nly 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 hi