in two great bows on either side of
her head. Over these, gold ornaments like wings were fixed, and
a little tower of gold bells above them. Then the women painted
a black band round her forehead, and added a silver edge to it,
also painted. Her eyebrows were likewise touched up, and her
skin rubbed all over with yellow powder. Poor child! she was a
curious figure by the time it was all finished, and her skin
must have felt painfully stiff. She was then attired in very
handsome silk robes, ornamented with solid gold, and the
attendants carried her to a raised dais or bed-place at one end
of the room. There she sat, not daring to lift her eyes until
the bridegroom's arrival.

The divan was gorgeous with silk curtains and cushions
embroidered with gold thread and embossed with tinsel ornaments,
the work of the bride herself. The seat for the bridegroom was
somewhat higher and larger than the bride's. At last the
bridegroom approached in a large barge, which held about two
hundred people. A small boat preceded it with three guns, which
kept up a deafening noise as he drew near. He was carried up the
steps, and the house door was shut to in his face, according to
the Malay custom. Then he begged admittance very humbly, and
after paying a fee of five dollars, was admitted. His followers
rush in first--such a clatter! Greetings, welcomes, jokes, and
laughter, make a Babel of noise; everybody speaking at once.
Then a cloth was laid down for the bridegroom to pass over, and
he was pulled with apparent reluctance into the room, panting
and shutting his eyes as if exhausted. His head was wreathed
with Indian jessamine. He was naked to the waist, except a gold
scarf over one shoulder; otherwise he had plenty of gold and red
silk about him. He was pulled up to the bride, turning his head
away as if he was ashamed to look at her, and dropped a red silk
handkerchief over her face for a moment. Then he sat down on the
divan, and all the old women of both houses sprinkled the couple
with yellow rice, and rubbed their foreheads with some charm,
which looked like a bit of stone and a nutmeg-grater, and wished
them all kinds of luck--but especially that they might be the
parents of _sons_ only. After the young people had endured this
long enough, the curtains were let down round the dais, an