Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/149

With the nearest neighbor ten miles away, and the thousand workmen employed upon the place settled with their families in different villages within its confines, Sinagar is a little world or industrial commune by itself, its master a patriarchal ruler, whose sway over these gentle, childlike Javanese is as absolute as it is kindly and just. The "master" has sat under his Sinagar palms and gorgeous bougainvilleas for twenty-six out of the thirty-three years spent in Java, and his sons and daughters have grown up there, gone to Holland to finish their studies, and, returning, have made Sinagar a social center of this part of the Preangers. The life is like that of an English country house, with continental and tropical additions that unite in a social order replete with pleasure and interest. Weekly musicales are preceded by large dinner-parties, guests driving from twenty miles away and coming by train; and, with visitors in turn from all parts of the world, the guest-book is a polyglot and cosmopolitan record of great interest. Long wings have been added to the original bungalow dwelling, inclosing a spacious court, or garden, all connected by arcades and all illuminated by electric lights. The ladies' boudoir at the far end of the buildings opens from a great portico, or piazza, furnished with the hammocks, the ratan furniture, and the countless pillows of a European or American summer villa, but looking out on a marvelous flower-garden and an exquisite landscape view. To that portico were brought the rarest flowers and fruits for our inspection, such lilies and orchids and strangely fragrant things!—and we cut apart cacao-pods, and those "velvety,