Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/296

The Sultan of Djokja has a kraton, or palace inclosure, a mile square in the very heart of the city, the great entrance-gates fronting on a vast plein or platz, where waringen-trees have been clipped and trained to the shape of colossal state umbrellas, great green pajongs planted in permanence in the outer court or approach to the throne, as a badge of royalty. The huge Burmese elephants, that play an important part in state processions, trumpet in one corner; and strangely costumed retainers are coming and going, some of them as gaily uniformed as parrakeets, and others reminding one of the picadors and matadors in the chorus of "Carmen." Surrounded by this indoor army of gorgeous musicians, singers, dancers, bearers of fan and pajong, pipe and betel-boxes, the sultan's court is as splendidly staged as in the last century; and when this "regent of the world" and "vicegerent of the Almighty," as his titles translate, goes abroad in state procession, the spectacle is worth going far to see, the Djokjans assure one. Twenty different kinds of pajongs belong to this court—those flat umbrellas that are the oldest insignia of royalty in all the East, and are sculptured on Boro Boeder's walls through all the centuries pictured there. From the sultan's own golden pajong with orange border, the gold-bordered pajong of the crown prince, the white pajongs of sultanas and their children and of concubines' children, down to the green, red, pink, blue, and black pajongs of the lesser officials and nobles, all pajongs are exactly ordered by court heraldry—the pajong the definite symbol of rank, a visiting-card that announces its owner's consequence from afar. Strange accompani-