In the version in updated Dutch his language is fresh and modern, as are Haafner’s opinions about the local population. Carried in a palanquin by four coolies (with some extra coolies for carrying his tobacco and wine) he travels from chowdhury to chowdhury (free public resthouses, with often groups of female dancers for entertainment), enjoying the scenery and ancient temples, that this son of Halle in Saxony describes with the same pleasure his contemporary Goethe used for Italy. “Travels in a Palanquin”), Jacob Haafner describes his trip from Calcutta south to the Coromandel coast in 1786. In Exotische Liefde, originally called “Reize in eenen Palanquin” (i.e. After some time in Ceylon, Haafner travelled to Calcutta, where he worked for the former governor Joseph Fowke. The British conquered the area during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (which was partly rooted in Dutch support for the American War of Independence) that coincided with the Second Anglo-Mysore War, and Haafner was taken to Madras as prisoner of war.
Born in Germany, he was an accountant in the Dutch factory of Negapatnam and Sadras on the Coromandel Coast south of Madras. Jacob Haafner is a forgotten Dutch travel writer and merchant, who lived in India from 1773 until 1786.
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