Bali Chronicles. Willard A. Hanna
craved a rhinoceros, a creature which did not exist in Bali but was necessary nevertheless for an especially solemn state ceremony which he was hoping to conduct. Even apart from its ritualistic significance, a rhinoceros would be a sensation among all Balinese connoisseurs of curiosities, and the Dewa Agung’s badly frayed prestige would be immensely enhanced if he, and only he, possessed one. Molière, disguising his dismay, promised to deliver one live rhinoceros.
The Radja of Badung, an earthier type than the Dewa Agung, yearned for one hundred pikuls of lead. He intended, he said, to cast it into balls for use with the bronze cannon which, it seemed, Wetters had promised but neglected to deliver. Wetters’ oversight accounted for the coolness of his original attitude toward Molière, who seems to have convinced him, however, that the promise still held good. A daughter of Radja Pamat-jutan (a minor ruler of Badung) wanted quantities of linen and offered advance payment of three pikuls of tobacco, adding, as an afterthought to clinch the deal, three slaves. In view of the government’s disapproval of slavery, Molière might have passed up this first trading opportunity except that the slaves insisted upon attaching themselves to him.
All in all, Molière judged his visit a success. On the basis of his own experiences he anticipated certain unpredictable difficulties, but he thought that a factory in Bali might flourish and he so reported to the N.H.M. and the Governor-General. He kept a meticulous record of his expenses, for which the N.H.M. was later to claim compensation. Inclusive of gin, guns, and incidental items like payment of ship charter, but not allowing for the rhinoceros (later procured and delivered at cost of fl. 839.25), the trip cost exactly fl. 9,738.58.
Schuurman, the Rhinoceros, and the N.H.M. Factory
After Molière’s visit, the N.H.M. moved fast to establish a factory at Kuta, where the Radja of Badung had promised to prepare quarters for its representative. The company designated one of its brightest young men, D. Boelen Schuurman, as its Kuta factor at a salary of fl. 500 per month, placed an order for a factory trading ship, the Merkurius, to be completed and delivered at an early date, and meanwhile chartered the bark Blora at fl. 1,800 per month to get men, goods, and equipment moving Baliwards. On July 30, 1839, the Blora appeared off Kuta, carrying Heer Schuurman, his assistant, G. W. Veenman Bouman, trade goods to the value of fl. 42,000 (inclusive of the linens for the princess), construction materials for a company warehouse, and one healthy young rhinoceros for the Dewa Agung.
Heer Schuurman hustled hopefully ashore only to discover that the Radja had made no provision whatever for his reception. He made his way wearily on foot to Kuta, then by horse to the puri, where the Radja allowed him to wait at the gate, much to the diversion of the public, while deciding whether to receive him. The Radja, whose intelligence in matters of commerce was better than his memory of his own promises, seems already to have been informed that although the ship’s manifest listed one gift rhinoceros, it showed no lead and no cannon.
Schuurman, who may have deemed a rhinoceros token enough of company esteem not just for the Dewa Agung but for all the lesser rulers as well, spent a few frustrating days trying to interest the Radja in his factory and his residence. It finally occurred to him to make a present of a fine sword and to renew assurances of the N.H.M. intentions with regard to the lead and the cannon. The cannon was in fact to be delivered two years later. It cost the company fl. 1,007.95, and it had been cunningly miscast so that the Dutch need never fear looking this gift gun in the mouth. The Radja himself seems never to have tested it out. He made it the nucleus of what was to become rather an extensive palace armory, to which, in 1849, in appreciation of his good behavior during the Dutch–Balinese wars, the government added a mate. The second cannon probably was not miscast; it seems to have come out of current military stock with which the Dutch themselves had just subdued the island.
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