Though the Javanese peasant is, from necessity, industrious, the upper classes, particularly the nobles, are effeminate, indolent, decadent, and servile. Their amusements are cock-fighting, dancing, shadow plays, and gambling, and they lead an utterly worthless existence which the Dutch do nothing to discourage. Their Mohammedanism is decadent and has none of the virility which distinguishes those followers of Islam who dwell in western lands. Though there is no denying that the natives are immeasurably more prosperous, on the whole, than before the white man came, the Dutch have done little if anything to improve their living conditions. True, their rule is a just and a not unkind one; they have built roads and railways, but this was done in order to open up the island; and they have established a number of industrial and technical schools, but there is no system of compulsory education, and no systematic attempt has been made to ameliorate the condition of the great brown mass of the people. I do not think that I am doing them an injustice when I assert that the Dutch are administrators rather than altruists, that they are more concerned in maintaining a just and stable government in their insular possessions, and in increasing their productivity, than they are in improving the moral, mental, and material condition of the natives.

* * * * *

Lying squarely in the middle of Java are the Vorstenlanden, "the Lands of the Princes"—Soerakarta and Djokjakarta—the most curious, as they are the most picturesque, states in the entire Insulinde. But, because in their form of government and the lives and customs of their inhabitants they are so vastly different from the other portions of the island, I feel that they are deserving of a chapter to themselves and hence shall omit any account of them here.

* * * * *

Bandoeng, the prosperous and extremely up-to-date capital of the Preanger Regencies, is the fifth largest city in Java, being exceeded in population only by Batavia, Surabaya, Surakarta and Samarang. The city, which is the healthiest and most modern in Java, stands in the middle of a great plain, 2300 feet above the sea, having, therefore, a delightful all-the-year-round climate. It has excellent electric lighting, water and sanitary systems, miles of well-paved and shaded streets, and many beautiful residences—the finest I saw in Malaysia—set in the midst of charming gardens. It is planned to remove the seat of government from Batavia to Bandoeng in the not far distant future and the handsome buildings which will eventually house the various departments are rapidly nearing completion. When they are completed Bandoeng will be one of the finest, if not the finest colonial capital in the world. But, attractive though the city is, it holds nothing of particular interest to the casual visitor unless it be the quinine factory. This company seems likely to succeed in cornering the supply of Javanese cinchona bark and is fast building up a world market for its product. The cinchona tree, from which the bark is obtained, was first introduced from South America in the middle of the last century and is now widely grown throughout the Preanger Regencies, both by the government and by private planters. After six or seven years the tree is sufficiently matured for the removal of its bark, which, after being carefully dried, sorted, and baled, is shipped to the factory in Bandoeng, where it is manufactured into the quinine of commerce. The process of manufacture is a secret one, which explains, though it does not excuse, the extreme discourtesy shown by the management toward foreigners desiring to visit the plant.

It takes three and a half hours by express train from Bandoeng to Buitenzorg, the summer capital of the Indies, and the journey is one of the pleasantest in Java, the railway being bordered for miles by marvellously constructed rice terraces which climb the slopes of the Gedei, tier on tier, transforming the mountainsides into a series of hanging gardens. When the shallow, water-filled terraces are illuminated by the tropic sun, they look for all the world like a titanic stairway of silver ascending to the heavens. Take my word for it, the rice terraces of the Preangers are in themselves worth traveling the length of Java to see.

Though Batavia is the official capital of Netherlands India, the hill-station of Buitenzorg, some twenty miles inland, is the actual seat of government and the residence of the Governor-General. Buitenzorg—the name means "free from care"—is to Java what Simla is to India, what Baguio is, in a lesser degree, to the Philippines. It has often been compared to Versailles, and, in its pleasant existence, in the enchanting effects which have been produced by its landscape gardeners, in its great white palace even, one can trace some slight resemblance to the famous home of le Roi Soleil. Buitenzorg is conspicuously different from other Javanese cities, partly because, being the seat of government, its European quarter is exceptionally extensive, but primarily because it boasts the famous Botanical Gardens, in many respects the finest in the world. Its avenues, shaded by splendid trees, are lined with charming, white-walled villas, the residences of the government officials and of retired officers and merchants, set far back in lovely, fragrant gardens. The palace of the Governor-General, a huge, white building of classic lines, faintly reminiscent of the White House in Washington, is superbly situated in the Botanic Gardens, the rear overlooking a charming lotos pond, its surface covered with the huge leaves of the water-plant known as Victoria Regia, amid which numbers of white swans drift gracefully; while the colonnaded front commands a magnificent view of a vast deer park which reminds one of the stately manor parks of England.

When you arrive at the Hotel Bellevue in Buitenzorg, be sure and ask for one of the "mountain rooms." The view which is commanded by their balconies has few equals in all the world. Far in the distance rises the majestic, cloud-wreathed cone of Salak, its wooded slopes wrapped in a cloak of purple-gray. From its foot, cutting a way toward Buitenzorg through a sea of foliage, is a ribbon of brown—the Tjidani River. Its banks, lined by miles of waving palms, are crowded with the quaint, thatched dwellings of the natives, hundreds of whom—men, women and children—are bathing in its water. One of the most curious and amusing sights in Java is that of the native women bathing in the streams. They enter the river wearing their sarongs, gradually raise them as they go deeper into the stream, slip them over their heads when the water has reached their armpits, and, when they have completed their ablutions, reverse the process, thus achieving the feat of bathing in full view of hundreds of spectators without the slightest improper revelation. Hawkinson set up his camera on the bank of the Tjidani and spent several hundred feet of film in recording one of these performances. Even the Pennsylvania State Board of Censors will be unable to find any objection to that bathing scene.

Though the gardens of Buitenzorg are a veritable treasure-house for the botanist and the horticulturist—for the Dutch are the best gardeners in the world—from the standpoint of the casual visitor they cannot compare, to my way of thinking, with the Peradenya Gardens of Ceylon. It is beyond all doubt, however, the finest collection of tropical trees and plants in existence. Here, besides full-grown specimens of every known tree of the torrid zone, are culture gardens for sugar cane, coffee, tea, rubber, ilang-ilang; for all the spice, gum, and fruit trees; for bamboo, rattan, and the hard woods, such as mahogany and teak—in short, for every variety of tree or plant of commercial, ornamental, or utilitarian value. There are also gardens for all the gorgeous flowers of Java: the frangipani, the wax-white, gold-centered flower of the dead, the red and yellow lantanas, the scarlet poinsetta, the crimson bougainvillea, and others in bewildering variety. There are greenhouses to shelter the rarer and more sensitive plants—to shelter them not, as in our hothouses, from the cold, but, on the contrary, from the heat and the withering rays of the sun. Here too is one of the finest collections of orchids in existence, tended by an ancient Javanese gardener who is as proud of his curious blooms as a trainer is of his race horses or a collector of his porcelains. As for the palms, I had no idea that so many varieties existed until I visited Buitenzorg—emperor palms, Areca palms, Banka palms, cocoanut palms, fan palms, cabbage palms, sago palms, date palms, feather palms, travelers' palms, oil palms, Chuson palms, climbing palms over a hundred feet long—palms without end, Amen. Small wonder that the palm is regarded with affection wherever it can be grown, for what other tree can furnish food, shelter, clothing, timber, fuel, building materials, fiber, paper, starch, sugar, oil, wax, dyes and wine?

But, when all is said and done, nothing in those splendid gardens, not the stately avenue of kanari trees whose interlacing branches form a nave as awe-inspiring as that of some great cathedral, not the rare and curious orchids which would arouse the envy of a millionaire, appealed to me so powerfully as a little Grecian temple of white marble, all but hidden by the encircling shrubbery, which marks the sleeping-place of Lady Raffles, wife of that Sir Stamford Raffles who once was the British lieutenant-governor of Java. It pleases me to think that it is toward this little, moss-grown temple that the bronze statue of the great empire-builder, which stands on the Esplanade in Singapore, is peering with wistful eyes, for on its base he carved these lines:

"Oh thou whom ne'er my constant heart One moment hath forgot, Tho' fate severe hath bid us part Yet still—forget me not."

* * * * *

Batavia, the capital of the Indies, is built on both banks of the Jacatra River, in a swampy and unhealthy plain at the head of a capacious bay. Just as New York is divided into the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, so the metropolis of Netherlands India is divided into the districts of Batavia and Weltevreden, the suburb of Meester Cornelis corresponding to Brooklyn. Batavia is the business quarter of the city; Weltevreden the residential. The former, which is built on the edge of the harbor, is very thickly populated and, because of its lowness, very unhealthy. Only natives, Malays, Chinese and Arabs live here and the great European houses which were once the homes of the Dutch officials and merchants have either fallen into decay or have been converted into warehouses and shops. The Europeans now live in Weltevreden, or Meester Cornelis, though they have their offices in the lower town. Both the upper and lower towns are traversed by the Jacatra—sometimes called the Tjiliwoeng—from which branch canals that spread through the city in all directions, thereby emphasizing its distinctly Dutch atmosphere. The streets are for the most part straight and regular, being paved, as in the mother-country, with cobblestones. Old Batavia contains very few relics of the early days, but it is quaint and delightfully picturesque and its canals, though anything but desirable from the standpoint of health, add much to its individuality and charm. The most characteristic feature of Batavia, that distinguishes it from all other colonial cities of the East, is that in all its construction, both public and private, permanency seems to be the dominant note. The Dutch do not come to Java, as the English go to India and the Americans to the Philippines, in order to amass fortunes in a few years and then go home; they come with the intention of remaining. When their children grow up they are sent back to Holland to be educated, but, once their schooling is completed, they almost invariably return to the East and devote their lives to the development of the land in which they were born.

Batavia, which means literally 'Fair meadows,' was originally called Jacatra. The Dutch established a trading post here in 1610, the land being obtained from the natives by a trick similar to that associated by tradition with the acquisition of the lower end of Manhattan Island by the founders of Nieuw Amsterdam. The Javanese, it seems, were reluctant to sell to the Dutch a parcel of land sufficiently large for the erection of a fort and trading station, but after much discussion they finally consented to part with as much land as could be included within a single bullock's hide, which was their way of saying that their land was not for sale. This crafty stipulation did not worry the equally crafty Dutch, however, for they promptly obtained the largest hide available, cut it into narrow strips, and, placing these end to end, insisted on their right to the very considerable parcel of ground thus enclosed under the terms of the bargain.

A relic illustrative of the barbarous punishments which were in vogue during the colony's earlier days is to be seen by driving a short distance up Jacatra Road, in the lower town. Close by the ancient Portuguese church you will find a short section of old wall. Atop the wall, transfixed by a spear-point, is an object which, despite its many coats of whitewash, is still recognizable as a human skull. Set in the wall is a tablet bearing this inscription:

"In detested memory of the traitor, Peter Erberveld, who was executed. No one will be permitted to build, lay bricks or plant on this spot, either now or in the future.

Batavia, April 14, 1772."

Erberveld was a half-caste agitator who had conspired with certain disaffected natives to launch a revolt, massacre all the Dutch in Batavia, and have himself proclaimed king. Fortunately for the Dutch, the plot was betrayed through the faithlessness of a native girl with whom Erberveld was infatuated. Because of the imperative need of safeguarding the little handful of white colonists against massacre by the natives, it was decided that the half-caste should be punished in a manner which would strike fear to the hearts of the Javanese, who have no particular dread of death in its ordinary forms. The judges did their best to achieve this object, for Erberveld was sentenced to be impaled alive, broken on the wheel, his hands and head cut off, and his body quartered. Why they omitted hanging and burning from the list I can not imagine. The sentence was carried out—the contemporary accounts record that he endured his fate with silent fortitude—and his head is on the wall to-day. But I think that, were I the Governor-General of the Indies, I should have that grisly reminder of the bad old days taken down. Many nations have family skeletons but they usually prefer to keep them out of sight.



CHAPTER IX

PUPPET RULERS AND COMIC OPERA COURTS

Hamangkoe Boewoenoe Senopati Sahadin Panoto Gomo Kalif Patelah Kandjeng VII, Ruler of the World, Spike of the Universe, and Sultan of Djokjakarta, is an old, old man, yet his brisk walk and upright carriage betrayed no trace of the worries which might be expected to beset one who is burdened with the responsibility of supporting three thousand wives and concubines. When one achieves a domestic establishment of such proportions, however, he doubtless shifts the responsibility for its administration, discipline and maintenance to subordinates, just as the commander of a division delegates his authority to the officers of his staff. The Sultan, who is now in his eighty-ninth year, is a worthy emulator of King Solomon, the lowest estimate which I heard crediting him with one hundred and eighty children. These are the official ones, as it were. How many unofficial ones he has, no one knows but himself. The youngest of his children, now five years old, was, I imagine, a good deal of a surprise, being sometimes referred to by disrespectful Europeans as "the Joke of Djokjakarta."

Djokjakarta, or Djokja, as it is commonly called, is set in the middle of a broad and fertile plain, at the foot of the slumbering volcano of Merapi, whose occasional awakenings are marked by terrific earthquakes, which shake the city to its foundations and usually result in wide-spread destruction and loss of life. It is a city of broad, unpaved thoroughfares, shaded by rows of majestic waringins, and lined, in the European quarter, by handsome one-story houses, with white walls, green blinds and Doric porticos. There are two hotels in the city, one an excellently kept and comfortable establishment, as hotels go in Java; a score or so of large and moderately well-stocked European stores, and many small shops kept by Chinese; an imposing bank of stone and concrete; and one of the most beautiful race-courses that I have ever seen, the spring race meeting at Djokja being one of the most brilliant social events in Java. The busiest part of the city is the Chinese quarter, for, throughout the Insulinde, commerce, both retail and wholesale, is largely in the hands of these sober, shrewd, hard-working yellow men, of whom there are more than three hundred thousand in Java alone and double that number in the archipelago. Beyond the European and Chinese quarters, scattered among the palms which form a thick fringe about the town, are the kampongs of the Javanese themselves—clusters of bamboo-built huts, thatched with leaves or grass, encircled by low mud walls. Standing well back from the street, and separated from it by a splendid sweep of velvety lawn, is the Dutch residency, a dignified building whose classic lines reminded me of the manor houses built by the Dutch patroons along the Hudson. A few hundred yards away stands Fort Vredenburg, a moated, bastioned, four-square fortification, garrisoned by half a thousand Dutch artillerymen, whose guns frown menacingly upon the native town and the palace of the Sultan. Though its walls would crumble before modern artillery in half an hour, it stands as a visible symbol of Dutch authority and as a warning to the disloyal that that authority is backed up by cannon.

Between Fort Vredenburg and the Sultan's palace stretches the broad aloun-aloun, its sandy, sun-baked expanse broken only by a splendid pair of waringin-trees, clipped to resemble royal payongs or parasols. In the old days those desiring audience with the sovereign were compelled to wait under these trees, frequently for days and occasionally for weeks, until "the Spike of the Universe" graciously condescended to receive them. Here also was the place of public execution. In the days before the white men came, public executions on the aloun-aloun provided pleasurable excitement for the inhabitants of Djokjakarta, who attended them in great numbers. The method employed was characteristic of Java: the condemned stood with his forehead against a wall, and the executioner drove the point of a kris between the vertebrae at the base of the neck, severing the spinal cord. But the gallows and the rope have superseded the wall and the kris in Djokjakarta, just as they have superseded the age-old custom of hurling criminals from the top of a high tower in Bokhara or of having the brains of the condemned stamped out by an elephant, a method of execution which was long in vogue in Burmah.

But, though certain peculiarly barbarous customs which were practised under native rule have been abolished by the Dutch, I have no intention of suggesting that life in Djokjakarta has become colorless and tame. Au contraire! If you will take the trouble to cross the aloun-aloun to the gates of the palace, your attention will be attracted by a row of iron-barred cages built against the kraton wall. Should you be so fortunate as to find yourself in Djokjakarta on the eve of a religious festival or other holiday, each of these cages will be found to contain a full-grown tiger. For tiger-baiting remains one of the favorite amusements of the native princes. Nowhere else, so far as I am aware, save only in East Africa, where the Masai warriors encircle a lion and kill it with their spears, can you witness a sport which is its equal for peril and excitement.

On the day set for a tiger-baiting the aloun-aloun is jammed with spectators, their gorgeous sarongs and head-kains of batik forming a sea of color, while from a pavilion erected for the purpose the Sultan, surrounded by his glittering household and a selection of his favorite wives, views the dangerous sport in safety. In a cleared space before the royal pavilion several hundred half-naked Javanese, armed only with spears, stand shoulder to shoulder in a great circle, perhaps ten-score yards across, their spears pointing inward so as to form a steel fringe to the human barricade. A cage containing a tiger, which has been trapped in the jungle for the occasion, is hauled forward to the circle's edge. At a signal from the Sultan the door of the cage is opened and the great striped cat, its yellow eyes glaring malevolently, its stiffened tail nervously sweeping the ground, slips forth on padded feet to crouch defiantly in the center of the extemporized arena. Occasionally, but very occasionally, the beast becomes intimidated at sight of the waiting spearmen and the breathless throng beyond them, but usually it is only a matter of seconds before things begin to happen. The long tail abruptly becomes rigid, the muscles bunch themselves like coiled springs beneath the tawny skin, the sullen snarling changes to a deep-throated roar, and the great beast launches itself against the levelled spears. Sometimes it tears its way through the ring of flesh and steel, leaving behind it a trail of dead or wounded spearmen, and creating consternation among the spectators, who scatter, panic-stricken, in every direction. But more often the spearmen drive it back, snarling and bleeding, whereupon, bewildered by the multitude of its enemies and maddened by the pain of its wounds, it hurls itself against another segment of the steel-fringed cordon. After a time, baffled in its attempts to escape, the tiger retreats to the center of the circle, where it crouches, snarling. Then, at another signal from the Sultan, the spearmen begin to close in. Smaller and smaller grows the circle, closer and closer come the remorseless spear-points ... then a hoarse roar of fury, a spring too rapid for the eye to follow, a wild riot of brown bodies glistening with sweat ... spear-hafts rising and falling above a sea of turbaned heads as the blades are driven home ... again ... again ... again ... yet again ... into the great black-and-yellow carcass, which now lies inanimate upon the sand in a rapidly widening pool of crimson.

* * * * *

Like the palaces of most Asiatic rulers, the kraton of the Sultan of Djokjakarta is really a royal city in the heart of his capital. It consists of a vast congeries of palaces, barracks, stables, pagodas, temples, offices, courtyards, corridors, alleys and bazaars, containing upward of fifteen thousand inhabitants, the whole encircled by a high wall four miles in length. Everything that the sovereign can require, every necessity and luxury of life, every adjunct of pleasure, is assembled within the kraton. As the Sultan's world is practically bounded by his palace walls, the kraton is to all intents and purposes a little kingdom in itself, for there dwell within it, besides the officials of the household and the women of the harem, soldiers, priests, gold and silversmiths, tailors, weavers, makers of batik, civil engineers, architects, carpenters, stonemasons, manufacturers of musical instruments, stage furniture, and puppets, all supported by the court. The Sultan rarely leaves the kraton save on occasions of ceremony, when he appears in state, a thin, aristocratic-looking old man, somewhat taller than the average of his subjects, wrapped in a sarong of cloth-of-gold, hung with jewels, shaded by a golden parasol, surrounded by an Arabian Nights court, and guarded—curious contrast!—by a squadron of exceedingly businesslike-looking Dutch cavalry in slouch hats and green denim uniforms.

The first impression which one receives upon entering the inner precincts of the kraton is of tawdriness and dilapidation. Half-naked soldiers of the royal body-guard, armed with ten-foot pikes and clad only in baggy, scarlet breeches and brimless caps of black leather, shaped like inverted flower-pots, lounge beside the gateway giving access to the Sultan's quarters or snore blissfully while stretched beneath the trees. The "Ruler of the World" receives his visitors—who, if they are foreigners, must always be accompanied by the Dutch Resident or a member of his staff—in the pringitan, or hall of audience, an immense, marble-floored chamber, supported by many marble columns. The pringitan is open on three sides, the fourth communicating with the royal apartments and the harem, to which Europeans are never admitted. At the rear of the pringitan are a number of ornate state beds, hung with scarlet and heavily gilded, evidently placed there for purposes of display, for they showed no evidences of having been slept in. Close by is a large glass case containing specimens of the taxidermist's art, including a number of badly moth-eaten birds of paradise. On the walls I noticed a steel-engraving of Napoleon crossing the Alps, a number of English sporting prints depicting hunting and coaching scenes, and three villainous chromos of Queen Wilhelmina, Prince Henry of the Netherlands, and the Princess Juliana.

Thanks to the courtesy of the Resident, who had notified the authorities of the royal household of our visit in advance, we found that a series of Javanese dances had been arranged in our honor. Now Javanese dancing is about as exciting as German grand opera, and, like opera, one has to understand it to appreciate it. Personally, I should have preferred to wander about the kraton, but court etiquette demanded that I should sit upon a hard and exceedingly uncomfortable chair throughout a long and humid morning, with the thermometer registering one hundred and four degrees in the shade, and watch a number of anaemic and dissipated-looking youths, who composed the royal ballet, go through an interminable series of posturings and gestures to the monotonous music of a native orchestra.

Those who have gained their ideas of Javanese dancing from the performances of Ruth St. Denis and Florence O'Denishawn have disappointment in store for them when they go to Java. To tell the truth I found the dancers far less interesting than their audience, which consisted of several hundred women of the harem, clad in filmy, semi-transparent garments of the most beautiful colors, who watched the proceedings from the semi-obscurity of the pringitan. I cannot be certain, because the light was poor and their faces were in the shadow, but I think that there were several extremely good-looking girls among them. There was one in particular that I remember—a slender, willowy thing with an apricot-colored skin and an oval, piquant face framed by masses of blue-black hair. Her orange sarong was so tightly wound about her that she might as well have been wearing a wet silk bathing-suit, so far as concealing her figure was concerned. Whenever she caught my eye she smiled mischievously. I should have liked to have seen more of her, but an unamiable-looking sentry armed with a large scimitar prevented.

By extraordinary good fortune we arrived in Djokjakarta on the eve of the celebration of a double royal wedding, two of the Sultan's grandsons marrying two of his granddaughters. Thanks to the cooperation of the Dutch Resident, Hawkinson was enabled to obtain a remarkable series of pictures of the highly spectacular marriage ceremonies, it being the first time, I believe, that a motion-picture camera had been permitted within the closely guarded precincts of the kraton.

The festivities, which occupied several days, consisted of receptions, fireworks, reviews, games, dances, and religious ceremonies, culminating in a most impressive and colorful pageant, when the two bridegrooms proceeded to the palace in state to claim their brides. Nowhere outside the pages of The Wizard of Oz could one find such amazing and fantastic costumes as those worn by the thousands of natives who took part in that procession. Every combination of colors was used, every period of European and Asiatic history was represented. Some of the costumes looked as though they owed their inspiration to Bakst's designs for the Russian ballet—or perhaps Bakst obtained his ideas in Djokjakarta; others were strongly reminiscent of Louis XIV's era, of the courts of the great Indian princes, of the Ziegfeld Follies.

The procession was led by four peasant women bearing trays of vegetables and fruits, symbols of fecundity, I assumed. Behind them, sitting cross-legged in glass cages swung from poles, each borne by a score of sweating coolies in scarlet liveries, were the four chief messengers of the royal harem—former concubines of the Sultan who had once been noted for their influence and beauty. The cages—I can think of no better description—were of red lacquer, about four feet square, with glass sides, and, so far as I could see, entirely air-tight. They looked not unlike large goldfish aquariums. As they were passing us the procession halted for a few moments and the panting coolies lowered their burdens to the ground. Whereupon Hawkinson, who is no respecter of persons when the business of getting pictures is concerned, set up his camera within six feet of one of the cages and proceeded to take a "close-up" of the indignant but helpless occupant, who, unable to escape or even turn away, could only assume an indifference which she was evidently far from feeling.

Following the harem attendants marched a company of the royal body-guard, in scarlet cutaway coats like those worn by the British grenadiers during the American Revolution, pipe-clayed cross-belts, white nankeen breeches, enormous cavalry boots, extending half-way up the thigh, and curious hats of black glazed leather, of a shape which was a cross between a fireman's helmet and the cap of a Norman man-at-arms. They were armed indiscriminately with long pikes and ancient flint-locks, and marched to the music of fife and drum. The leader of the band danced a sort of shimmy as he marched, at the same time tootling on a flute. He looked like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Perhaps the most curious feature of the procession was provided by the clowns, both men and women—an interesting survival of the court-jesters of the Middle Ages—powdered and painted like their fellows of the circus, and performing many of their stereotyped antics. One of them, wearing an enormous pair of black goggles, bestrode a sort of hobby-horse, made of papier-mache, and, when he saw that Hawkinson was taking his picture, cavorted and grimaced, to the huge delight of the onlookers. The female clowns, all of whom were burdened by excessive avoirdupois, wiggled their hips and shoulders as they marched in a sort of Oriental shimmy.



Following a gorgeous cavalcade of mounted princes of the blood, in uniforms of all colors, periods, and descriptions, their kepis surmounted by towering ostrich plumes, came a long procession of the great dignitaries of the household—the royal betel-box bearer, the royal cuspidor-carrier, and others bearing on scarlet cushions the royal toothpicks, the royal toothbrush, the royal toilet set, and the royal mirror, all of gold set with jewels. The mothers of the brides, painted like courtesans and hung with jewels, were borne by in sedan-chairs, in which they sat cross-legged on silken cushions. Then, after a dramatic pause, their approach heralded by a burst of barbaric music, came the brides themselves, each reclining in an enormous scarlet litter borne by fifty coolies. Beside them sat attendants who sprinkled them with perfumes and cooled them with fans of peacock-feathers. In accordance with an ancient Javanese custom, the faces, necks, arms, and breasts of the brides were stained with saffron to a brilliant yellow; their cheeks were as stiff with enamel as their garments were with jewels. Immediately behind the palanquins bearing the brides—one of whom looked to be about thirteen, the other a few years older—rode the bridegrooms; one, a sullen-looking fellow who, I was told, already had five wives and plainly showed it, astride a magnificent gray Arab; the other, who was still a boy, on a showy bay stallion, both animals being decked with flowers and caparisoned in trappings of scarlet leather trimmed with silver. The bridegrooms, naked to the waist, were, like their brides, dyed a vivid yellow; their sarongs were of cloth-of-gold and they were loaded with jeweled necklaces, bracelets, and anklets. Royal grooms in scarlet liveries led their prancing horses and other attendants, walking at their stirrups, bore over their heads golden payongs, the Javanese symbol of royalty. Following them on foot was a great concourse of dignitaries and courtiers, clad in costumes of every color and description and walking under a forest of gorgeous parasols, the colors of which denoted the rank of those they shaded. The payongs of the Sultan, the Dutch Resident, and the royal princes are of gold, those of the princesses of the royal family are yellow, of the great nobles white, of the ministers and the higher officials of the country, red; of the lesser dignitaries, dark gray, and so on. This sea of swaying parasols, the gorgeous costumes of the dignitaries, the fantastic uniforms of the soldiery, the richly caparisoned horses, the gilded litters, the burnished weapons, the jewels of the women, the flaunting banners, and the rainbow-tinted batiks worn by the tens of thousands of native spectators combined to form a scene bewildering in its variety, dazzling in its brilliancy and kaleidoscopic in its coloring. Mr. Ziegfeld never produced so fantastic and colorful a spectacle. It would have been the envy and the despair of that prince of showmen, the late Phineas T. Barnum.

* * * * *

A dozen miles or so northwest of Djokjakarta, standing in the middle of a fertile plain which stretches away to the lower slopes of slumbering Merapi, are the ruins of Boro-Boedor, of all the Hindu temples of Java the largest and the most magnificent and one of the architectural marvels of the world. They can be reached from Djokjakarta by motor in an hour. The road, which skirts the foothills of a volcanic mountain range, runs through a number of archways roofed with red tiles which in the rainy season afford convenient refuges from the sudden tropical showers and in the dry season opportunities to escape from the blinding glare of the sun. Leaving the main highway at Kalangan, a quaint hamlet with a picturesque and interesting market, we turned into a side road and wound for a few miles through cocoanut plantations, then the road ascended and, rounding the shoulder of a little hill, we saw, through the trees, a squat, pyramidal mass of reddish stone, broken, irregular and unimposing. It was Tjandi Boro-Boedor (the name means "shrine of the many Buddhas") considered by many authorities the most interesting Buddhist remains in existence. Though in magnitude it cannot compare with such great Buddhist monuments as those at Ajunta in India, and Angkor in Cambodia, yet in its beautiful symmetry and its wealth of carving it is superior to them all.

Strictly speaking, Boro-Boedor is not a temple but a hill, rising about one hundred and fifty feet above the plain, encased with terraces constructed of hewn lava-blocks and crowded with sculptures, which, if placed side by side, would extend for upwards of three miles. The lowest terrace now above ground forms a square, each side approximately five hundred feet long. About fifty feet higher there is another terrace of similar shape. Then follow four other terraces of more irregular contour, the structure being crowned by a dome or cupola, fifty feet in diameter, surrounded by sixteen smaller bell-shaped cupolas, known as dagobas. The subjects of the bas-reliefs lining the lowest terrace are of the most varied description, forming a picture gallery of landscapes, agricultural and household episodes and incidents of the chase, mingled with mythological and religious scenes. It would seem, indeed, as though it had been the architect's intention to gradually wean the pilgrims from the physical to the spiritual, for as they began to ascend from stage to stage of the temple-hill they were insensibly drawn from material, every-day things to the realities of religion, so that by the time the dagoba at the top was reached they had passed through a course of religious instruction, as it were, and were ready, with enlightened eyes, to enter and behold the image of Buddha, symbolically left imperfect, as beyond the power of human art to realize or portray. From base to summit the whole hill is really a great picture-bible of the Buddhist creed.

The building of Boro-Boedor was probably begun in the ninth century, when King Asoka was distributing the supposed remains of Buddha throughout all the countries of the East in an endeavor to spread the faith. A portion of the remains was brought to Boro-Boedor, which had been the center of Buddhist influence in Java ever since 603, when the Indian ruler, Guzerat, settled in Middle Java with five thousand of his followers. In the sixteenth century, when a wave of Mohammedanism swept the island from end to end, the Buddhist temples being destroyed by the fanatic followers of the Prophet and the priests slaughtered on their altars, the Buddhists, in order to save the famous shrine from desecration and destruction, buried it under many feet of earth. Thus the great monument remained, hidden and almost forgotten, for three hundred years, but during the brief period of British rule in Java, Sir Stamford Raffles ordered its excavation, the work being accomplished in less than two months. Since then the Dutch have taken further steps to restore and preserve it, though unfortunately the stone of which it is built was too soft to withstand the wear and tear of centuries, many of the bas-reliefs now being almost effaced. It remains, however, one of the greatest religious monuments of all time.

* * * * *

Conditions at Surakarta—usually called Solo for short—are the exact counterpart of those in Djokjakarta: the same puppet ruler, who is called Susuhunan instead of Sultan, the same semi-barbaric court life, the same fantastic costumes, a Dutch resident, a Dutch fort, and a Dutch garrison. But the kraton of the Susuhunan is far better kept than that of his fellow ruler at Djokjakarta, and shows more evidences of Europeanization. The troopers of the royal body-guard are smart, soldierly-looking fellows in well-cut uniforms of European pattern, to which a distinctly Eastern touch is lent, however, by their steel helmets, their brass-embossed leather shields, their scimitars, and their shoulder-guards of chain mail. The royal stables, which contain several hundred fine Australian horses and a number of beautiful Sumbawan ponies, together with a score or more gilt carriages of state, are as immaculately kept as those of Buckingham Palace. In the palace garage I was shown a row of powerful Fiats, gleaming with fresh varnish and polished brass, and beside them, as among equals, a member of the well-known Ford family of Detroit, proudly bearing on its panels the ornate arms of the Susuhunan. I felt as though I had encountered an old friend who had married into royalty.

As though we had not seen enough dancing at Djokjakarta, I found that they had arranged another performance for us in the kraton at Surakarta. This time, however, the dancers were girls, most of them only ten or twelve years old and none of them more than half-way through their teens. They wore sarongs of the most exquisite colors—purple, heliotrope, violet, rose, geranium, cerise, lemon, sky-blue, burnt-orange—and they floated over the marble floor of the great hall like enormous butterflies. As a special mark of the Susuhunan's favor, the performance concluded with a spear dance by four princes of the royal house—blase, decadent-looking youths, who spend their waking hours, so the Dutch official who acted as my cicerone told me, in dancing, opium-smoking, cock-fighting and gambling, virtually their only companions being the women of the harem. If the Dutch Government does not actively encourage dissipation and debauchery among the native princes, neither does it take any steps to discourage it, the idea being, I imagine, that Holland's administrative problems in the Vorstenlanden would be greatly simplified were the reigning families to die out. The princes, who were armed with javelins and krises, performed for our benefit a Terpsichorean version of one of the tales of Javanese mythology. The dance was characterized by the utmost deliberation of movement, the dancers holding certain postures for several seconds at a time, reminding me, in their rigid self-consciousness, of the "living pictures" which were so popular in America twenty years ago.

All of the dancers, as I have already remarked, were of the blood royal and one, I was told, was in the direct line of succession. Judging from the vacuity of his expression, the Dutch have no reason to anticipate any difficulty in maintaining their mastery in Soerakarta when he comes to the throne. But the Dutch officials take no chances with the intrigue-loving native princes; they keep them under close surveillance at all times. It is one of the disadvantages of Christian governments ruling peoples of alien race and religion that methods of revolt are not always visible to the naked eye, and even the Dutch Intelligence Service in the Indies, efficient as it is, has no means of knowing what is going on in the forbidden quarters of the kratons. In Java, as in other Moslem lands, more than one bloody uprising has been planned in the safety and secrecy of the harem. Potential disloyalty is neutralized, therefore, by a discreet display of force. Throughout the performance in the palace a Dutch trooper in field gray, bandoliers stuffed with cartridges festooned across his chest and a carbine tucked under his arm, paced slowly up and down—an ever-present symbol of Dutch power—watching the posturing princes with a sardonic eye. That is Holland's way of showing that, should disaffection show its head, she is ready to deal with it.



CHAPTER X

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE TO ELEPHANT LAND

Since the world began the peacock's tail which we call the Malay Peninsula has swung down from Siam to sweep the Sumatran shore. A peacock's tail not merely in configuration but in its gorgeousness of color. Green jungle—a bewildering tangle of trees, shrubs, bushes, plants, and creepers, hung with ferns and mosses, bound together with rattans and trailing vines—clothes the mountains and the lowlands, its verdant riot checked only by the sea. Penetrating the deepest recesses of the jungle a network of little, dusky, winding rivers, green-blue because the sky that is reflected in them is filtered through the interlacing branches. Orchids—death-white, saffron, pink, violet, purple, crimson—festooned from the higher boughs like incandescent lights of colored glass. The gilded, cone-shaped towers of Buddhist temples rising above steep roofs tiled in orange, red, or blue, their eaves hung with hundreds of tiny bells which tinkle musically in every breeze. The scarlet splotches of spreading fire-trees against whitewashed walls. Shaven-headed priests in yellow robes offering flowers and food to stolid-faced images of brass and clay. Long files of elephants, bearing men and merchandise beneath their hooded howdahs, rocking and rolling down the dim and deep-worn forest trails. Snowy, hump-backed bullocks, driven by naked brown men, splashing through the shallow water on the rice-fields harnessed to ploughs as primeval in design as those our Aryan ancestors used. Bronze-brown women, their lithe figures wrapped in gaily colored cottons, busying themselves about frail, leaf-thatched dwellings perched high on bamboo stilts above the river-banks. And, arching over all, a sky as flawlessly blue as the dome of the Turquoise Mosque in Samarland. Such is the land that the ancients called the Golden Chersonese but which is labeled in the geographies of today as Lower Siam and the Malay States.

If you will look at the map you will see that Lower Siam extends half-way down the Malay Peninsula, running across it from coast to coast and thus forming a barrier between British Burmah and British Malaya, precisely as German East Africa formerly separated the British holdings in the northern and southern portions of the Dark Continent. And, were I to indulge in prophecy, I should say that the day would come when the fate of German East Africa will overtake Lower Siam. History has shown, again and again, that the nation, particularly if it is as small and feeble as Siam, which forms a barrier between two portions of a powerful and aggressive empire is in anything but an enviable position.

Politically that portion of the Malay Peninsula which is within the British sphere is divided into three sections: the colony of the Straits Settlements, the four Federated Malay States, and the five non-federated states under British protection. The crown colony of the Straits Settlements consists of the twenty-seven-mile-long island of Singapore and the much larger island of Penang; the territory of Province Wellesley, on the mainland opposite Penang; Malacca, a narrow coastal strip between Singapore and Penang; and, to the north of it, the tiny island and insignificant territory known as the Dingdings. By the acquisition of these small and scattered but strategically important territories, England obtained control of the Straits of Malacca, which form the gateway to the China Seas. In 1896, as the result of a treaty between the British Government and the rajahs of the native states of Perak, Selangor, Pahang, and Negri Sembilan, these four states were brought into a confederation under British protection. Though they are still under the nominal rule of their own rajahs—now known as sultans—each has a British adviser attached to his court, the Governor of the Straits Settlements being ex officio the High Commissioner and administrative head of the confederation. The non-federated states consist of Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan, and Trengganu, the rights of suzerainty, protection, administration, and control of which were transferred by treaty from Siam to Great Britain in 1909, and the Sultanate of Johore, which occupies the extreme southern end of the peninsula, opposite Singapore. In the non-federated, as in the Federated Malay States, British advisers reside at the courts of the native sultans.

Starting at Johore, which, some Biblical authorities assert, is identical with the Land of Ophir, and running through the heart of British Malaya from south to north, is the Federated Malay States Railway, which has recently been linked up with the Siamese State Railways, thus making it possible to travel by rail from Singapore to Bangkok in about four days. Aside from the heat (in the railway carriages the mercury occasionally climbs to 120), the insects, the dust, and the swarms of sweating natives who pile into every compartment regardless of the class designated on their tickets, the journey is a comfortable one.

That section of the F. M. S. Railways which traverses the Sultanate of Johore runs through the greatest tiger country in all Asia. The tiger is to Johore what the elephant is to Siam and the kangaroo to Australia—a sort of national trademark. Even the postage stamps bear an engraving of the striped monarch of the jungle. There is no place in the world, so far as I am aware, save only a zoo, of course, where one can get a shot at a tiger so quickly and with such minimum of effort. In this connection I heard a story at the Singapore Club, the truth of which is vouched for by those with whom I was having tiffin. Shortly before the war, it seems, an American business man who had amassed a fortune in the export business, and who was noted even in down-town New York as a hustler, was returning from a business trip to China. In the smoking-room of the home ward bound liner, over the highballs and cigars, he listened to the stories of an Englishman who had been hunting big game in Asia. The conversation eventually turned to tigers.

"Johore's the place for tigers," the Englishman remarked, pouring himself another peg of whiskey. "The beggars are as thick as foxes in Leicestershire. You're jolly well certain of bagging one the first day out."

"I've always wanted a tiger skin for my smoking room," commented the American. "Could buy one at a fur shop on the Avenue, of course, but I want one that I shot myself. Think I'll run over to Johore while we're at Singapore and get one."

"But I say, my dear fellow," expostulated the Briton, "you really can't do that, you know. We only stop at Singapore for half a day—get in at daybreak and leave again at noon. You can't get a tiger in that time."

"There's no such word as 'can't' in my business. Business methods will bring results in tiger shooting as quickly as in anything else," retorted the American, rising and heading for the wireless room.

A few hours later the American's representative in Singapore, a youngster who had himself been educated in the school of American business, received a wireless message from the head of his house. It read: "Arriving Singapore daybreak Thursday. Leaving noon same day. Wish to shoot tiger in Johore. Make arrangements."

Now the representative in Singapore knew perfectly well that his promotion, if not his job, depended upon his employer getting a tiger. And, as the steamer was due in four days, there was no time to spare. From the director of the Singapore zoo he purchased for considerably above the market price, a decrepit and somewhat moth-eaten tiger of advanced years, which he had transported across the straits to Johore, whence it was conveyed by bullock cart to a spot in the edge of the jungle, a dozen miles outside the town, where it was turned loose in an enclosure of wire and bamboo hastily constructed for the purpose.

When the steamer bearing the American magnate dropped anchor in the harbor, the local representative went aboard with the quarantine officer. Ten minutes later, thanks to arrangements made in advance, a launch was bearing him and his chief to the shore, where a motor car was waiting. It is barely a dozen miles from the wharf at Singapore to Woodlands, the ferry station opposite Johore, and the driver had orders to shatter the speed laws. A waiting launch streaked across the two miles of channel which separates the island from the mainland and drew up alongside the quay at Johore, where another car was waiting. The roads are excellent in the sultanate, and thirty minutes of fast driving brought the two Americans to the zareba, within which the tiger, guarded by natives, was peacefully breakfasting on a goat.

"He's a real man-eater," whispered the agent, handing his employer a loaded express rifle. "We only located him yesterday. Lured him with a goat, you know ... the smell of blood attracts 'em. You'd better put a bullet in him before he sees us. One just behind the shoulder will do the business."

The magnate, trembling with excitement for the first time in his busy life, drew bead on the tawny stripe behind the tiger's shoulder. There was a shattering roar, the great beast pawed convulsively at the air, then rolled on its side and lay motionless.

"Good work," the local man commented approvingly. "It's only an hour and forty minutes since we left the boat a record for tiger shooting, I fancy. We'll be back at Raffles' for breakfast by nine o'clock and after that I'll show you round the city. Don't worry about the skin, sir. The natives'll tend to the skinning and I'll have it on board before you sail."

Now—so the story goes—after dinner in the magnate's New York home he takes his guests into the smoking room for cigars and coffee. Spread before the fireplace is a great orange and black pelt, a trifle faded it is true, but indubitably the skin of a tiger.

"Yes," the host complacently in reply to his guests' admiring comments, "a real man-eater. Shot him myself in the Johore jungle. Easy enough to get a tiger if you use American business methods."

* * * * *

When, upon reaching Singapore, the great seaport at the tip of the Malay Peninsula which is the gateway to the Malay States and to Siam, I learned that small but not uncomfortable steamers sail weekly for Bangkok—a four-day voyage if the monsoon is blowing in the right direction—or that, by crossing the narrow straits on the ferry to Johore, we could reach the capital of Siam in about the same time by the Federated Malay States and Siamese railways, there seemed no valid excuse for keeping the Negros any longer. So, bidding good-by to Captain Galvez and his officers, I gave orders that the little vessel, on which we had cruised upward of six thousand miles, amid some of the least-known islands in the world, should return to Manila. To leave her was like breaking home ties, and I confess that when she steamed slowly out of the harbor, homeward bound, with her Filipino crew lining the rail and Captain Galvez waving to us from the bridge and the flag at her taffrail dipping in farewell, I suddenly felt lonely and deserted.

When the people whom I met in Singapore learned that I was contemplating visiting Siam they attempted to dissuade me. I was warned that the train service up the peninsula was uncertain, that the steamers up the gulf were uncomfortable, that the hotel in Bangkok was impossible, the dirt incredible, the heat unendurable, the climate unhealthy. And when, desiring to learn whether these indictments were true, I attempted to obtain reliable information about the country to which I was going, I found that none was to be had. The latest volume on Siam which I could find in Singapore bookshops bore an 1886 imprint. The managers of the two leading hotels in Singapore knew, or professed to know, nothing about hotel accommodations in Bangkok. Though the administration of the Federal Malay States Railways generously offered me the use of a private car over their system, I could obtain no reliable information as to what connections I could make at the Siamese frontier or when I would reach Bangkok. And the only guide book on Siam which I could discover—quite an excellent little volume, by the way—was published by the Imperial Japanese Railways!

The Siamese are by no means opposed to foreigners visiting their country, and they would welcome the development of its resources by foreign capital, but, owing to the insularity, indifference, timidity and pride which are inherent in the Siamese character, they have taken no steps to bring their country to the attention of the outside world. When one notes the energetic advertising campaigns which are being conducted by the governments of Japan, China, Java, and even Indo-China, where the visitor is confronted at every turn by advertisements urging him to "Spend the Week-End at Kamakura," "Go to the Great Wall," "Don't Miss Boroboedor and Djokjakarta," "Take Advantage of the Special Fares to the Ruins of Angkor," you wonder why Siam, which has so much that is novel and picturesque to offer, makes no effort to swell its revenues by encouraging the tourist industry. That the royal prince who is the Minister of Communications recently made a tour of the United States for the purpose of studying American railway methods suggests, however, that the Land of the White Elephant is planning to get its share of tourist travel in the future.

I might as well admit frankly that my first impressions of the Siamese capital were extremely disappointing. I didn't expect to be conveyed to my hotel atop a white elephant, through streets lined with salaaming natives, but neither did I expect to make a wild dash through thoroughfares as crowded with traffic as Fifth Avenue, in a vehicle which unmistakably owed its paternity to Mr. Henry Ford, or to be bruskly halted at busy street crossings by the upraised hand of a helmeted and white-gloved traffic policeman. Nor, upon my arrival at the hotel—there is only one in Bangkok deserving of the name—did I expect to find on the breakfast table a breakfast food manufactured in Battle Creek, or beside my bed an electric fan made in New Britain, Connecticut, or behind the desk a very wide awake American youth—the son, I learned later, of one of the American advisers to the Siamese Government—who eagerly inquired whether I had brought any American newspapers with me and whether I thought the pennant would be won by the Giants or the White Sox.

Bangkok, which, with its suburbs, has a population about equal to that of Boston, is built on the banks of the country's greatest river, the Menam, some forty miles from its mouth. Though the city has a number of fine thoroughfares, straight as though laid out with a pencil and ruler, between them lie labyrinths of dim and evil-smelling bazaars, their narrow, winding, cobble-paved streets lined on either side by stalls in which are displayed for sale all the products of the country. Because of the intense heat these stalls are open in front, so that the occupants work and eat and sleep in full view of everyone who passes. The barber shaves the heads of his customers while they squat in the edge of the roadway. In the licensed gambling houses groups of excited men and women crowd about gaming tables presided over by greasy, half-naked Chinese croupiers, and, when they have squandered their trifling earnings, hasten to the nearest pawnshop with any garment or article of furniture that is not absolutely indispensable to their existence in order to obtain a few more coins to hazard and eventually to lose. As a result of this passion for gambling, the city is full of pawnshops, some streets containing scarcely anything else. At the far end of one of the bazaar streets is the largest idol manufactory in Siam, for the temples whose graceful, tapering towers dot the landscape are filled with images of Buddha, in all sizes and of all materials from wood to gold set with jewels, most of them donated by the devout in order to "make merit" for themselves. As all Buddhists wish to accumulate as much merit for themselves as possible, in order to be assured at death of a through ticket to Nirvana, the idol-making industry is in a flourishing condition.

Pushing their way through the crowded thoroughfares, their raucous cries rising above the clamor, go the ice cream and curry vendors, carrying the paraphernalia of their trade slung from bamboo poles borne upon the shoulders—perambulating cafeterias and soda fountains, as it were. For a satang—a coin equivalent to about a quarter of a cent—you can purchase a bowl of rice, while the expenditure of another satang will provide you with an assortment of savories or relishes, made from elderly meat, decayed fish, decomposed prawns and other toothsome ingredients, which you heap upon the rice, together with a greenish-yellow curry sauce which makes the concoction look as though it were suffering from a severe attack of jaundice. These relishes are cooked, or rather re-warmed, by the simple process of suspending them in a sort of sieve in a pot of boiling water, the same pot and the same water serving for all customers alike. By this arrangement, the man who takes his snack at the close of the day has the advantage of receiving not merely what he orders, but also flavors and even floating remnants from the dishes ordered by all those who have preceded him. The ice cream vendors drive a roaring trade in a concoction the basis of which is finely shaven ice, looking like half-frozen and very dirty slush, sweetened with sugar and flavored, according to the purchaser's taste from an array of metal-topped bottles such as barbers use for bay rum and hair oil. But, being cold and sweet, "Isa-kee," as the Chinese vendors call it, is as popular among the lower classes in Siam as ice cream cones are in the United States.

Though the streets of Bangkok are crowded with vehicles of every description—ramshackle and disreputable rickshaws, the worst to be found in all the East, drawn by sweating coolies; the boxes of wood and glass on wheels, called gharries, drawn by decrepit ponies whose harness is pieced out with rope; creaking bullock carts driven by Tamils from Southern India; bicycles, ridden by natives whose European hats and coats are in striking contrast to their bare legs and brilliant panungs; clanging street cars, as crowded with humanity as those on Broadway; motors of every size and make, from jitneys to Rolls-Royces—the bulk of the city's traffic is borne on the great river and the countless canals which empty into it. Bangkok has been called, and not ineptly, the Venice of the East, for it is covered with a net-work of canals, or klongs, which spread out in every direction. In sampans, houseboats and other craft, moored to the banks of these canals, dwells the major portion of the city's inhabitants. The city's water population is complete in itself and perfectly independent of its neighbors on land, for it has its own shops and dwellings, its own markets and restaurants, its own theaters, and gambling establishments, its own priests and police. When you go to Bangkok, I strongly advise you to hire a sampan and visit the floating portion of the city after nightfall. The houseboats are open at both ends and you will see many things that the guidebooks fail to mention.

The Oriental Hotel, the banks, the shipping offices, the business houses, and all the legations save only the American, are clustered on or near the river in a low-lying and unattractive quarter of the town. But follow the long, dingy, squalid highway known as the New Road, a thoroughfare lined with third-rate Chinese shops and thronged with rickshaws, carriages, bicycles, motors, street-cars, and Asiatics of every religion and complexion, and you will come at length into a portion of the city as different from the mercantile district as Riverside Drive is from the Bowery. Here you will find broad boulevards, shaded by rows of splendid tamarinds, lined by charming villas which peep coyly from the blazing gardens which surround them, and broken at frequent intervals by little parks in which are fountains and statuary. There is a great common, green with grass during the rainy season, known as the Premane Ground, where military reviews are held and where the royal cremations take place; a favorite spot in the spring for the kite-flying contests in which Siamese of all classes and all ages participate. Fronting on the Premane Ground are the not unimposing stuccoed buildings which house the Ministries of Justice, Agriculture and War. Not far away is the new Throne Hall, a huge, ornate structure of white marble, in the modern Italian style, its great dome faintly reminiscent of the Capitol at Washington. From the center of the spacious plaza rises a rather fine equestrian statue of the late king, Chulalungkorn, and, close by, the really charming Dusit Gardens, beautifully laid out with walks and lagoons and kiosks and a great variety of tropical flowers and shrubs and trees. But, most characteristic and colorful of all, a touch of that Oriental splendor which one looks for in Siam, is the congeries of palaces, offices, stables, courtyards, gardens, shrines and temples, the whole encircled by a crenelated, white-washed wall, which is the official residence of King Rama VI.

There are said to be nearly four hundred Buddhist temples within a two-mile radius of the royal palace, of which by far the most interesting and magnificent is the famous Wat Phra Keo, or Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which is really a royal chapel, being within the outer circumference of the palace walls. I doubt if any space of similar size in all the world contains such a bewildering display of barbaric magnificence, such a riot of form and color, as the walled enclosure in which this remarkable edifice and its attendant structures stand. From the center of the marble-paved courtyard rises an enormous, cone-shaped prachadee, round at the bottom but tapering to a long and slender spire said to be covered with plates of gold. It certainly looks like a solid mass of that precious metal, and at daybreak and nightfall, when it catches the level rays of the sun, it can be seen from afar, shining and glittering above the gorgeously colored roofs of the temples and the many-tinted lesser spires which surround it. Close by the gilded prachadee is the bote or chapel used by the king, surmounted by a similar spire which is overlaid with sapphire-colored plates of glass and porcelain, while a little distance away stands the temple itself, its gilded walls set with mosaics of emerald green. Flanking the gateways of the temple courtyard are gigantic, grotesque figures, fully thirty feet in height, carved and colored like the creatures of a nightmare. They represent demons and are supposed to guard the approaches to the temple, being so placed that they glare down ferociously on all who enter the sacred enclosure. Other figures in marble, bronze, wood and stone, representing dolphins, storks, cows, camels, monkeys and the various fabulous monsters of the Hindu mythology, are scattered in apparent confusion about the temple courtyard, producing an effect as bizarre as it is bewildering. It is so unreal, so incredibly fantastic, that I felt that I was looking at the papier-mache setting for a motion picture spectacle, such as Griffith used to produce, and that the director and the cameraman would appear shortly and end the illusion.

The interior of the main temple is extremely lofty. The walls and rafters are of teak and the floor is covered with a matting made of silver wire. At the far end of this imposing room an enormous, pyramidal shrine of gold rises almost to the roof, its dazzling brilliancy somewhat subdued by the semi-obscurity of the interior. Wat Phra Keo is unique amongst Siamese temples in containing objects of real value. Everything is genuine and costly, as becomes the gifts of a king, though it must be admitted that certain of the royal offerings which are ranged at the foot of the shrine, such as jeweled French clocks, figurines of Sevres and Dresden porcelain, and a large marble statue of a Roman goddess, are of doubtful appropriateness. Ranged on a table at the back of the altar are seven images of Buddha in pure gold, the right hand of each pointed upward. On the thumb and fingers of each hand glitters a king's ransom in rings of sapphires, emeralds and rubies, while from the center of each palm flashes a rosette of diamonds. High up toward the rafters, at the apex of the golden pyramid, in a sort of recess toward which the fingers of the seven images are pointing, sits an image of Buddha, perhaps twelve inches high, said to be cut from one enormous emerald—whence the temple's name. As a matter of fact, it is made of jade and is of incalculable value. Set in its forehead are three eyes, each an enormous diamond. The history of this extraordinary idol is lost in the mists of antiquity. Tradition has it that it fell from heaven into one of the Laos states, being captured by the Siamese in battle. Since then it has been repeatedly lost, captured or stolen. Its story, like that of so many famous jewels, might fittingly be written in blood.

It is the custom in Siam for every man to spend a portion of his life in a monastery. This rule applies to everyone from the poorest peasant upward, the king and all the male members of the royal family having at some period worn the yellow robe of a monk. This curious custom is, no doubt, an imitation of the so-called Act of Renunciation of Gautama, the future Buddha, who, at the age of twenty-nine, moved by the sufferings of humanity, renounced his rights to his father's throne and, abandoning his wife and child, devoted the remainder of his life to religion. Just as every American boy is expected to go to school, so every Siamese youth is expected to enter a monastery, the stern discipline enforced during this period accounting, I have no doubt, for the docility which is so noticeable a part of the Siamese character. While I was in Siam I was the guest one day of the officers' mess of the crack regiment of the household cavalry. Though my hosts, with few exceptions, spoke fluent English, though several of them had been educated at English schools and universities, and though the conversation over the mess table was of polo and racing and big game shooting and bridge, I learned to my astonishment that every one of these debonair young officers, with their worldly manners and their beautifully cut uniforms, had at one time shaved his head, donned the yellow robe of a monk, and begged his food from door to door. In view of the universality of the custom, it is small wonder that Siam has ten thousand monasteries and that 300,000 of its inhabitants wear the ocher-colored robe.

The periods of time which men devote to monastic life are not uniform. Some spend between a month and a year, others their entire lives. Some enter the monastery in their youth, others in middle age or when old men. But they all shave their heads and don the coarse yellow robe and lead practically the same existence. Each morning, carrying their "begging bowls," they beg their food at the doors of laymen. They come quietly and stand at the door, and, accepting the offerings, as quietly depart without expressing thanks for what is given them, the idea being that they are not begging for their own benefit but in order to evoke a spirit of charity in the giver. During the dry season it is the custom of the monks to make long pilgrimages for the purpose of visiting other monasteries. Each of these itinerant monks is accompanied by a youth known as a yom, who carries the simple requisites of the journey, the chief of which is a large umbrella. Traveling in the interior one frequently meets long files of these yellow-clad pilgrims, with their attendant yoms, moving in silence along a forest trail. When night comes the yom opens the large umbrella which he carries, thrusts its long handle into the ground, and over it drapes a square of cloth, thus extemporizing a sort of tent under which his master sleeps.

* * * * *

To visit Siam without seeing the royal white elephants would be like visiting Niagara without seeing the falls. The elephant stables stand in the heart of the palace enclosure, sandwiched in between the palace gardens and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Each animal—there were only three in the royal stables at the time of my visit—has a separate building to itself, within which it stands on a sort of dais, one hind leg lashed with a rope to a tall, stout post painted scarlet and surmounted by a gilded crown. Much as I dislike to shatter cherished illusions, were I to assert that the elephants I saw in the royal stables were white, I should be convicting myself of color-blindness. The best that can be said of two of them, is that they were a dirty gray, about the color of a much-used wash-rag. The third, had it been a horse, might have been described as a roan, the whole body being a pale reddish-brown, with a sprinkling of real white hairs on the back. All three animals were, in reality, albinos, having the light-colored iris of the eye, the white toe-nails, and the pink skin at the end of the trunk which distinguish the albino everywhere. As a matter of fact, "white elephant" is not a correct translation of the Siamese chang penak, which really means "albino elephant." But most foreigners will continue, I have no doubt, to use the term made famous by Barnum.

* * * * *

Though the albino elephants are never used nowadays save on occasions of great ceremony, being regarded by the educated Siamese with the same amused tolerance with which an Englishman regards the great gilt coach, drawn by eight cream-colored horses, in which the king goes to open Parliament, the ordinary elephant is of enormous economic value to the country, being a combination, as it were, of a motor truck, a portable derrick, and a freight car. Almost anywhere in the back country, where the only roads are trails through the jungle, one can see "elephants a-pilin' teak in the sludgy, squdgy creeks" or being loaded with merchandise for transport into the far interior. Indeed, the traveler who wishes to take a short cut from Siam to Burmah can hire an elephant for the journey almost as easily as he could hire a motor car in America. It is a novel means of travel, but a little of it goes a long way. A good working elephant is a valuable piece of property, being worth in the neighborhood of $2,500., but the prospective purchaser should remember that the possession of one of these giant pachyderms entails considerable overhead, or rather, internal expense. De Wolf Hopper was telling only the literal truth when he sang in Wang of the tribulations of the peasant who had an elephant on his hands:

"The elephant ate all night, The elephant ate all day; Do what he would to furnish food, The cry was 'Still more hay!'"



Although, as I have already remarked, sophisticated Siamese regard the white elephant with amusement tinged with contempt, there is no doubt that among the bulk of the people the animals are considered as sacred and are treated with great veneration. Indeed, when Siam was forced to cede certain of her eastern provinces to France, the treaty contained a clause providing that any so-called white elephants which might be captured in the ceded territory should be considered the property of the King of Siam and delivered to him forthwith. A number of years ago, a traveling show known as Wilson's English Circus, gave a number of exhibitions in Bangkok, which were attended by the King, the nobility, and members of the European colony. When the proprietor saw that the popular interest in his exhibition was beginning to wear off, he distributed broadcast handbills announcing that at the next performance "a genuine white elephant" would take part in the exhibition. Public curiosity was reawakened and that evening the circus was crowded. After the usual bareback riding, in which the Siamese were treated to the sight of European women in pink tights and tulle skirts pirouetting on the backs of cantering Percherons, two clowns burst into the ring.

"Hey, you!" bawled one of them, "Have you seen the white elephant?"

"Sure, I have," was the response. "The King has a stable full of them."

"Oh, no, he ain't," shouted the first fun-maker. "The King ain't got any white elephants. His are all gray ones. I'll show you the only genuine white elephant in the world," whereupon a small elephant, as snowy as repeated coats of whitewash could make it, ambled into the ring. Though a suppressed titter ran through the more sophisticated portion of the audience when it was observed that the ridiculous looking animal left white marks on everything it touched, it was quite apparent that the bulk of the spectators resented fun being made of an animal which they had been taught to consider sacred, certain of the more devout asserting that the sacrilegious performance would call down the wrath of Buddha. Their prophecies proved to be well founded, for the "white" elephant died at sea a few days later—as the result, it was hinted, of poison put in its food by the Siamese priests and Wilson himself, who had been suffering from dysentery, died the day after he landed at Singapore.

Being a young nation, so far as the adoption of Western methods are concerned, the Siamese are extremely sensitive, being almost pathetically eager to win the good opinion of the Occidental world. Thus, upon Siam's entry into the Great War (perhaps you were not aware that the little kingdom equipped and sent to France an expeditionary force composed of aviation, ambulance and motor units, thus being the only independent Asiatic nation whose troops served on European soil) the king abolished the white elephant upon a red ground which from time immemorial had been the national standard, substituting for it a nondescript affair of colored stripes which at first glance appears to be a compromise between the flags of China and Montenegro. In doing this, I think that the king made a mistake, for he deprived his country of a distinctive emblem which was associated with Siam the whole world over.

* * * * *

Fortune was kind to us in the Siamese capital, for we reached that city on the eve of a series of royal cremations, the attendant ceremonies providing enough action and color to satisfy even Hawkinson. It should be explained that instead of cremating a body immediately, as might be expected in so torrid a climate, the remains are placed in a large jar and kept in a temple or in the house of the deceased for a period determined by the rank of the dead man—the King for twelve months and so downward. If the relatives are too poor to afford the expenses incident to cremation, they bury the body, but exhume it for burning when their financial condition permits. On the day of the cremation, which is usually fixed by an astrologer, the remains are transferred from the jar to a wooden coffin and carried with much pomp to the meru, or place of cremation. When the deceased is of royal or noble blood the meru is frequently a magnificent structure, sometimes costing many thousands of dollars, built for the purpose and torn down when that purpose has been served. The coffin is placed on the pyre, which is lighted by relatives, the occasion being considered one for rejoicing rather than mourning. The royal meru, which had been erected in a small park in the outskirts of the capital at a cost of one hundred thousand ticals, was a really beautiful structure of true Siamese architecture, elaborately decorated in scarlet and gold and draped with hangings of the same colors. Within the meru were three pyres, concealed by gilt screens, on which were set the coffins containing the bodies. As there were a number of bodies to be burned, the ceremonies lasted upward of a week, King Rama going in state each afternoon to the meru, where he took his place on a throne in an elaborately decorated pavilion. After brief ceremonies by a large body of yellow-robed Buddhist priests, the King set fire to the end of a long fuse, which in turn ignited the three pyres simultaneously, the ascending clouds of smoke being greeted by the roll of drums and the crash of saluting cannon.

When I first suggested to friends in Bangkok that I wished to obtain permission for Hawkinson to take pictures of the cremation, they told me that it was out of the question.

"But why?" I demanded. "Motion-pictures were taken of the funerals of the Pope, and of King Edward, and of President Roosevelt, without anyone dreaming of protesting, so why should there be any objection here? Nothing in the least disrespectful is intended."

"But this is Siam," my friends replied pessimistically, "and such things simply aren't done here. No one has ever taken a motion-picture of a royal cremation."

"It's never too late to begin," I told them.

So I took a rickshaw out to the American Legation and enlisted the cooperation of our charge d'affaires, Mr. Donald Rodgers, the very efficient young diplomatist who was representing American interests in Siam pending the arrival of the new minister.

"I'll do my best to arrange it," Rodgers assured me, "but I'm not sanguine about meeting with success. The Siamese are fine people, kindly, hospitable and all that, but they're as conservative as Bostonians."

Two days later, however, he sent me a letter, signed by the minister of the royal household, authorizing Hawkinson to take motion-pictures in the grounds of the meru on the following day prior to the cremation. I didn't quite like the sound of the last four words, "prior to the cremation," but I felt that it was not an occasion for quibbling. So the next day, at the appointed hour—which was two hours ahead of the time set for the cremation—Hawkinson set out for the meru, accompanied by his interpreter. He did not return until dinner-time.

"What happened?" I inquired, by way of greeting.

"What didn't happen?" he retorted. "They turned me out just as the cremation was commencing. When we reached the meru I was met by an official wearing bright-blue pants, who told me that he had been sent to assist me in taking the pictures. Well, I got a few shots of the meru itself, and of the royal pavilion, and of some of the priests and soldiers, but there wasn't much doing because there wasn't any action. So I sat down to wait for things to happen. Pretty soon the troops began to arrive—lancers and a battery of artillery and a company of the royal body-guard in red coats—and after them came the guests: officials and dignitaries in all sorts of gorgeous uniforms covered with decorations. A few minutes later I heard someone say, 'The King is coming,' so I got the camera ready to begin cranking. Just then up comes my Siamese chaperone. 'You will have to leave now,' says he. 'Leave? What for?' said I. 'Because the cremation is about to begin,' he tells me. 'But that's what I've come to take pictures of,' I told him. 'What did you think that I attended this party for?' 'Oh, no,' says he, very polite; 'your permission says that you can take pictures prior to the cremation.' So they showed me the gate."

"Then you didn't get any pictures?" I queried, deep disappointment in my tone.

"Sure, I got the pictures," was the answer. "Some of them, at any rate. That's what I went there for, wasn't it?"

"But how did you work it?" I demanded.

"Easy," he replied, lighting a cigarette. "I told the driver to back his car up against the iron fence which encircles the meru; then I set up the camera in the tonneau, so that it was above the heads of the crowd, screwed on the six-inch lens which I use for long-distance shots, and took the pictures."