at polygamy is as trying to the disposition as it is to
the pocketbook, because of the incessant jealousies and bickerings
among the wives. And I suppose the same conditions obtain in the
seraglios of Bali. The former rajah of Kloeng Kloeng, now known as the
Regent, a stout and jovial old gentleman arrayed in a cerise _kain_, a
sky-blue head-cloth, and a white jacket with American twenty-dollar
gold pieces for buttons, told me with a touch of pride that he had
twenty-five wives in his harem. But his pride subsided like a pricked
toy balloon when the Controleur, who had overheard the boast, mentioned
that another regent, the ruler of a district at the western end of the
island, possessed upward of three hundred wives--of the exact number he
was not certain as it was constantly fluctuating. To my great regret I
could not spare the time to pay a visit to this Balinese Brigham Young.
There were a number of questions relative to domestic economy and
household administration which I should have liked to have asked him.

Until very recent years, the young Balinese girl who married an old
husband incurred the risk of meeting an untimely and extremely
unpleasant end, for the island was the last stronghold of that strange
and dreadful Hindu custom, _suttee_--the burning of widows. The last
public _suttee_ in Bali was held as recently as 1907, but, in spite of
the stern prohibition of the practise by the Dutch, it is said that
some women faithful to the old customs and to their dead husbands
continue to join the latter on the funeral pyre. In fact, the
Controleur at Kloeng Kloeng told me that, only a few weeks before my
arrival, two women had begged him on their knees for permission to be
burned with the body of the dear departed, whom they wished to share in
death as in life.

The Balinese, being devout Hindus, burn their dead, but the cremations
are held only twice yearly, being observed as holidays, like
Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July. If a man dies shortly before the
cremation season is due, his remains are kept in the house until they
can be incinerated with befitting ceremony--though I imagine that, in
view of the torrid climate, the members of his family perforce move
elsewhere for the time being--but if he is so inconsiderate as to
postpone his dying until after one of these semi-annual burnings, it
becomes necessary to bury him. In a land where the thermometer
frequently registers 100 and above, you couldn't keep a