Part 16

All of society,—the two hundred of Djokja’s superior circle,—European and native together, gathered at the Societeit’s marble hall on the night of the topeng. That exalted being, the resident, entered in his modestly gilded uniform; and all the company rose, and stood until he and Prince Pakoe Alam had advanced and seated themselves in the two arm-chairs placed in front of the chairs of the rest of the audience. “Our best people are all here to-night,” said our amiable table d’hôte acquaintance of the Hotel Toegoe; and we looked around the lofty white hall, where row upon row of robust, prosperous-looking Europeans sat in state attire. All the men wore heavy cloth coats, either richly frogged military jackets or the civilian’s frock or cutaway, only a few wearing conventional black dress-coats, and none the rational white duck clothes of the tropics. The Dutch ladies were dressed in rich silks, brocades, and even velvets, and fanned vigorously as a natural consequence, while more of mildew fumes than of sachet odors came from these heavy cloth and silk garments, whose care and preservation are so difficult in the tropics. One was reminded of those tropical burghers in crimson velvet coats who received Lord Macartney and Staunton in a red velvet council-room at Batavia just one century before. The native officers and their families were naturally more interesting to a stranger—splendid-looking Javanese men, who stood and walked like kings, all wearing the battek kerchief or turban folded in myriad fine plaitings, richly patterned sarongs, and the boat-handled kris showing at the back of the short black military jacket. Many of these native officials had constellations of stars and decorations pinned to their breasts, and their finely cut features, noble mien, and graceful manners declared them aristocrats and the fine flower of an old race. Their wives, shy, slender, graceful women in clinging sarongs and the disfiguring Dutch jacket, wore many clasps and buckles and jeweled knobs of ear-rings. They seemed to have inherited all the Hindu love of glittering, glowing jewels, and the Buddhist love of flowers and perfumes, each little starry-eyed, flower-like woman redolent of rose or jasmine attar, and wearing some brilliant blossom in the knot of satin-black hair. The women had thrust their pretty brown feet into gold-heeled mule slippers, that clicked musically on the tiles as they walked, while the children comfortably rubbed their bare feet on the cool white floor.

A few Chinese families, nearly all of them Paranaks, or half-castes, to the island born, were there; the women in gay embroidered satins, jeweled and diamonded out of all reason, and the children gay as cockatoos and parrakeets in their bright little coats and caps and talismanic ornaments. Rows of shadowy, silent natives, opas, lantern- and pajong-bearers, and attendants of every kind, crouched in rows among the great columns of the portico—gallery gods who squatted spellbound, rapt, and freely tearful in their enjoyment of the splendid topeng produced that night.

Prince Pakoe Alam’s artists rendered for the sake of military charities a four-act lyric drama, dealing with the adventures of mythical Panji, a hero of Hindu times, who is said to have introduced the kris to Java. The gamelan’s music was all soft harmonies, tender, weird, sad melodies in plaintive minor key, that accompanied the action throughout. The high-pitched nasal recitatives, the squeaks and squawks and stamps of fencing warriors, the slow posing, the stilted and automatic movements of all the actors, were enough like the No dance of Japan to confuse one greatly. All the actors were magnificently costumed and accoutred, their dresses, armor, and weapons being historic properties of the Pakoe Alam family, that had figured on festal occasions in the topengs of a century and more. In the first act four women in silk sarongs and velvet jackets did a regular Delsarte dance, with all those theatrical poses, sweeps, and gestures with the devitalized arm and wrist that the trainers of the would-be beautiful are teaching in America. Dark-robed attendants, identical with the mutes and invisible supers of the Japanese stage, crawled around behind the principals, arranging costumes, handing and carrying away weapons, as needed. Then deliberate mortal combat raged to slow music; and after it the harmless automatic dance was resumed. There was one tedious act where warriors in modern military jackets, worn with sarongs, indulged in long-drawn recitatives in Kawi; there were prolonged fan, spear, and bow drills; and one fine final act, where heroes, stripped to the waist in old style, with bodies powdered yellow, and half protected by gorgeously gilded breast-plates, fenced with fury and some earnest.

At the end of the first act nearly every man in the audience rose and went out, each mopping his brows and whewing great breaths of air from his lungs. Some few returned with cups of coffee, glasses of pink lemonade, and tall beakers of soda-water for the perspiring ladies wedged in their chairs. These men stayed outside after that act, declaring themselves only during intermissions, when they rushed cooling drinks to their partners at the front. At the end of three hours Panji triumphed over all his enemies, the performance ended, chairs scraped loudly as the audience stirred, the applause was long, and the sighs of relief profound.

After the resident had made the tour of the room and honored the most distinguished ones, and the European dancing was about to begin, the native ladies withdrew; and as we saw these most interesting figures leaving, we, who had risen at five o’clock that morning, and expected to repeat the act the next morning, followed the beauties in golden slippers out to the picturesque confusion of lantern- and pajong-bearers at the carriage entrance. Dancing as it is done in Djokja could not keep us longer awake that night, though we have regretted ever since that we did not wait to see how many of the broadcloth-coated men and their partners in winter gowns survived one vigorous continental waltz on a marble floor, or if an anteroom was converted into an emergency hospital for treating heat prostrations.

With the exemplary early rising the tropics enjoin, we had been up for hours—had enjoyed the dash of a dipper-bath, breakfasted, written letters, visited the passer, the pawnshops, and the photographer—before it was time to join the assistant resident’s party and drive to the palace of Prince Pakoe Alam. The carriages went through several gateways, past a guard house and sentries, before they drew up in an inner court before an open pringitan, or audience-hall, eighty feet square, whose great, low-spreading roof, resting only on heavy teak columns, was all open to the air. The prince, his crown prince, and his second son, who is the father’s aide-de-camp, were waiting to receive us as we alighted, all three dressed in conventional European military uniforms, with many medals and orders illuminating their coat fronts, and only the native turban on the old prince’s head suggesting anything Javanese in attire. The prince spoke Dutch, his sous English and French as well as Dutch; and each gave us cordial welcome and courteous greetings before they offered an arm to conduct us back to the cool inner part of the pringitan, where the young princesses were waiting. We went far in over the shining marble floor, away from all glare and reflection of the vast sanded court, to a region of tempered shadow, where the wife, a daughter-in-law, and a granddaughter of the prince stood beside a formal semicircle of chairs. The ladies spoke only Dutch and Malay, but they did the honors most gracefully, and with the two princes to interpret, conversation moved along smoothly. These princesses wore sarongs and jackets and gilded mule slippers, but their simple costumes were brightened by many jeweled clasps and brooches and great, glittering knobs of ear-rings, and both had coronals of pale-yellow flowers around the knot of black hair drawn low at the back of the head, in foreign style. Their complexions were the pure pale yellow of the true Javanese aristocracy, not the pasty greenish yellow of the higher-class women of China. They had very pretty manners, combining gentleness and dignity, and they put the conventional questions as to our homes and journeys with great earnestness and seeming interest.

The old prince, whose high military rank makes him an offset and check upon the Sultan of Djokja, and who, by his lineage and connections with the imperial house of Solo, almost ranks the sultan, is very literally a serene highness, a most gracious and courtly host, whose dignity and charming address befit his rank and exalted name. His lands and mills and highly improved estates bring him a large private income; and progressive as he may be, I am sure his people speak of him admiringly as a gentleman of the old school—and that old school must have been an admirable one in Java, where the native manners are as fine as in Japan. Prince Pakoe Alam received a foreign military education in his youth, and his sons have enjoyed still greater advantages to fit them for the still newer order. They are the most charming, natural, and unaffected young men, unspoiled and with truly princely mien and manners. To be told hereafter that a young man has the manners of a prince will mean a great deal in simple courtesy, fine finish, and perfection, to those who remember these Javanese princes, the handsome young Pakoe Alams. The natural refinement and charm that one is sensible of in even the lowliest Javanese have their fullest and finest flowering in these princely ones; and that delightful hour spent in the vast shady white pringitan offset many misadventures in Java.

Rows of red-coated and -cowled servitors sat around the edges of the pringitan’s shining floor, holding the state pajongs and hooded spears of ceremony; and a full gamelan and a group of singers, in the same bright court livery, squatted in rows facing us at the far front of the hall, awaiting the signal to begin. The artists of the previous night, all the singers and musicians of the full topeng troupe, lifted up their voices to the tinkling, softly booming, sonorous airs of the gamelan and delighted us with a succession of chants throughout our stay. The young princes led us “down front,”—for the whole strange scene in which we found ourselves was very like a theater,—and, in the strong glare of the footlights of daylight, explained the several instruments of the native orchestra. Then in from the wings—“enter right,” as the play-books would say—came a procession of servants, swinging racks of decanters and glasses, and bearing bowls of ice, trays of fruits, wafers, and sweets. Abject minions sidled over the floor, and mutely offered us iced wines or aërated waters, moving awkwardly about in the ignominious attitude of the dodok, like so many land-crabs. “Light-boys” crouched and crawled behind each smoker, handing cigars, holding burning punk-sticks, or extending trays to receive the ashes, maintaining their abject position during all our stay. One never gets used to this abasement of the dodok, often as he may see it; and after the first absurdity and humor of it wears off, it is irritating and humiliating to see one human being thus belittle himself before another. One suspects that there was more of fear than reverence in its first observance, and that it comes from centuries of tyranny and oppression rather than from any spontaneous expressions of humility and admiration. This group of household retainers, sidling and jerking over the floor with something between the gait of a toad and a crab, seemed to mar the perfect dignity and decorum of the occasion. These same attendants strode into the sunlit court with the free, splendid tread of Javanese men, only to crouch to their heels at the pringitan’s edge, make the simbah’s imploring obeisance with clasped hands to the forehead, repeating the simbah if they caught a princely eye, while they sidled grotesquely over the pringitan floor and crouched like dogs at the master’s feet.

There was a carved screen behind us, closing off an inner space, where broad divans invited to informal ease, and many beautiful objects were disposed. We were taken there by the old prince to see the great gold-bound “Menac,” or family record of the Pakoe Alams—an immense volume with jeweled covers, resting on a yellow satin cushion. This family history was put in this splendid form a hundred years ago by Prince Pakoe Alam II, a literary highness who possessed considerable artistic talent, and maintained a staff of artists and writers in his palace, who were busied for years in tracing and illuminating, under his instructions, this one precious manuscript. Javanese calligraphy, which is even more decorative and ornamental than Arabic or Persian, makes beautiful pages; and each page, gracefully written in black, gold, or colors, is also bordered and illuminated more lavishly than any old Flemish missal. The beautiful ornamental letters, medallions, and miniatures, the tangle of graceful arabesques, and the glow of soft colors and gold, relieved with touches and dashes of black, make the Pakoe Alam’s “Menac” a treasure of delight for a whole morning’s inspection; but we had only time to turn its leaves, see the more remarkable pages, and obtain a general dazzling idea of its quality. The “Axis of the Universe” is a bibliophile and collector by inheritance, and there were many precious manuscript books, unique éditions de luxe in jeweled bindings, that we could have given hours to inspecting. There is one particular book of Arabian tales, rivaling the family “Menac” in the beautiful lettering and rich illumination, that was sent to the Amsterdam Colonial Exposition some years ago, and naturally excited surprise and admiration among European book-collectors.

Conversation never lagged during this morning call, and the little second prince was regretful that we had given up a trip to the sweltering end of the island, where the Bromo smokes. “The Bromo is the only ‘lake of fire’ in the world, you know,” said the prince, proudly. And soon after, in answer to a question, he said, “No, I have never been in Europe, but I have been all over Java”—this last with an emphasis that became one to the island born, and appreciative of all its wonderful beauties.

When we praised and extolled the scenery of Java, he asked naïvely, “Is America not beautiful, then? Have you no mountains, no beautiful scenery there?” And when we answered patriotically to the facts,—Niagara, the Yellowstone, the Yosemite, Mount Rainier, and Alaska,—he asked in amazement, “Then why do you travel to other countries?”

The old prince announced the approaching marriage of his granddaughter to the son of the Prince of Malang, and asked that we would attend the fêtes which he would give in celebration of the affair a fortnight later; but with all of the other India beckoning, we could not prolong our stay in Java; and we took leave of our princely hosts then, to hasten to the train, promising, as one always does in every pleasant place, to come again when time would allow for a fuller enjoyment of this Javanese Djokja, that we had only begun to know as we were leaving.

XXII

“TJILATJAP,” “CHALACHAP,” “CHELACHAP”

“Tjilatjap! Tjilatjap!” Often as one may sound those syllables aloud, they seem absurd; and the very idea of spending the night in a town of such name, of buying a railway ticket with that name printed on it, and asking to have one’s luggage labeled to that destination, was enough to tickle the fancy. Could there be solemn men and serious women living there? and had the station a sign-board? and could the pale, grave little Dutch children keep their faces straight and glibly pronounce the name of that town without sneezing?

Whether it is printed “Tjilatjap,” “Chalachap,” or “Chelachap,” it at once suggests enough puns to spare one printing them, and surely no town on the north side of the equator could support such a name with any dignity.

But Tjilatjap is one of the oldest foreign settlements in Java, the one good harbor on the whole south coast; and the “Tjilatjap fever” is a distinguished specialty of the region that surpasses all the deadly forms of fever in Java. The place proved to be such a cemetery for European troops that the government was finally forced to abandon the extensive barracks, magazines, and fortifications it had once constructed there. A considerable white population remains, however, and the passer is one of great local importance to the natives. The completion of the railway brought new life to the old settlement; and with such easy access, Tjilatjap is well worth visiting, if it were only to see its shade-trees. All the post-roads running into the town, every street and lane, are such continuous isles, arcades, and tunnels of living green that one is repaid for coming, even after all the other teak and tamarind, kanari and waringen avenues he may have seen elsewhere in Java. Not the allées of Versailles, nor the _cryptomeria_ avenues of Japan, can surpass these tree-lined streets of Tjilatjap, the endless vistas of straight trunks and arching branches, the lofty canopies of solid, impenetrable shade, rejoicing one in every part of the town. Tamarind may be the coolest and waringen the densest shade, but kanari-trees give the most splendid and inspiring effect, and Tjilatjap is the place of their greatest perfection.

We drove during the late afternoon and until dusk through kanari avenues, whose great green cathedral aisles, with fretted arches a hundred feet overhead, dwarfed everything that moved or stood beneath them; and then under cool, feathery tamarind bowers, and past arrays of noble teak, everywhere exclaiming with delight. The use of the big-leaved teak for street and post-road shade-trees seemed to me the acme of botanical extravagance,—as ill ordered as putting Pegasus to a cart,—since we of the temperate zone are used to even speaking of that expensive timber with respect. While we drove through the magnificent avenues in the late afternoon light, past parade-grounds and parks, over canals and along their embankments, the rising mists and the solid blue vapors massing in the distances were so much actual, visible evil—malaria almost in tangible form. One felt that he should dine on so many courses of quinine only, taking the saving sulphate first with a soup-spoon, if he expected to survive the mad venture into Tjilatjap’s fever-laden air. A crowded, neglected cemetery gave one further creeps and gruesome thoughts; and the evil-smelling sugar and copra warehouses on the harbor front seemed to seal our doom—that old ignorant instinct or idea asserting itself that the bad smell must necessarily be the bad air. There is a beautiful view from the old military encampment out over the land-locked harbor, with a glimpse of the open ocean through a narrow entrance. The dark mass of Noesa Kambangan (“Floating Island”) rises beyond the silvery waters—a tropical paradise deliberately depopulated by the Dutch as a strategic measure, that there might be no temptation of sustenance to induce an attack or siege from that quarter. The island is mountainous, and contains much fine scenery, many floral marvels, curious stalactite caverns of holy repute where Siva is secretly worshiped, hot springs, and even gold-mines, and is famous in the old Javanese poems and legends. The great surf of the Indian Ocean beats upon its precipitous south shore, where the clefts and caves in the bold cliffs are inhabited by myriads of sparrows, who build there their edible nests. Nest-hunting furnishes employment to the few islanders, and, like everything else, is strictly regulated and taxed by the colonial government. The nest-hunters only pursue their perilous quest after the young sparrows are well grown each season, as only new, fresh, one-season-old nests serve to make the “bad vermicelli” soup Celestial gourmets adore; and the hunters are often suspended over the cliffs by ropes in order to reach their carefully hidden homes. The glutinous white lumps are as much esteemed in Java as in China, and this rare dainty commands a high price from the moment it is secured.

There is a typical little country colonial hotel at Tjilatjap—a large building containing the offices, drawing-room, and dining-room in the center of a garden, with long, low buildings at either side of it, where rows of bedrooms open upon the long arcade or bricked porch, which is a general corridor, screened off into as many little open sitting-rooms, each with its table, lamp, and lounging-chairs. After our malarial drive we were served an excellent dinner, which concluded with a dessert course of kanari _ambon_, the “Java almond,” or nut of the kanari-tree, soaked in brandy. The kanari ambon has the shape and shell of a butternut; but the long, solid white kernel is finer and firmer than even an almond, and of a richer, more distinct and delicate flavor. These nuts of the Tjilatjap region are superior to those grown elsewhere in Java, but we learned this too late, when we tried to buy them elsewhere.

After the sun fell the air grew heavier and hotter—a stifling, sodden, steaming, reeking atmosphere of evil that one could hardly force in and out of the lungs. We gasped at intervals all through the long evening, and wondered if some vast vacuum bell had not been dropped down over Tjilatjap, while we batted flying things from our faces and swept them from the writing-table. Lizards ran over the walls, of course; and one pale-gray, clammy thing was picked from the bed-curtains, and thrown out with a sickening “ugh!” The invisible one, in agony, called for “_Becky! Becky! Becky!_” and a hoarser voice cried for “_Tokee! Tokee! Tokee!_” of whom we had never heard before.

Wearily, without rustle of leaves, stir, or any provocation, a sullen rain began to fall, and saturating the atmosphere, made it that much heavier. The rain ceased as wearily as it had begun, and the awful, sodden stillness was only broken by the slow, heavy drip of the listless foliage, and the occasional thud of a falling mango. Far, far away, faintly in the air was heard a smothered booming, moaning sound—the ceaseless surf of the Indian Ocean. Overhead there was darkness, profound and intense, beyond even heat-lightning’s illumining, with a more impenetrable blackness where the double rows of ancient kanari-trees shaded the street beyond the hotel garden. The possibilities of its effects, the awful, desperate depression that loneliness in such surroundings would surely cause, made me wonder how great was the proportion of suicides’ graves in that damp, weedy cemetery we had driven past in the gloaming.

Then three guests came over from the other part of the hotel, and, spreading themselves out on chairs in the section of porch beyond our partition screen, began conversation, all in Dutch consonants and palatal garglings, with a volume and lung-power, a fervor and emphasis, that made the languid air vibrate and the mangos fall in showers. Their voices could have easily been heard at the harbor’s edge or the railway-station, in a stamp-mill or in a boiler factory; and the humor of it—the three Dutchmen in the stilly night bellowing away as if conversing through a half-mile of fog—greatly relieved the sodden melancholy of the malarial evening. Clouds of dense, rank, Sumatra tobacco-smoke rose from the talkers’ mouths in volumes to match their voices, and until long past midnight those three men on a silent porch conversed _more Hollandico_, the roar of voices and the pungent smoke sending us dreams of Chicago fires and riots, passing freight-trains, and burning forests.