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JAVA: THE GARDEN OF THE EAST

at Buitenzorg to warn him that three American ladies would arrive that afternoon, without passports, to visit Djokja.

"Certainly not, because those Buitenzorg officials told us not to wait for the passports that they would mail them after us." Then ensued the most farcical scene, a grand burlesque rendering of the act of apprehending criminals, or rather political suspects. The assistant resident tried to maintain the stern, judicial manner of a police-court magistrate, cross-examining us as closely as if it were testimony in a murder trial we were giving, and was not at all inclined to admit that there could be any mistake in the elaborately perfect system of Dutch colonial government. Magnificently he told us that we could not remain in Djokja, and we assured him that we had no wish to do so, that we were leaving for Boro Boeder in the morning. The Pickwickian message from Buitenzorg had not given any instructions. It merely related that we should arrive. We had arrived, and the assistant resident evidently did not know just what to do next. At any rate, he intended that we should stand in awe of him and the government of Netherlands India. He "supposed" that it was intended that we should be sent straight back to Buitenzorg. "We demurred, in fact refused—the two inflammable, impolitic ones of us, who paid no heed to the gentle, gray-haired elder member of our party, who was all resignation and humility before the terrible official. We produced our United States passports, and quite as much as told him that he and the noble army of Dutch officials might finish the discussion with the Amer-