requested for him and his daughter to stay with us during the inspection; I explained my situation to him in my confirmative reply upon which he answered that his daughter, since my wife was absent, rather would stay with another aquaintance and he himself would love to make use of my hospitality.
Thus he came and I have to say, that he was a pleasant inspector, who did point out my failings but at the same time knew to appreciate the good.
As a guest he was extremely nice and we sat chatting away till late.
The first evening Resident v.d. Heil had asked us around, according to official custom; I had told the colonel in our conversation that I would rather go out myself at that occasion, because the Resident had not taken any notice of my first visit up till now; colonel v. K. however adviced me against it and knew how to distract the conversation, that the Resident offered me his excuses and since then asked me to dinner, later on also with Ch. and E.; so the good relation had been restored.
On another point the colonel was also very symphathetic; namely when he learnt that I was used on Saturdays to go to Oengarang, he ordered that day to have Sunday service and commenced the inspection on Monday at half past 9.
That Saturday was the third week that I visited my wife; I covered the quite strong rising road in an Americaine, which I could borrow every time for this purpose. One of my spruce Savoenish horses pulled this light carriage with ease against the hills; only descending went more difficult, because the carriage had no brakes and then everything came against the breeching of the harness.
One of the horses was agisted a little above Tjandie and so I reached Oengarang in about one hour; de drive in the early hours of the morning was simply divine; the East monsoon was blowing and not far from Tjandie they had had frost in the night several times so that all te bridges were frosty white and my hands were blue from the cold, holding the reins.
Upon arrival in O. at my third visit I didn’t find Ch. in her room; she was hiding, because she had put on remarkable weight and wanted to surprise me; Dr. Goslings, who had patched up my little wife so nicely, considered a stay of at least another 3 weeks neccessary to completely recover and at my next visit I could already take long walks with Ch.
On one of those walks we went through a very smelly flowering coffee garden, when Ch. suddenly called out:”Oh, what a beautiful lily!”. I didn’t recognise the flower, but thought it was also beautiful and for 25cents I had the plant with bulb dug up by a native who was nearby and took it with me to the hotel.
We put it against the foundation wall of the back veranda, and would take it along the next day. Around 7 o’clock several persons complained about a terrible smell and after searching our lily proved to be the culprit; it was a kembang-bangkeh ( death flower ) and of course we were kindly made fun of.
When I returned in S. it was clear that there were hundreds of them to be picked in the Genielaan, which we never had noticed.
The evacuation of Ch. had good results as since then till her death she has never been ill.
Shortly after the return of the family I was nominated Commissioner of the Social club and soon already I knew how to work on that instead of one of the two old creaking billiards a large English poolbilliard was purchased, which I got to know the attraction of in Singapore and in the Harmonie in Batavia.
This took off well and after a while the supply already did’t look sufficient.
In the Social club many competitions, dance parties and other festiveties were organised, of which president Dankmeier always was the soul and leader. Good care was taken after everything and the ladies room too was supplied with all facilities, frangrances and little nick nacks.
When one morning after a dance party I went to the social club in my function as commissioner, the manager came crying to tell me, that from the lady’s room nearly all bottles of perfume and nick nacks, who were his wife’s, were stolen; I promised him I would investigate the case and when I told Ch. and her sister this during the rijsttafel, Emily suddenly became pale, so I called out:”You know about this, so confess!” She owned up and said she had seen, that the wife of the regional officer in charge had taken the things away and had hidden them in her wide pockets.
Well, this lady ( ? ) was known to have long arms, because she could hold her right ear with her left hand around her back; so her fingers were per ratio just as long.
I went to her husband, who at first was really cross, although he finally confessed after I threatened him with going to the police, and returned all of it, under the condition that I would not tell anyone about it; therefore I have not mentioned any names.
Diagonally behind our house lived an English tradesman, member of the firm MacNiel & Co., who had asked if he could visit us; after I had returned the visit, he came more often and we soon got the impression that he did this for Emily, who had told us at once that she didn’t want anything to do with him; then every day came beautiful bouquets with flowers, with which he was teasing Emily. Finally he sent a beautiful gold bracelet, which Emily returned to Mr. Downie with a sharp letter and since then the visits stopped.
Ch. and I were sorry, because Mr. Downie would have been an excellent partner for E.
The second concert from Caecilia, in which we played Beethoven’s 1st symphony was such a success, that some members decided to practice more and start another music group; which was named Sempre-Crescendo; once a week we came together at a home of one of the members and so in that way we had real nice evenings.
To practice even more I suggested Mr. Sauvlet, director of Ceacillia to give me piano lessons; he came and let me show how to play a Mozart sonata; suddenly he stopped me during my play and adviced me, because my fingersetting was not correct, to start all over again; 6 weeks I had followed his advice, though it was clear the incorrect fingersetting had been ingrained and that improvement was not possble; I did however persevere with the lessons and only played duets with my teacher, in which I could play the 2nd party to his satisfaction.
So I was in the opportunity to be a better musician, I could also let Charlotte take Dutch lessons; in Semarng namely was a lady who’se husband had committed malversation as a controller and had been jailed. She had no income but had a diploma of education and tried to earn a living through teaching; I took advantage of that; I always had said to Ch. that she as an officer’s wife had to entertain guests and should learn to speak our language slightly; she took on my suggestion to take lessons eagerly and so then I let her get on with the teacher and after about 6 weeks she surprised me by suddenly speaking Dutch when we had visitors one evening.
In Pontjol also lived our former guest v. Dapperen, whose family we had contact with; they lost their eldest daughter here, which I helped bury.
Friday evenings we always played at omber, in which the head editor of the Locomotive took part; this Mr. Brooshooft later on was replaced by his successor Mr. P.A. Daum ( Maurits ) with whom I established a friendship.
In the beginning of 1882 Resident v.d. Heil was being replaced by his collegue Wegener; whose spouse, a real East Indian, already immediatelyliked my little English wife and we were loaded with kindness and politeness till the end of our stay in S.
Shortly after Wagener made his appearence I had a visit from Baron Haack v.d. Goes, who had been sent by a Dutch syndicate to prepare the building of a rainlway from Semarant to Tjeribon. After being round the bush for some time he came out with the purpose of his visit, if he could look into the many of my topographic and architectural drawings in my archive. He himself had no knowledge about them but he was accompanied by Engineer Martens, who already had earned his respect for the building of the steamtram rails.
He was technical well grounded, but in daily life he was a stiff Klaas, which was clear at the reception at the Resident’s, where H.v.d.G. and he were going to pay their respects; the first one came inside and made, courteously as he was, a bow like a claspknife; the other wanted to copy him and fell flat on his nose to great laughter of the public.
Around the same time a severe cholera epidemic broke out in Semarang, it was so bad that I counted more than 200 indigenous funerals when I walked with my friend Daum from the resident’s house to the city.
Also in my yard two victims fell; in our front garden stood a small tree, which bore beautiful yellow fruit, which were considered very dangerous for the intestines and the use of which I had forbidden my personnel; despite this they still ate them and my coachman and our gardener were both touched by cholera and died soon after.
However it didn’t stay with only my servants; one evening I was guest at the department’s Commander Auffmorth, who gave a gentlemen’s dinner in honour of the Army’s commander Boumeester, who was on an inspection trip, when at my table I received a request from Ch. to come home immediately because our youngest child had fallen ill gravely.
Of course I got up at once and arrived home at the same time as Dr. Vechtman, who had also been ordered to come by Ch.
Dr. V. diagnosed cholera and ordered to wrap the child completely in woollen blankets keeping her warm the whole night, which order was strictly followed up; for nearly 8 hours I have carried the little Carey on my arms and at 6 in the morning Dr. V. already returned and asked if the child was still alive; to our confirmative answer he replied:”Then she is also saved.”
This was a huge relieve to us both and the child very soon got better.
In the Social Club the amount of members had increased strongly, whilst the enthousiasm for the English billiard kept gaining strongly, sothat the need rised to expand the billiard space.
The management asked me to draw up a project including the costs: I filled the request and my plans were approved immediately, whilst they asked me to also be in charge of the whole execution, also as far as the purchasing of billiards, furniture and paintings was concerned.
They gave me free hand and I have done the work for free and with love.
For the delivering of the billiard tables I got in touch with the firm Burroughes & Watts, who dellivered such solid stuff, that when 22 years later I did an inspection of the place I found the at that time bought materials still in the best condition back.
The building of the new billiard hall ( expansion of the exsisting one was not possible ) brought along that I had to spend much more time in the city than before; On 24th August 1881 when I was there again, when our houseboy came with a hired carriage to warn me, that the Njonja had fallen ill and I had to come straight away with a midwife.
Due to the continuing health condition of Ch. in her 3rd pregnancy we had not called our doctor, besides he had declared earlier on he rather left the deliveries to that woman and only wanted to be consulted if complications occurred.
We both had not expected such a speedy delivery: even the night before we still took our long evening walk and that morning Ch. also hadn’t noticed anything..
Who can describe our amazement about when I arrived with the midwife half an hour later the little Jop was already born. Ch. had felt hardly any contractions and the baby had as it were come into the world laughing, a real child of fortune.
This time Ch. didn’t have the help of her sister because a few months earlier Emily had returned to Singapore; however everyting was plain sailing and after a few days Ch. was back to normal.
Our house in Pontjol had one failure; it was as it were poisoned with black ants, to which all known means didn’t do anything; so we were adviced to eradicate them by introducing red sharp biting ants; a large piece of meat was hung up in a mango tree in the engineer’s nursery and in no time at all we saw thousands of these darling insects gathering on it then brought these to our garden. It was incredible how quickly a real battle was going on between both antspecies; each red ant was being attacked by 6 black ants which each took a leg of the red ant on its account and these as it were got torn apart like that; within a quarter of an hour the battle was over and we could not recognise anything from them.
footnote: Njonja = lady of the house
The antstory seems strange about the colours, but never mind. This is how it was written.
Before I will describe my last period in Semarang, I still want to tell about the guests we had besides Emily and which official visit fell to my share.
Starting with this offical visit this concerned the announcement of the Mahardja van Djohore who made a journey across Java and wanted to see me, as an old friend from Singapore, once again; he came with a large amount of followers consisting of at least 20 indigenous and Arabs and one can understand how amazed I was to notice under the Arabian followers the one I showed the door before in Pontianak.
The guests were as follows:
Firstly Major Dozy with spouse, which last one I got to know in my youth as Anna Kooper in Schiedam; we spent several pleasant days together, only my former mentor was a bit an expensive guest as he liked the Rhinewine too much.
Secondly the daughter of my chief in Willem I, ltnt. col. Leers; she was the child of an indigenous woman and had enjoyed her education in Holland, however in real common surroundings, least her father asked for her to stay so she would be able to get into more conversable circles. We didn’t enjoy her much; Louise was a boring black nonna.
Thirdly The Danish officer of Health Nokkentved, a friend of col. v. Kappen, who had asked me to take some notice of him; he was in hospital operated on a liver abcess, awaiting the departure of SS Prins v. Oranje, with which he would sail for a two year sick leave.
I had pity on his situation and got the hospital’s boss to let him spend his last few days with us. The day of his departure he got a fever again and at 10 o’clock his abcess burst open again; I have admired Charlotte how full of love and care she treated the patient and caught more than a fingerbowl of puss from him and after that bandaged him. Early in the morning I transported him then to the steamship and stayed with him until the departure of the boat.
Since then I have never heard from the Danish doctor and it is likely he had died.
nonna = miss
Towards the end of 1881 we nearly had a serious accident with our little Carey, she was a real crow, who touched everything and who liked climbing; this time she had climbed on the toilet seat, which stood above the waterpipe behind the house; she pushed her head through a round hole, which had been made in the wooden wall to let the light in and her little feet then slipped off the toilet seat; we heard a small scream but didn’t know straight away where it came from, so that the little one hung in this dangerous position for quite a while, when we arrived at the danger location I then, by holding the body in a horizontal position knew how to rescue the head from the hole; luckily the child had no other injury to her than a large scratch in her neck.
On 7th January 1882 the chief of the Arms v. Kappen was replaced by colonel v. Zuylen and I understood that my days in Semarang would be counted now.
This proved to be truly the case; v. Z. had demonstrated that I, since I knew the Straits, would be the right person to act as a senior on the Eastcoast of Sumatra.
The decision on his suggestion was already made on 2nd of February and my friend Daum told me this already the next afternoon, since the referring telegram had been received by the Locomotief.
So we had to prepare ourselves for our departure, although I had to wait for my replacer, sothat we still stayed for 6 weeks in Semarang. The attentions of sympahty from friends were many and several farewell parties were organised.
From the Social Club, where a few months earlier a lafge party had been given to christen the new billiard hall, I got a beautiful piano, make Goebel, home delivered, whilst Mr. Dankmeier organised a large party in honour of us at his house; printed invitations were send round for it.
On this party Caecilia’s choir performed the walz from the opera Faust and I filled the role of piano player. Further more the engagement of the daughter of Mr. Dankmeier with Dr. Godefroi was announced.
