gateways of their kampongs and waved at us as we whirled past, and
more than once we saw groups of them squatting in a circle beside the
road, engaged in the national pastime of cock-fighting. Now we began to
encounter the women whose beauty is famous throughout Malaysia:
glorious, up-standing creatures with great masses of blue-black hair, a
faint _couleur de rose_ diffusing itself through their skins of brown
satin. They were taller than any other women I saw in Malaysia, lithe
and supple as Ruth St. Denis, and bearing themselves with a quiet
dignity and lissome grace. From waist to ankle they were tightly
wrapped in _kains_ of brilliant batik, which defined, without
revealing, every line and contour of their hips and lower limbs, but
from the waist up they were entirely nude, barring the flame-colored
flowers in their dusky hair.

Unlike most Malays, the eyes of the Balinese, instead of being oblique,
are set straight in the head. The nose, which frequently mars what
would otherwise be well-nigh perfect features, is generally small and
flat, with too-wide nostrils, though I saw a number of Balinese women
with noses which were distinctly aquiline--the result of a strain of
European blood, perhaps. The lips are thick, yet well formed; the teeth
are naturally regular and white but are all too often stained scarlet
with betel-nut, which is to the Balinese girl what chewing-gum is to
her sister of Broadway. The complexion ranges from a deep but rosy
brown to a _nuance_ no darker than that of a European brunette, but in
the eyes of the Balinese themselves a golden-yellow complexion, the
color of weak tea, is the perfection of female beauty. But the chief
charm of these island Eves is found, after all, not in their faces but
in their figures--slender, rounded, willowy, deep-bosomed, such as
Botticelli loved to paint.

Despite the alluring tales brought back by South Sea travelers of the
radiant creatures who go about unclad as when they were born, I have
myself found no spot, save only Equatorial Africa, where women dispense
with clothing habitually and without shame. Indeed, I have seen girls
far more scantily clad on the stage of the Ziegfeld Roof or the Winter
Garden than I ever have in those distant lands which have not yet
received the blessings of civilization. In most of the Polynesian
islands the painter or photographer can usually bribe a native girl to
disrobe for him, just as in Paris or New York he can find mo