Chapter 4 third chapter

This journey has been tossed and turned several times.Dr. Saunders set off from Fuzhou, boarded a Chinese ship, and arrived in Manila, Philippines. After waiting there for a few days, he boarded another cargo ship to Makassar.In Makassar City, there is a Dutch ship going to Merauke, New Guinea every other month. The doctor boarded this ship and stopped at many stops along the way before finally arriving at Takara Island.The doctor took with him a servant, a Chinese boy, to help administer anesthesia to his patients when he needed it, and to keep the pipe ready when he smoked opium.Cheng Jin's operation was a success.Then Dr. Saunders just waited for the Dutch ship to return from Merauke.While waiting for the boat, he had nothing to do but sit and twiddle his thumbs.The island is very large, but deserted, and the governor of the Netherlands only comes to inspect it from time to time.The local government representatives are mixed Javanese, they do not speak English at all, and there are some security police.There is a commercial street in the town. Only two or three shops on the street are opened by Arabs from Baghdad, and the rest are all Chinese properties.About ten minutes' walk from the town there is a small guest house where the Governor always stays on his regular visits.Dr. Saunders lived in this hotel.The trail at the hotel's entrance runs through three miles of ranch before disappearing into native bush.

As long as the Dutch ships come into port, the place will be lively.The captain went ashore with two or three officers, and the chief engineer, and if there were any passengers in the ship, they would follow.Big guys always come to Cheng Jin's shop to have a glass of beer, but they never stay for more than three hours.After drinking, they went back to the boat and continued to sleep on the boat as they sailed away from the town.Now the doctor is sitting near the door of Cheng Jin's shop.There is a canopy made of rattan outside the store, which blocks a lot of sunlight.The sun was burning fiercely on the street, and a dirty dog ​​was sniffing a pile of garbage, looking for something to eat.A swarm of flies hovered above the garbage, buzzing.Two or three chickens were searching for something on the road, and one was squatting, flapping rapidly in the soil with its wings.Across the street, a naked Chinese kid with a distended belly was playing with dirt on the side of the road, apparently trying to build a castle out of the sand on the road.The flies flew around him and landed on him, but he didn't care at all, and continued to play with the soil with full attention, and he didn't wave his hand to drive the flies away.Then came a native man, wearing only a faded apron, and carrying a pole on one shoulder, with two baskets full of sugar cane hanging from either end of the pole.He walked slowly, kicking up some dust with each step.There was a clerk in the store, who was leaning over his desk, constantly writing Chinese documents with a brush dipped in ink.A small worker sat on the floor, rolling cigarettes and smoking one after another.There was no business in the store, the doctor ordered a bottle of beer, the clerk put down the pen in his hand, went to the back, took out a bottle of wine from the bucket, and took a glass, and put them all in front of the doctor.The beer bottle was cold and pleasant to the touch.

The time passed slowly and dullly, but the doctor was not displeased, he could always amuse himself with little things.He drank his beer slowly, looked at the dirty dogs, emaciated chickens, and children with bulging bellies outside, and he didn't feel that time passed very slowly.