Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/268

with great dignity and serenity, observing all the European forms and etiquette at his entertainments, and delighting Solo's august society with frequent court balls and fêtes. Town gossip dilates on his marble-floored ball-room, the fantastic devices in electric lights employed in illuminating the palace and its maze of gardens on such occasions, and on the blaze of heirloom jewels worn by the imperial ladies and princesses at such functions. The susunhan sometimes grants audiences to distinguished strangers, and one French visitor has told of some magnificent Japanese bronzes and Chinese porcelains in the kraton, which were gifts from the Dutch in the early time when the Japanese and Javanese trade were both Holland monopolies. No prostrations or Oriental salaams are required of European visitors at court, although the old susunhans obliged even the crown prince and prime minister to assume the dodok, and sidle about like any cup-bearer in his presence. The princes and petty chiefs were so precisely graded in rank in those days that, while the highest might kiss the sovereign's hand, and those of a lower rank the imperial knee, there were those of lesser pretensions who adoringly kissed the instep, and, last of all, those who might only presume to kiss the sole, of the susunhan's foot. The susunhan is always accompanied on his walks in the palace grounds, and on drives abroad, by a bearer with a gold pajong, or state umbrella, spreading from a jeweled golden staff. The array of pajongs carried behind the members of his family and court officials present all the colors of the rainbow, and all the variegations a fancy umbrella is capable of showing—each