Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/152

for dress-parade, and more intensely, softly green than ever after the daily shower-bath and wind toilet. We strolled on through a toy village under a kanari avenue, where all the avocations and industries of Javanese life were on view, and the little people, smiling their welcome, dropped on their heels in the permanent courtesy of the dodok, the squatting attitude of humility common to all Asiatics. The servants who had brought notes to the master, as he sat on the porch, crouched on their heels as they offered them, and remained in that position until dismissed; and the villagers and wayfarers, hastily dropping on their haunches, maintained that lowly, reverent attitude until we had passed—an attitude and a degree of deference not at all comfortable for an American to contemplate, ineradicable old Javanese custom as it may be. The tiny brown babies, exactly matching the brown earth in tone, crawled over the warm lap of nature, crowing and gurgling their pleasure, their plump little bodies free from all garments, and equally free from any danger of croups or colds from exposure to the weather. We took a turn through the great cement-floored fabrik with its ingenious machines all silent for that night, and only the electric-light dynamos whirling to illuminate the great settlement of outbuildings around the residence. The stables were another great establishment by themselves, and fifty odd Arabian and Australian thoroughbreds, housed in a long, open-fronted stable, were receiving their evening rub and fare from a legion of grooms. Morphine, Malaria, Quinine, Moses, and Aaron, and other cup-winners, arched their shining necks, pawed to us, and