IMPERIAL ENTERTAINMENT.

33

or zone, of which both ends hung down to their feet; sometimes unfolding these loose parts, by slightly raising the edges as with a touch; then throwing the one or the other over the shoulder, or the arm, or passing them, as veils, before the face. The richly-ornamented cloth, also, that girt the loins, had a long corner which fell to the ground, and lay in a train behind. This, in the course of the dance, they played with as fantastically as with the scarf above, spurning it with the heel or the toe, first to one side, then to the other. There did not seem to be any intentional indecorum in any of their movements, and certainly, for the gentlest and easiest exhibition of limbs and bodies significantly following the sounds of instruments and voices, nothing could be less offensive. While we were looking on, attendants of the bands several times approached the emperor's officers, as if to receive orders. These servile creatures uniformly crawled, forward or backward, crouching on the ground, as though they were reptiles that feared to be spurned by the feet of their superiors while communicating with them. Both in advancing and retiring they put the palms of their hands flat together, raising them till the thumbs came over the bridge of the nose. It was humbling to see human nature so degraded.

After the lapse of half an hour, when we had concluded that this was all the entertainment to which we had been invited, the emperor rose, and we were directed to follow. To our surprise we were conducted into another open court, like that which we had left, where a vast range of tables, in the form of a capital T, appeared, loaded with piles of all kinds of substantial meats, delicacies and fruits, which the country afforded, set out in European style. The tables were so crowded with dishes that there was not room for another, and even the interstices were filled up with brilliant or aromatic flowers. The emperor took his seat in the centre of the arrangement; the general and the resident governor, as before, on his right and his left; the rest of us, natives and foreigners, occupying the remaining places. The breakfast (so it was called) was indeed sumptuous, and every thing was conducted with as much order as it might have been in the palace of a European prince. Multitudes of servants were in waiting. A band, detached from the other musicians, during the feast, played on their various instruments exhilarating tunes, and among the rest, in compliment to us

(the deputation from England), " God save the King." All the while the girls were dancing in the distance, the Javanese minstrels and singers accompanying them as before. The emperor honored each of his guests with the opportunity of taking wine with him. Two or three toasts were also given, which were drank by all the company.

The emperor again rose up, and we returned after him to the dancing scene. The girls, who had hitherto been engaged, now retired, and another company made their appearance, dressed like the former. When they were all seated, an old woman entered and laid down at the feet of each an instrument resembling a bow, with an arrow on the string, about two feet long, lacquered red and decorated with gold. The dancers soon afterwards rose and went through all the evolutions of the others, holding these bows in their hands, which added exceedingly to the beauty and picturesque effect of their groups and attitudes. The wheels and pinions of the most exquisite machinery could not more exactly have performed the prescribed motions-nor, we may add, have betrayed less consciousness of what they were doing, so far as their looks might be regarded as the interpreters of feelings or thoughts within them. The airs, we were informed, and the songs, to which the dancers acted their parts, were national and mythological, referring to the wars and superstitions of the country. In due time we rose to depart; and, after wishing him a long and prosperous reign, were permitted to shake hands with his majesty. This token of friendship he bestowed with apparently hearty good-will. The whole deportment of the emperor was that of unaffected dignity, ease, and condescension. respect no potentate of Christendom could have much excelled him. His nearest relatives, ministers of state, and the principal nobles of his court, were present. The whole time that we remained in the palace was something less than three hours. Our curiosity had been gratified, but our hearts were sad when we contrasted this vain and heartless magnificence with the simple dwellings, and meek and lowly manners, of the patriarchal kings of Eimeo, Huahine, and others in the island of the west. Oh, that as the natural sun comes, in his course, to Java from Tahiti, the day-spring from on high might thus visit the east from the regions of the Pacific!

In this

Immediately on our return from the palace we set out for Samarang, and were happy, travelling through a district so

full of perils from insurrectionary parties, to reach it in safety at midnight.

Aug. 8. About three miles from Samarang, at a place -called Batu, a small Chinese temple stands close by the roadside, at the back of which there is a cavern, communicating, it is said, by a subterranean and submarine passage, with Canton? In the floor are two wells, the depth of which we had no means of ascertaining. The cavern itself is eight feet high, of no great amplitude, and is entered by a doorway of wrought masonry, on either side of which is a tablet filled with Chinese characters. This place is held in great veneration by this people, in honor of their native country, and once a year they keep a patriotic feast here, to commemorate the homes and the graves of their fathers. After visiting this temple and cavern we renewed our journey back to Batavia, but did not reach the first resting-place, Pakalongan, till two o'clock in the morning. Thence, on the following day, we continued our route to Cheribon.

were

Aug. 10. While we were detained, for want of posthorses, we walked out in the neighborhood, and among other objects of curiosity, lighted upon a Chinese grotto, constructed about twelve years ago by order of the sultan of Cheribon. This work, in various grotesque forms, extends over more than an acre and a half of ground, and is so fancifully diversified as to bewilder the senses and defy description. A person wandering among its mazes-where all is art, of the most uncommon character, and utterly unlike any thing in nature-might imagine himself walking, in a dream, among such scenery and images as never made visible to eyes of men awake. The approach indicates nothing extraordinary. The entrance is through an old door, with its jambs and cornice curiously carved. Thence, onward, is a passage, two yards wide, between columns and statuary of the roughest style, yet evidently wrought by not mean hand. At the termination appears a brick gateway, on each side of which is placed a most outrageously misshapen lion, of porcelain ware. From this portal we passed into a labyrinth of grottos-mounts, descents, subterranean ways, interior rooms, unexpectedly opening upon us; and all these decorated with Chinese temples, pagodas, figures of birds, beasts, fishes, and monsters, which no naturalist could classify, absolutely crowding the contracted view on every side.

Several pools of water, here and there, like inlaid

36

CRUELTY AND SENSUALITY.

mirrors, reflecting the span-breadth of sky above, and the little circuit of rocks and images around, add much to the enchantment of the whole. Besides these, streams, cascades, and fountains are carried through every part In one of the recesses we were shown the sultan's bedstead, superbly carved and gilded. This was so placed, that, by a singularly-ingenious contrivance, a current of water was conducted all round the tester, which, at pleasure, might be made to fall, in transparent curtains of rain, completely encircling the royal couch, for the double purpose of keeping off the mosquitoes and tempering the warm air to the delicious coolness which, in this sultry climate, is the consummation of bliss to reposing listlessness. "The Castle of Indolence," itself, voluptuously as it has been furnished by the creative imagination of the first in rank of our descriptive poets (Thomson), was here fairly outdone;-the conception of sleeping in state, surrounded, as in a tent, by the drapery of lulling, tinkling, glittering showers, of which the moisture was carried away in grooved channels, about the basement of the bedstead-could never have entered into the mind of a minstrel born beyond the Tweed. Besides this chamber there were other handsome apartments, for the accommodation of his Highness and his harem, when they repair hither to anticipate the luxuries of Mahomet's paradise. But, if this were a paradise, there was purgatory (if not a place bearing a harder name) connected with it. Several horrid dungeons and deep pits were pointed out to us; and we passed near one fearful abyss, close by a narrow path, like that which Bunyan describes, along the verge of Apollyon's den, in the valley of the shadow of death. Cruelty and sensuality are such blood-relations, that, in eastern countries at least, they are rarely dissociated; the pleasures of palaces are heightened by the miseries suffered in prisons under their roofs, and the eyes of sultans and their concubines feasted with the spectacles of executions and tiger-fights in their court-yards. A shocking proof of this may be produced in the current story, that the Chinese artist who contrived and executed this "Paradise of Dainty Devices," this "limbo of vanity," when the work was finished had both his eyes put out, by order of the sultan, his employer, that he might not make another like it for either sovereign or subject.

We left Cheribon at four o'clock in the afternoon, and

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reached Sumadang at two the next morning. The road lay through a forest-country, abounding with wild beasts. A few days ago, as a carriage was passing along, a tiger made a spring to attack one of the servants behind, but the driver instinctively whipping his horses at the moment when he saw it darting, as if it flew, through the air, the ferocious assailant missed its aim, and got entangled in the wheel, from which it was probably as glad to escape as the company were to pursue their way instead of pursuing their defeated assailant. Government gives ten dollars a head for the destruction of tigers in this district. We reached Cheanjor in good time in the evening, and had a full night's rest (a luxury which we have not lately enjoyed), at an excellent hotel, kept by a Frenchman, who was himself gone to the war, in which all resident Europeans, of whatever nation, are required to take a personal part when their services are called for. The Chinese are not allowed this privilege of exposing themselves to hardships, perils, and death, for their Dutch rulers, because, in a late insurrection, many of them joined the Javanese rebels. The Malays are also excluded, because they are, proverbially, too treacherous to be trusted.

Aug. 12. On our journey, at Baitenzorg, we saw, in the garden of the governor, a small upas-tree growing there. It is five feet high, and as many years old, having a straight stem, with a few twigs and leaves upon them at the top. The leaves are very rough, serrated at the edge, and of a deep green color. It is from the bark of the roots (as we understand) that the famous poison is extracted, by a process known to the natives only, and kept by them as an invaluable secret of mischievous knowledge. The tree grows no where to perfection except towards the eastern extremity of the island, where it sometimes attains the height of a hundred and fifty feet. It is unnecessary now to say, that its presence produces none of the blasting effects formerly and fabulously attributed to it. We were permitted to take away several leaves from this plant, which we plucked with our naked fingers with impunity. From the footstalks a white milky sap exuded. At night we arrived at Batavia, after a journey, to and fro, of nearly nine hundred miles, in a crazy vehicle, along roads admirably constructed for the most part (though in some places, on account of swamps, precipices, &c., very dangerous) through beautiful and fertile regions,