‘Champ de Vénus’ on ‘Roller Island’ Jacob Haafner’s description of Mauritius, 1786-1787 Paul van der Velde Including the Dutch original and an English translation by Rosemary Robson-McKillopContents Foreword by Shawkat M. Toorawa & Mahmood H. Toorawa ‘Champ de Vénus’ on ‘Roller Island’ by Paul van der Velde Translation into English of Jacob Haafner's description of Mauritius (1786-1787) by Rosemary Robson-McKillop, edited by Paul van der Velde and Shawkat M. Toorawa Haafner’s description of Mauritius in the original Dutch edited by Paul van der Velde Appendix ‘Translation into English of Jacob Haafner’s description of Réunion by Paul van der Velde, followed by Haafner’s description of Réunion in the original Dutch edited by Paul van der Velde Biographical notes Trust Visitors Trust Publications 24 37 39 41 42Foreword In September 1998, Dr Paul van der Velde, world authority on Jacob Hafner (1754-1809), was in Mauritius to participate in a conference organized by the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, and the University of Mauritius, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the Dutch arrival in the Indian Ocean. Dr van der Velde's paper on Jacob Haafner’s description of Mauritius was subsequently. published in the conference proceedings. Dr Shawkat Toorawa, who also presented at the conference, approached Dr van der Velde and inquired whether he was willing to have the Trust publish account of Haafner's stay in Mauritius. The Trust is grateful to Dr van der Velde for graciously agreeing to this, and for equally graciously showing tremendous indulgence when the ‘Trust found that it had to delay publication. We finalized our edits in earlyf 2004 and are delighted to include in our Occasional Paper Series, ‘Champ de Vénus’ on ‘Roller Island: Jacob Haafner’s description of Mauritius, 1786-1787, comprising a critical essay by Dr van der Velde, the Dutch original (in its first Mauritian publication), and a translation of the description into English by Rosemary Robson-MeKillop. In an Appendix we include Haafner’s short description of our fle soeur, Bourbon (Réunion). We are grateful to the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University for financial support toward an editorial meeting held in ‘Amsterdam in July 2002; to friends of the Trust for helping subvent the cost of publication; to the Blue Penny Museum for the cover; and to the Société de I’histoire de I'lle Maurice for co-sponsoring publication of this the sixth in the Trust’s Occasional Paper series. Shawkat M. Toorawa Mahmood H. Toorawa‘Champ de Vénus’ on ‘Roller Island’* Paul van der Velde Jacob Haafner’s direct literary style and his adventurous life blended to make his books both popular in his day and appealing also to the present-day reader. His descriptions of everyday life bear witness to his sharp powers of observation and love of indigenous cultures. These qualities prompted Hafner to criticise prevailing colonial conditions. From a historical ‘and literary perspective the works of Jacob Healer are a monument to Dutch travel story writing. ‘At the beginning of the ‘nineteenth century selections from his travel accounts were translated into German, English, French, Swedish and Danish and were widely appreciated. In Britain the liveliness of his adventures was admired, in Germany he was called a humanitarian and a unprejudiced observer, and in France he was praised as a “penseur original et profond, qui a rendu ses idées dans un style aussie brillant que énergique.” [1] The love of travel Jacob Gotfried Haafner was born in Halle, Germany on 13 May 1754 to a French father and a German mother. Shortly after his birth his father settled in Emden to work as a physician. In 1765 the family moved to cosmopolitan Amsterdam. When Haafner senior’s practice failed to altract enough patients, he decided to enlist as a ship's surgeon in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). His decision to take his son with him had far-reaching consequences for the course of Jacob Haafner's lifé. Hardly had they reached Cape Town when Haafner senior died. At first a friendly Dutch family cared for Jacob but, after having supported him for two years, his foster parents decided that Jacob should start working. Thus, in 1768, Hafner mustered as a cabin boy on a ship bound for Batavia (present day Jakarta), the capital of the Dutch East Indies, There he took the position of tutor to the children of a high-ranking VOC official for several months. Realising that he was not a bom teacher, he retumed to Cape Town where a slave-trader employed him. Mounting conflicts with his employer about the treatment of slaves made him decide to return to Amsterdam in 1770. Haafner became an artist’s apprentice but the atmosphere of the city soon began to oppress him, one of the reasons being his vexatiousmother, who had tried in vain to gain possession of the money Haafner had earned as a VOC employee. Hafner, who claimed he was gripped by travel mania, decided to go east. Of this passion he writes, “The love of travel is an unfortunate, incurable desire, ending only with life itself, which it frequently shortens. I have been possessed by this desire from my childhood; it troubles me still now I have grown older, and embit- ters many of my days. This insatiable curiosity to examine everything myself and a foolish passion for adventure have exposed me to many dangers, and been the occasion of much adversity and vexation; it has often rendered me unhappy, or forced me away from the happiness I enjoyed.” After two years of sailing on the high seas, Haafner enlisted as an assis- tant bookkeeper at Negapatnam, the head office of the VOC on the Coromandel Coast in 1773. In 1779 he became secretary-bookkeeper at a branch office in Sadraspatnam, a post which could have been the beginning of a promising VOC career, but the outbreak of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War in 1781 cut this prospect short. He was taken prisoner of war and was held in Madras for one year. After being released at the end of 1782, he arrived in Ceylon at the beginning of 1783 and made a joumey through Ceylon lasting from June to September of that year. Then he went to Calcutta, where he arrived at the end of 1783. He became bookkeeper to the former Governor of Benares, J. Fowke. During his two-year stay in the city he moved in the circles of the Asiatic Society, which was founded by the famous Orientalist Sir William Jones in 1784. In 1786 he made an extensive trip through Orissa and the Coromandel Coast. He had no difficulty surviving in the intemational business community of the Subcontinent: he was fluent in modem European languages and also in Tamil and Hindi, and he had a limited understanding of Sanskrit. During the last years of his time in India he amassed a small fortune, then in 1787 retumed to Europe. Haafner traveled extensively throughout Europe and in 1790 settled in Amsterdam where he met his future wife A. M. Kreunink. They had three children. Until 1794 he probably led the life of a gentlemen scholar but in that year, in the wake of the Revolution, his investments in French bonds were no longer worth the paper they were printed on. To provide for his family he opened up a shop as a pipe merchant and simultaneously started writing about his experiences in Asia. His first travel account was published in 1806. The works inspired by his travels met with success but his allacks on colonialism and missionarysocieties isolaied him from the rest of society. Haafner died of chronic heart disease at the age of 55, on 3 September 1809, while still at work on the manuscript of his book on Ceylon. The last lines he wrote were probably those at the end of the general description of Ceylon: “Fare thee well thou ingratiating objects that have enchanted my soul! Fare well!” Haafner was one of the very few Dutch authors of the time whose books were translated. The first German translation appeared in 1806, French and Swedish ones appeared in 1811, and English and Danish ones in 1821. [2] Haafner’s travel stories, which reached a wide audience, got positive reviews, achieved great popularity in Holland, and were reprinted several times in the "20s and ’50s of the nineteenth éentury. (3] Thereafter, interest in the works of Haafner waned, but he continued fo enjoy great popularity in a small circle of connoisseurs. In his travel stories he recounts his adventures in Asia, his work in the service of the Dutch East India Company, his contacts with Indian and Ceylonese civilisations, and his life at the Dutch factories on the Indian and Ceylonese coasts. In many instances his description of life in Asia departs from the fairly stereotypical depictions of other travel writers. His sketches of the informal, relaxed life-style, of the interactions between Europeans and local populations, and of the many friendships resulting from these, not to mention the parties, are enthralling. Now that his travel stories have been republished chronologically, they also constitute one of the few voluminous autobiographies written in the Netherlands. Proto-Orientalist and Anti-Colonialist Haafner was not just the author of fascinating travel stories, he was also a proto-Orientalist. After his return from Asia, Hafner took an active interest in the study of Indian languages and cultures and even rendered part of the Ramayana in his Proeve van Indiase Dichtkunde volgens den Ramaijon (1823) [Sample of Indian Poetry on the Basis of the Ramayana} [4]. He tried to start a joumal on India but his plan never materialised: the intellectual climate in Amsterdam at that time was not conducive to the study of Indian languages and culture. There is evidence too that Hafner collected Indian texts, but his death in 1809 prevented him from publishing these texts himself. Although Hafner must have had a basic’ understanding of Sanskrit grammar and must have known many Sanskrit words, his rendering of the Ramayana only offers an excerpt of this epic which he must have based on oral sourcesand on Tamil, Hindi, and Bengali versions of this masterpiece. [5] Hoafner's translation was the very first to appear in’ Dutch. At the end of the nineteenth century his efforts were validated by the Dutch Indologist J. Ph. Vogel, who viewed Hafner as the pioneer of Indian Studies in the Netherlands, also seizing the opportunity to praise Haafner for the humanitarian attitude that permeates his writings. Vogel was referring specifically to Haafner’s Verhandeling over het Nut van Zendelingen en Zendelings-Genootschappen: (1807) [Essay on the Usefulness of Missionaries and Missionary Societies). [6] This book is essential to our understanding of Haafner’s ideas about colonialism and the influence of the Enlightenment and Romanticism on his way of thinking. Hafner sent his manuscript to the Enlightened Teyler's Theological Society in Haarlem that was offering a prize for the best answer to the question: What is the usefulness of missionaries and missionary societies? In his answer Haafner completely rejected the mission as such and condemned the behaviour of the missionaries. Haafner’s one piece of advice for future missionaries was to advise them to try to Christianise the Europeans in the colonies and to leave the local population alone. Haafner also argued for the complete withdrawal of all imperial powers from their colonies — it would take 150 years for Haafner’s wish to come true. The Directors of the Theological Society were probably floored by Haafner's manuscript but were nevertheless willing to give Haafner the award if he polished his text and quoted his sources. Haafner accordingly buttressed his arguments with quotations from a wide range of writers, including Volt- aire, Rousseau, De Las Casas, Ziegenbalg, Charlevoix, Bemardin de Saint-Pierre, and Gage: this gives an idea of the wide range of Haafner’s reading and the writers who influenced him. One way Enlightenment authors would criticise Westem culture was to create a philosophic foreigner who passed critical, comments on Westem culture. Hafner created a sanyassi who abhors Western hunting practices and the eating of meat. Haafner claimed to” have become a vegetarian under his influence and describes with repugnance scenes in Amsterdam where the blood of butchered animals gushed through the gutters. The use of a spokesman from another culture to criticise one’s own can also be found in the writings of Romantic authors who held up distant lands and distant times as a model for Westem man. This explains the similarities between Enlightenment and Romantic writing despite the fact that the differences are considerable.Penseur original et profond The main tenets of Enlightenment thought are universalist. Voltaire argued that reason would in due course conquer all particularist tendencies. This linear process would result in the growth of supra- national juridical, aesthetic, and moral concepts based on humanitarian insights. This way of thinking had a profound influence on French revolutionary thought, which did away with tradition and based itself and the individual's membership of a state on that individual's free will. This meant that man, no longer the prisoner of a certain regime, religion, or country, had become a creature of all seasons, unfettered by traditions. In a world turned upside down, institutions could no longer derive their authority from traditions but had to feed on ideals. This break with historical consciousness gave birth to a timeless will and ideals whose absolutist. aspirations fostered imperialistic tendencies. ‘The main tenets of Romantic thought, on the other hand, are particularist. The German philosopher Herder argued that man did not ‘belong to a nation by virtue of free will but was chained to it by birth, language, and religion. Under such circumstances man could only be understood in the context of his time. The institutions by which he was govemed derived their authority from their longevity. These determinist, particularist claims excluded universalistic aspirations. How are these elements of Enlightened and Romantic thought reflected in the works of Haafner? There is a strong contradictory undertone in Haafner’s way of thinking. He was unquestionably a child of the Enlightenment but although he shared the basic attitudes of the Enlightenment, he did not share its universalist claims, certainly not if this involved colonial rule, In a Romantic vein, he stated that every nation should be govemed by its own rulers. In the case of India this was reflected by his admiration for Hyder Ali Khan, whom he considered the leader of a pioneering liberation war. It is no wonder that Haafner viewed Western influence on indigenous cultures as detri- mental: for him, its representatives were depraved colonisers who enslaved or decimated whole populations, and missionaries who were completely uninformed about the people they wanted to convert. Haafner feared that it would lead to their destruction and, like Rousseau, he admired these ‘barbarians’: “The desires of barbarians are few." he said, “and are easily satisfied. Therefore they are always happier than civilised men whose desires are beyond telling.” Haafner’s saying that “from a humanitarian point of view I could become barbarian ” can be understood as meaning, “from the point of view ofthe Enlightenment [ could embrace Romanticism.” In fact, Haafner wanted to be one with the indigenous population: “I could not forbear laughing to myself when the good old man took me for a mestizo. It is true I had altogether the manner and extemal appearance of one, and he was only in part deceived, for besides being without shoes or stockings, my face was quite sunbumed, and I spoke the Malabar language very fluently.” This yearning to become a ‘barbarian’ was completely alien to the Westem frame of mind at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Haafner’s way of thinking shock his contemporaries. This can best be illustrated by the reactions to Haafner’s abovementioned “Essay on the Usefulness of Missionaries and Missionary Societies.” This work, which can be viewed as his intellectual testament, was the topic of heated debates in missionary circles in the Netherlands. Four essays were written to refute his assertions, The authors tried to undermine Haafner’s scientific and moral reputation and accused him of lack of faith and of being opposed to missionary endeavors. They wrote that his historical knowledge of the mission was inadequate; that he had not used the “politically correct” sources and literature, that when he did so, he quoted these out of context, and that his way of thinking was based on false conceptions. Haafner’s starting point was a respect for the nature, way of thinking, and customs of indigenous populations: he invoked these in order to show that attempts to convert them would be fruitless. Haafner, affirming other civilisations and putting other civilisations on an equal footing with Christianity rather than putting Westem civilisation first, was utterly unacceptable to his contemporaries. When Haafner praised the Vedas as an original Hindu work, for instance, one ‘of his critics stated that they could only have been borrowed from the Christian Scriptures. This critic maintained that the Vedas were a corruption of the Holy Scriptures, and that it was time to re-introduce the real Vedas — this was what. the Hindus were ‘waiting for! It was difficult indeed for many of Haafner’s contemporaries to appreciate or even understand the multi-cultural perspective of this original and profound thinker. Almost paradise Haafner’s description of Mauritius is. part of the book Reize naar Bengalen en Terugreize naar Europe (1822) [Travel to Bengal and Homebound Voyage to Europe]. [7] It was one of the three travel accounts edited by his son Christiaan Matthias. The latter did this on thebasis of the notes his father had made while travelling. These accounts are less complete than those published by Haafner himself. This probably explains the absence of his comments on the slavery on ‘Mauritius, a practice which he abhorred and which he treated in full ir his descriptions of South Africa and in a separate treatise. [8] Hafner must have fully agreed with the remark made by Bemardin de Saint- Pierre, who lived on. Mauritius from 1768 to 1771, in his book Voyage @ Vise de France; published in Amsterdam in 1773 because of censorship in France, namely, “Je ne sais pas si le caffé & le sucre sont nécessaires au bonheur de I’Europe, mais je sais bien que ces deux végétaux ont fait malheur de deux parties du monde. On a dépeuplé VAmerique afin d’avoir une terre pour les planter: on dépeuple PAfrique afin d’avoir une nation pour les cultiver.” [9] Nor does Haafner mention the history of the short novel Paul et Virginie of Bemardin de Saint-Pierre published in 1788, a bestseller which put the Ile de France definitively on the map of the francophone world. (10) Haafner, who left Pondicherry on 17 October 1786, artived in Port Louis on 3 December after a voyage of 48 days. [11] This trip normally took a month but they were bedeviled by calms interspersed with storms. It is on this 3" of December that Haafner's description of Mauritius begins. After a discussion about the value of Mauritius to the French, in which he ‘debates’ P. Sonnerat’s Voyage aux Indes Orientales et @ la Chine, Haafner tums to the physical appearance of the island, its produce, and its climate, noting that its two principal ‘plagues’ are cyclones and, far worse, rat infestation He avers that this is why the Dutch abandoned Mauritius, thus echoing Sonnerat: “les rats y sont en si grande quantité, que souvent ils dévourent un champ de mais dans une seule nuit. Ils mangent aussi les fruits, & détruisent les ‘jeunes arbres pour leur racines. Ce fut, dit-on, la cause pour laquelle les Hollandais abandonnérent cette ile.” [12] Houses and Morals on Rollers Haafner then tums his attention to Port Louis and its inhabitants. He is not impressed by the fortification of the city by the engineer J. F. Charpentier de Cossigny, but does remark on the “well equipped hospital.” [13] This observation should be seen in light of Haafner’s unrelenting criticism on the health care of the VOC. The Champ de Mars, an exercise field for soldiers, does not escape Haafner’s attention, principally because in the evening it is transformed into a Champ de Vénus (my characterisation) for “all those women who can claim anounce of youth and beauty.” [14] And that is not all Haafner has to say about the women of Port Louis: “The morals are as corrupt as the climate is temperate and pure, at least at the time I was there. There is no girl or woman, whatever her position in society, who could claim to have an unblemished name. However, they have far more right to claim exceptional beauty, which, especially among those of European parentage, is almost universal... [The] négresses are even less inhibited than the others., and are willing to sacrifice everything for their embellishment. In particular they lavish money on cloth from Pulicat which they wind around their heads in a most becoming fashion.” [15] The only exception to the low morals of the women appears to be the wife of Haafner’s friend, the merchant Cockrell, with whom Haafner stayed while he was on Mauritius. Haafner fails to detail the moral behaviour of men on the island, but it would have had to match the standard of the women One of Haafner’s most fascinating observations is the following: “The houses are constructed mainly of timber with but one upper storey because of the cyclones, and they stand on sturdy rollers which allow them to be pulled from place to place using a rope.” [16] This is not a widely attested fact but a recent book on architecture in Mauritius does state: “The first cases of Port-Louis were simple wooden boxes, roughly hewn and without foundations; they were often moved, in pieces or as a whole on rollers.” {17] What the purpose of the houses on rollers was (and why ‘the goverment forbade the construction of wooden houses precisely at this time) is unclear. [18] The most satisfactory explanation for this particularity would seem to be movability. Rolling the house makes it possible to angle and place it with its head’ into the wind during cyclones. The wind then blows through the house causing an under-draught which pushes the house towards the ground, but not to the extent that it is crushed, even if the gusts exceed 200 miles an hour, Heaven and earth vanished from sight Haafner in fact witnessed a cyclone during his time on Mauritius. He describes it in some detail and dates it 14 January 1787. De Burgh Edwardes mentions two cyclones of that period: “In January 1784, a violent cyclone visited the island (which had been spared for eleven years) and caused much damage {and on] 31 December 1788, at night, a most violent cyclone visited the island. Heavy storms took place, lasting twenty-three hours.” [19] Magon de Saint-Flier notes that thelatter occurred in 1789 but does not give a precise date, (20] Neither does H. C. M. Austen, who dates the cyclone to 1786. [21] Since the cyclone season lasts from November to April, the cyclone Austen mentions must have occurred either at the beginning or the end of that ‘year. Given the fact that Haafner’s book was published by his son on the basis of the notes made in Mauritius, and the fact that Haafner is seldom mistaken in matters of chronology, we can safely assume that the date Haafner gives is correct. This is comoborated by VOC sources ‘conceming the ship De Paer! that was hit by a devastating cyclone 200 miles off the coast of Mauritius on 15 February 1787. [22] Haafner, who had witnessed the devastating effects of a cyclone in Madras in 1782, began to take precautions. (23] He had his goods unloaded and everybody laughed at what was assumed to be his foolish and cowardly behaviour, except Haafner’s host, Cockrell, who politely followed his guest’s example, a courtesy that paid for itself a thousandfold. Although the islanders and captains of the ships should have known better, Haafner explains their behaviour by saying that it had been a long time since a devastating cyclone had hit the island. [24] ‘They had grown careless and therefore they ignored the signs and portents they in fact knew so well but had not seen major catastrophes in the recent past. The new prosperity must also have contributed to this lax attitude. On the basis of this information, it seems safe to assume that it had been at least a decade since a major cyclone had hit the island. After having described these portents Haafner paints the full impact of the unnamed cyclone. ‘The most lamentable spectacle In her book on Mauritius Carol Wright describes two cyclones of great magnitude as follows: “The harbour was reported a forest of masts, and even massive cyclones, which in the eighteenth century twice threw many ships up the shore, did not diminish its importance.” [25] Wright’s long-term analysis may be correct but, according to Hafner, the cyclone certainly had a profound short-term effect on the island’s economy too. He writes: “All trade was suspended for the time being, and all necessities of life became extremely scarce and frightfully expensive. It was a fortunate circumstance for the wretched citizens that the ships from Bengal were soon to come because these always carry cargoes of rice.” [26] Although Haafner had stowed his merchandise in safety and had already sold the bulk, he was unable to sell the remainder because the prices had plummeted as a consequence of thecyclone. Nobody had either the money or the desire to buy his Indian wares. He was in a quandary: “After the cyclone, remaining on Isle de France became repugnant to me and by no means a delight. Everybody looked equally depressed, had suffered a severe loss, or was complaining about the high cost of the necessities of life or the suspension of all trade and traffic. The pleasures of life had departed the island for some time to come, and on top of this life on the island had become more than twice as expensive. Moreover, there was little hope that it would improve in the near future. I wanted to leave Isle de France but where could I go?” [27] This existential question was solved with the arrival of the ship Cléoméne from India, which was soon to sail on to Orient in France. Haafner struck a favorable deal with its captain, Cazal, who allowed Haafner to take his Indian wares with him to Europe where these would fetch much higher prices. [28] After a stay of almost two decades in the East, he now longed for home. On 9 February 1787, he left Mauritius on the Cléoméne which called first at Réunion. There he made a drawing of St. Denis, an engraving of which was included in Haafner’s Adventures and Early Sea Voyages. The vessel also called at the Cape of Good Hope before reaching I’Orient, France on 25 May 1787. [29] Here he sold his goods and seemed to be destined for the life of a gentleman in Europe, but, as noted above, fate would lead him instead to become a writer of distinction. Haafner’s description of Mauritius, howsoever brief, is striking proof of this. Notes * This essay is a revised and abridged version of my article “Jacob Haafner on Mauritius: 1786-1787, Houses and Morals on Rollers,” which appeared in ‘Sandra J. T. Evers and Vinesh Y,Hookoomsing (eds), Globalisation and. the South-West Indian Ocean (Réduit 2000), pp. 117-27, 1 thank, Shawkat’M. Toorawa for his comments and assistance in tracing several individuals and sources. 1. M, Jansen, in Voyages dans la péninsule occidentale de |'Inde et dans I'ile de Ceilan, 2 vols (Paris 1811), vol. 1, p. ix. [Note: This introduction and the next three paragraphs are based on the summary in.volume 3 of J. A. de Moor and P. G. E. I J.van der Velde (eds), De Werken van Jacob Haafner 3 (Zutphen 1997), pp. 471-76), 2 Landreise langs der Kiiste Orixa und Kormandel auf der westlichen Indischen Halbinsel (Weimar 1809), Voyages dans la pénninsule occidentale de l'Inde et dans Vile de Ceilan, 2 vols (Pasis 1811); J. 10Haafners Landresa langs med Orixas och Koromandels kuster, 3 vols (Stockholm 1810-1811); Fussreise durch die Insel Ceilon (Maagdenburg 1816); Travels on foot through the Island of Ceylon (London 1821); Fodreise igiennem Ceilon (Kisbenhaven 1821), Lotgevallen en vroegere zereizen (1820) [Adventures and Early Sea Voyages] dealing with his first sea-joumey and his time in South Africa and Batavia; Lotgevallen op cene reize van Madras over Tranquebar naar het eiland Ceylon (1806) [Adventures on a Journey from Madras via ‘Tranquebar to Ceylon], dealing with the period 1773-1783, his sojourn in Negapatnam, Sadraspaam, his escape from Madras to Ceylon; Reize te voet door het eiland Ceilon (1810) (Travels On Foot Through the Island of Ceylon}, being an account of his joumey through Sri Lanka in 1783; Reice in eenen Palanquin (1808, two volumes) [Travels in a Palanquin}, being an account of his jourmcy along the Coromandel Coast in 1786 and his infatuation with the Indian dancer, Mamia; Reize naar Bengalen en lerugreize naar Europa (1822) [Joumey to Bengal and Homebound voyage to Europe], about his stay in Bengal from 1784 to 1786 and his return voyage to Europe. All these books were reprinted in four volumes, 1826- 1828, J. G. Haafner, Proeve van Indische Dichtkunde volgend den Ramaijon (Amsterdam 1823). P.G.E. I. J. van der Velde and J. A. de Moor, “De Heilige Tale des Lands.” Jacob Haafner als voorloper van de studie Sanskrit in Nederland'in: Hanneke van den Muyzenberg en Thomas de Bruijn (eds), Waarom Sanskrit? Hondervijfentwintig jaar Sanskrit in Nederland (Leiden 1991), pp. 86-94. J. A. de Moor and P. G. EI. J. van der Velde (eds) Verhandeling over het ‘Nut der Zendelingen en Zendelings-Genootschappen (Hilversum 1993). J. G. Haafner, Reize nagar Bengalen en Terugreize naar Europa (Amsterdam 1822), pp. 326-52. This corresponds to De Werken van Jacob Hafner 3, pp. 404-14. J. A. de Moor and P. G. E. I. J. van der Velde (eds), De Werken van Jacob Haafner 1 (Zutphen 1992), pp. 66-80. Bemardin de Saint-Pierre, Voyage al'Isle de France, a U'Isle de Bourbon, ‘aut le Cap de Bonne-Espérance (Amsterdam 1773), 201: “I do not know whether coffee and sugar are necessary for the happiness of Europe but I do know that these two plants have brought misery to two parts of the world. ‘We depopulated America so as to have earth in which to plant them: and ‘we are depopulating Africa so as to have a nation to cultivate them.” i10. iT 12, 13, 14. 15. 16. 17. 19. 20. 2 22. Bemardin de Saint-Pierre, Paul et Virginie (Lyon 1945). The valley in which the love story of Paul and Virginie unravels is only a few miles from Réduit and grew into a place of ‘pilgrimage.’ This in accordance with the travel times recorded in Auguste Toussaint, Roitte des ies (Paris 1967). P. Sonnerat, Voyage aux Indes Orientales et d la Chine, 3 vols (Paris 1782), vol. 2, p. 83: “the rats are found there in such great numbers that often they devour a field of grain in a single night, They also eat the fruits and destroy saplings for their roots. It is said that this was the reason the Dutch abandoned this island.” The chapter on Isle de France and Bourbon is in volume 2, pp. 80-89. Haafner 3, p. 407. Haafner 3, p. 407. Haafner 3, pp. 406-07. Pulicat is a town 25 miles north of Madras. Haafner 3, p. 407. Living in Mauritius. Traditional Architecture of Mauritius (London 1990), p.15. J. Addison and K. Hazareesingh, A new history of Mauritius (Stanley 1993), p. 21 S.B. de Burgh Edwardes, History of Mauritius, 1507-1914 (London 1921), pp. 26-27, F. Magnon de Saint-Blier, Tableaux historiques, politiques et pittoresques de I'Isle de France (Port Louis 1839), 226-27. H.C. M. Austen, Naval History of Mauritius from 1715 to 1810 (Port Louis 1935), p. 55. Hafner 3, p. 454, Haajner 1, pp. 203-07. ‘The 1784,cyclone S. B. de Burgh Edwardes describes closely resembles the one of Haafner. Both happen in January and after a long cyclone-free period. Carol Wright, Mauritius (Newton Abbot 1974), p. 23. 128 29. Hafner 3, p.410. Hafner 3, pp. 410-11 According to Toussaint, Rofite des tles, p. 286, the captain's name was not Cazat but Cazal. In Hafner 1, p. 96, there is a half-page description of La Réunion. The Dutch text and an English translation are included in the Appendix below. Haafner was probably in Réunion from the middle of December 1767 to the beginning of January 1768. 13