by Nigel Barley
The palace was an uninspired building, blandly Germanic, like the villa of a particularly dull Bonn executive and painted in shades of matt-pink and grey. Its glory was the setting, perched over the temple whose waters gushed everywhere.
Water has always been significant in Hindu culture, and the influence lives on in the nominally Muslim culture of Java. The king’s association with water and rainfall is a manifestation of both his power and his purity. The Balinese still remember that the worst drought in living memory broke the day Bung Karno flew in for a visit. Not just the sea but the rain, too, was harnessed to declaring his legitimacy.
I commented on the cripplingly small bird-cages everywhere, mostly empty.
‘Bung Karno loved animals,’ I was told. ‘But he sent the elephants back to the jungle. Anyway, they are not practical animals.’
Raffles would certainly have agreed with that. After his removal the Dutch had learnt nothing from his white elephant. In the 1840s they were driven to distraction by a Balinese ruler’s repeated and vociferous demands for a rhinoceros. It took months of work and cost a fortune to get it to him. In return, all they got back was a black horse.
* * *
‘On Java we find Hinduism only amid the ruins of temples, images, and inscriptions; on Bali, in the laws, ideas, and worship of the people. On Java this singular and interesting system of religion is classed among the antiquities of the island. Here it is a living source of action, and a universal rule of conduct. The present state of Bali may be considered, therefore, as a kind of commentary on the ancient condition of the natives of Java.’
– T. S. Raffles, History of Java
* * *
‘Buleleng,’ I said. ‘I must go to Buleleng. Raffles was there.’ ‘You are not going to hire a car, I hope.’ Nyoman was shocked.
‘No, I thought I’d go by bus.’
‘But you cannot. You would get lost. It would take forever. Give me a moment. I have a cousin, Ketut, who has a car. He will take you. You must not pay. That would be shameful.’
The cousin turned up, stocky, shaven-headed, cheerful and slow-revving. I wondered whether he had given his hair to God. He was revealed to be a mechanic. With stage whispers, he was taken into a corner and talked to most emphatically by the family with energetic gestures.
We set off.
‘You got business in Bali, shop, hotel maybe?’ he inquired.
‘No. Just a tourist.’ It saved time explaining but I was to regret that rash statement. Of course – I was not wearing shorts or an Australian romper suit, so he thought I was one of the many illegal businessmen.
‘Elephant cave,’ he said.
‘No. No elephant cave. I only want to go to Buleleng.’
‘Elephant cave beautiful. You can’t come to Bali and not see elephant cave. It would be an insult. The family would be angry.’ We went to the elephant cave.
‘Now bat cave. Very impressive. You like.’
‘No bat cave. Buleleng.’
He looked desperately hurt. ‘Please. I want to go to bat cave. It’s only nearby. Not take much time.’
We went to the bat cave and the monkey forest and every temple along the way, with holy water and magic meteorites, a list of the weird and wonderful, all groaning with tourist appeal. It began to get dark.
‘We have to stay for night. Where we stay? Candi Dasa?’
There was no escape. We stayed at Candi Dasa.
The next day, we got up early.
‘Buleleng,’ I suggested.
‘You sure you want to go to Buleleng? Is nothing there. No shops. No discos. Why you want to go there?’
I explained at length about Raffles. Ketut became upset. I seemed to be suggesting that the British had conquered Bali. No one had ever conquered Bali. Not even the Dutch – properly.
‘No, no,’ I soothed. ‘Raffles never conquered Bali. He was merely an early tourist, an ally of the Sultan of Karang Assam.’
As I said it, I wondered whether the blatant untruth hid a deeper wisdom. Was it mere coincidence that where Raffles had been tourists followed? He had imposed the Grand Tour, the search for the phoney classicism of ancient Greece and Rome, on the Indonesian archipelago. He had set up Bali as Java’s museum annexe, living history.
But no, Raffles’ interest at least went beyond mere superficial sensation-seeking. After all, he had been to Buleleng, not Kuta Beach. But all anthropologists and writers bring a deadly infection, for to make a place known is to contribute to the destruction of what makes it interesting.
Ketut jammed on the brakes and looked at me annoyed. This morning, I was being a very bad tourist indeed.
‘Karang Assam? Now you want to go to Karang Assam, not Buleleng? Which?’
‘I’m not sure. Raffles definitely visited Buleleng, but I thought it was because he wanted to see the Sultan of Karang Assam. They wrote to each other.’
He sighed. ‘Buleleng and Karang Assam are cousins, brothers, anyway one family. They were always attacking each other, then making friends. No one remembers what was what any more.’ A motor mechanic summarizes history, but he was at least a Balinese motor mechanic. ‘If it is letters you want we should go to Karang Assam. In the palace at Amlapura is an ancient library, many lontar leaves. You want history, you go there. The different courts of the palace have crazy names, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo – maybe that was your Raffles. It is better you go with me. If you go alone, you are a tourist. If you go with me, I can speak Balinese.’
In the face of such apparent certainty, there was nothing else to do. We went to Amlapura.
* * *
The palace was a place of still ponds, lilies, old gnarled tree roots clamped into the soil in long shady alleys, a place of peace and contemplation. In the centre stood a carved wood pavilion used for the filing of human teeth, a ceremony by which the young formally join the human race at puberty by losing animal dentition and acquiring Hollywood smiles.
On the gate, selling tickets, was a young girl of stunning beauty, wrapped in a crisp sarong. What was clearly her brother emerged similarly clad. They displayed those Hollywood smiles. They were children as advertised on television, physically perfect, sweet-natured, helpful. Surely this was crass Orientalism. I looked harder. There was a small spot, just coming to a head of pus, by the side of the girl’s nose. The boy had dandruff. The world was safe from Orientalism after all.
Ketut began his spiel. I was annoyed to note he spoke Indonesian. Like many young Balinese he could not speak the language of the court. He began a long unfocused ramble about our journey. I interrupted ungraciously and asked if there was a librarian. We were pointed to the library.
We passed through a stone gateway and down some steps. The courtyard was dusted with gravel, full of flowers in pots, singing birds. A stout man emerged, drying his hands from some domestic activity. Could he help?
I was, I explained, interested in Raffles. He had certainly written to the Sultan. Perhaps he had even been here. I wondered if there were any traces of him. The man sucked his lip.
‘When exactly was he here?’
‘Ah … Well.’ I did some rough calculations.
‘What month was he here?’
What month? I was impressed. The archives here were marvellously organized if they could pin down documentation to the month. It had been after the death of Olivia, on the way back from the East, so it was probably in June or July. The man nodded.
‘He was a tall man, fair?’ This was astonishing. There must be a palace tradition about him, living on through the ages. Oriental hyperbole amplifying the reality of the small, mousy man.
‘He had two children?’ Wait, there was something wrong here. At that time, he was childless … unless … unless he had adopted local children. This was very exciting.
‘You were asking whether he left anything behind. Wait.’ He bustled off. What would it be? Letters? A silver medal bearing the image of George III? He returned with a Balinese parody of a Hawaiian shirt, covered in
pink-and-green lizards. He held it out.
‘He left this. It has been washed and ironed.’
The palace, it turned out, had adapted itself to the modern age. It now took paying guests, some of whom forgot their laundry. One of them had been an Australian with a name like Raffles.
* * *
‘The inhabitants of these islands are strikingly alive to a sense of shame; a feeling which is heightened by the influence of a tradition amongst the Melayus, that, on the first establishment of the Melayu nation, the islanders stipulated, that neither they nor their descendants should ever be put to shame … “None of the Malayan rajas ever expose their Malayan subjects to disgrace or shame: they never bind them, nor hang them, nor give them opprobrious language; and whenever a raja exposes his subjects to disgrace, it is the certain token of the destruction of his country. Hence also it is, that none of the Malayan race ever engage in rebellion, or turn their faces from their own rajas, even though their own conduct be bad, and their proceedings tyrannical.”’
– T. S. Raffles, History of Java
* * *
‘Buleleng,’ I said.
Ketut shook his head. ‘No Buleleng. The clutch is going. To get to Buleleng we must go through the mountains. The clutch will not take it. Believe me. I am mechanic, I know these things. We must return to Denpasar. Pass me the map.’
‘Where is the map?’
‘There.’
‘Where?’ I could not see it.
‘There. At the eastern end of the car.’
‘Which is the eastern end for God’s sake?’ Balinese are like homing pigeons, constantly orienting themselves with regard to Gunung Agung, the central volcano, the ‘navel’ of Bali.
So the God of Pancasila did not want me to go to Buleleng. We drove back to the town, Ketut humming to himself. He dropped me at the hotel. The Lombok men were supposed to be mixing cement but instead had adapted the hose to pleasure purposes, spraying each other in damp horseplay. There was the delicate problem of finance.
‘Let me pay for the petrol,’ I offered Ketut.
‘Wait. I must take the car back to my father. I come and see you again.’
In an hour, he was back.
‘I am ashamed.’ He hung his head like a silent screen actor to show that shame. ‘My father was angry. He said I could borrow his car for a few hours and, see, I have been all over the island with you, wearing out his tyres and his clutch for days. Also I have not fed the pigs so my father had to do it. You must give me money so my father will not be angry with me any more. The money is not for me. It is for my father so he is not angry with me. I think it is up to you to make us friends, since you are the one who has made us enemies.’
I sighed. We looked at each other, both knowing more than we wanted to. A little more Orientalism withered within me. As I gave him some money, he whispered, ‘You must promise not to tell Nyoman. You would make him ashamed.’
In the odd economy of honour and shame I realized that was probably true.
Founding Father
‘We are now on our way to the eastward, in the hope of doing something, but I much fear the Dutch have hardly left us an inch of ground to stand upon. My attention is principally turned to Johore, and you must not be surprised if my next letter to you is dated from the site of the ancient city of Singapura.’
– T. S. Raffles
Raffles was about to secure his greatest triumph and create what will always be regarded as his memorial – the city of Singapore. The Company in London was still fuming over his anti-Dutch manoeuvrings in Sumatra, and with slowly malevolent penmanship confecting a damning dispatch that would put him finally in his place, scotching, once and for all, his distressing tendency to extend Britishness to other parts of the world as an act of human compassion. But the Company could not keep up with him. Once again, he did the impossible. While the Company scribes were still sharpening their adjectives, he convinced Moira, now Lord Hastings, of the intention of the Dutch to exclude Britain from the whole archipelago and of the urgent need to establish a British station to the east, near the mouth of the Straits of Malacca, to stop that mouth snapping shut.
He also intended to found a station at Aceh. Two commissioners were appointed to look into the succession to the throne. Raffles supported one candidate for the Sultanship, the other commissioner, in thrall to Penang, supported another. The Company’s two commissioners sat for seven weeks in Aceh harbour, while Raffles bombarded his fellow official with a thousand pages of memoranda until the poor man submitted.
A free agent, Raffles was at his best, liberated from Bengkulu to wander the archipelago, Aceh, Carimon, Riau, Penang, Malacca, looking for a site for his new outpost and engaging in swift, energetic moves of personal initiative, unshackled by bureaucracy and the cramping dictates of accountancy. No wonder he exulted in the Dutch description of him as an ‘unquiet spirit’. Yet, with Raffles, there was always the practical touch. Bricks, he hinted to a naval commander before they set off, would serve very well as ballast for his ship. They would also came in handy for building his new city.
Historians have understandably homed in on this period, as crucial to the interpretation of British policy. It would later be thrown into prominence by endless bickerings over whose original idea it was to form a settlement at Singapore, precisely who had rights in the matter, what was the legality of the treaties, what dark and hidden economic forces really moved their human hearts.
It would be unwise to overlook one essential fact. The Raffles of this time was at least as concerned with natural history as with politics. He was visiting the botanical gardens in Calcutta, hiring botanists to work with him in Bengkulu, corresponding with British specialists in many branches of the sciences. He had a long, involved relationship with the Sumatran tapir, having tracked it down from early reports in Penang and Malacca until finally he was able to present one to the Governor-General’s park in Barrackpore in redemption of his studies. For Raffles, this was no mere distraction or consolation, the creation of knowledge was what he considered the ultimate justification of the European presence.
His first deed after taking possession of the harbour of Singapore was to set draughtsmen to work on the natural history of the island. By the time they got back to Penang, even the Editor, heavily pregnant, was loyally plugging away at botany while her busy womb was gestating his son, Leopold.
* * *
Singapore was formally founded on 6 February 1819. A number of accounts of the proceeding are preserved.
‘ … Mr Raffles himself came and shook hands with Tengku Long [the Sultan recognized as having authority], and a great many cannons were fired from the ships and from the cutters. Mr Raffles showed Tengku Long every honour and respect … At that time, Mr Raffles was speaking with smiles and a pleasant face, and kept bowing his head, and was as sweet as a sea of honey. Not merely the human heart but even a stone would be broken by hearing such words as his, with a gentle voice like the sweetest music, in order to remove any sadness, and that the doubt which might be concealed in the treasury of the human heart might also disappear, and so all the waves of uncertainty which were beating upon the reef of doubt were stilled, and the cloud which threatened a squall of wind with darkness such as that of a great storm about to break was all dissipated, so that the weather became fine and there blew the gentle breeze which comes from the garden of love, and then suddenly there arose the full moon of the fourteenth day with its bright light so that the sincerity of Mr Raffles became evident to Tengku Long. In a moment his sadness changed to gladness and his face lighted up. As Mr Raffles looked out of the corner of his eye, his face changed colour, and he rose from his chair, and taking the hand of Tengku Long he led him into his cabin, and closed the door. In that cabin, these two men conversed, and no one knows the secret of what they said. If I knew the secret of their conversation, I would certainly write it in this story, but God alone knows it. After a considerable time they both came out smiling and holding one another’
s hands, and then they went down into the boat.’
– Munshi Abdullah, Hikayat Abdullah
‘During the whole of the ceremony the vulgarity of the Sultan’s expression, the want of expression and the perspiration running down his face, combined with the wicked and dastardly proposal he made a few days ago for the murder of the Dutch at Rhio, raised in the feelings of the English spectators a horrible and disgusting loathing of his person, and several in pretty audible whispers, expressing these thoughts on the occasion sufficiently loud for Sir Stamford to hear, and in which sensation I suspect he inwardly accorded. The Tomagan [local chief] had a countenance more of dark cunning with some sparks of duplicity than otherwise, if I might be allowed to form an account of his heart from the index of his face; his certainly hard expression marked him to be fit for treasons, stratagems, war.’
–Captain J. Crawford
‘I shall say nothing of the importance which I attach to the permanence of the position I have taken up at Singapore; it is a child of my own. But for my Malay studies I should hardly have known that such a place existed … Our object is not territory, but trade; a great commercial emporium, and a fulcrum, whence we may extend our influence politically as circumstances may hereafter require. By taking immediate possession, we put a negative to the Dutch claim of exclusion … I shall leave this for Bencoolen in a few days, where I hope to remain quietly until we hear decidedly from Europe …’
– T. S. Raffles
Raffles must have known full well what wrath he had called down upon his head. The livid Penang government characterized his calm return to Bengkulu as ‘like a man who sets a house on fire and then runs away’. But despite the crackle of a paper war with the Dutch and London, heavy with the thud of mortal memoranda, Raffles would not hear definitively from Europe for years. In the meantime, it might be expected that he would keep his head down. Not so. He was ready for another adventure.