Conditions at Surakarta—usually called Solo for short—are the exact counterpart of those in Djokjakarta: the same puppet ruler, who is called Susuhunan instead of Sultan, the same semi-barbaric court life, the same fantastic costumes, a Dutch resident, a Dutch fort, and a Dutch garrison. But the kraton of the Susuhunan is far better kept than that of his fellow ruler at Djokjakarta, and shows more evidences of Europeanization. The troopers of the royal body-guard are smart, soldierly-looking fellows in well-cut uniforms of European pattern, to which a distinctly Eastern touch is lent, however, by their steel helmets, their brass-embossed leather shields, their scimitars, and their shoulder-guards of chain mail. The royal stables, which contain several hundred fine Australian horses and a number of beautiful Sumbawan ponies, together with a score or more gilt carriages of state, are as immaculately kept as those of Buckingham Palace. In the palace garage I was shown a row of powerful Fiats, gleaming with fresh varnish and polished brass, and beside them, as among equals, a member of the well-known Ford family of Detroit, proudly bearing on its panels the ornate arms of the Susuhunan. I felt as though I had encountered an old friend who had married into royalty.
As though we had not seen enough dancing at Djokjakarta, I found that they had arranged another performance for us in the kraton at Surakarta. This time, however, the dancers were girls, most of them only ten or twelve years old and none of them more than half-way through their teens. They wore sarongs of the most exquisite colors—purple, heliotrope, violet, rose, geranium, cerise, lemon, sky-blue, burnt-orange—and they floated over the marble floor of the great hall like enormous butterflies. As a special mark of the Susuhunan's favor, the performance concluded with a spear dance by four princes of the royal house—blasé, decadent-looking youths, who spend their waking hours, so the Dutch official who acted as my cicerone told me, in dancing, opium-smoking, cock-fighting and gambling, virtually their only companions being the women of the harem. If the Dutch Government does not actively encourage dissipation and debauchery among the native princes, neither does it take any steps to discourage it, the idea being, I imagine, that Holland's administrative problems in the Vorstenlanden would be greatly simplified were the reigning families to die out. The princes, who were armed with javelins and krises, performed for our benefit a Terpsichorean version of one of the tales of Javanese mythology. The dance was characterized by the utmost deliberation of movement, the dancers holding certain postures for several seconds at a time, reminding me, in their rigid self-consciousness, of the "living pictures" which were so popular in America twenty years ago.
All of the dancers, as I have already remarked, were of the blood royal and one, I was told, was in the direct line of succession. Judging from the vacuity of his expression, the Dutch have no reason to anticipate any difficulty in maintaining their mastery in Soerakarta when he comes to the throne. But the Dutch officials take no chances with the intrigue-loving native princes; they keep them under close surveillance at all times. It is one of the disadvantages of Christian governments ruling peoples of alien race and religion that methods of revolt are not always visible to the naked eye, and even the Dutch Intelligence Service in the Indies, efficient as it is, has no means of knowing what is going on in the forbidden quarters of the kratons. In Java, as in other Moslem lands, more than one bloody uprising has been planned in the safety and secrecy of the harem. Potential disloyalty is neutralized, therefore, by a discreet display of force. Throughout the performance in the palace a Dutch trooper in field gray, bandoliers stuffed with cartridges festooned across his chest and a carbine tucked under his arm, paced slowly up and down—an ever-present symbol of Dutch power—watching the posturing princes with a sardonic eye. That is Holland's way of showing that, should disaffection show its head, she is ready to deal with it.
CHAPTER X
THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE TO ELEPHANT LAND
Since the world began the peacock's tail which we call the Malay Peninsula has swung down from Siam to sweep the Sumatran shore. A peacock's tail not merely in configuration but in its gorgeousness of color. Green jungle—a bewildering tangle of trees, shrubs, bushes, plants, and creepers, hung with ferns and mosses, bound together with rattans and trailing vines—clothes the mountains and the lowlands, its verdant riot checked only by the sea. Penetrating the deepest recesses of the jungle a network of little, dusky, winding rivers, green-blue because the sky that is reflected in them is filtered through the interlacing branches. Orchids—death-white, saffron, pink, violet, purple, crimson—festooned from the higher boughs like incandescent lights of colored glass. The gilded, cone-shaped towers of Buddhist temples rising above steep roofs tiled in orange, red, or blue, their eaves hung with hundreds of tiny bells which tinkle musically in every breeze. The scarlet splotches of spreading fire-trees against whitewashed walls. Shaven-headed priests in yellow robes offering flowers and food to stolid-faced images of brass and clay. Long files of elephants, bearing men and merchandise beneath their hooded howdahs, rocking and rolling down the dim and deep-worn forest trails. Snowy, hump-backed bullocks, driven by naked brown men, splashing through the shallow water on the rice-fields harnessed to ploughs as primeval in design as those our Aryan ancestors used. Bronze-brown women, their lithe figures wrapped in gaily colored cottons, busying themselves about frail, leaf-thatched dwellings perched high on bamboo stilts above the river-banks. And, arching over all, a sky as flawlessly blue as the dome of the Turquoise Mosque in Samarland. Such is the land that the ancients called the Golden Chersonese but which is labeled in the geographies of today as Lower Siam and the Malay States.
If you will look at the map you will see that Lower Siam extends half-way down the Malay Peninsula, running across it from coast to coast and thus forming a barrier between British Burmah and British Malaya, precisely as German East Africa formerly separated the British holdings in the northern and southern portions of the Dark Continent. And, were I to indulge in prophecy, I should say that the day would come when the fate of German East Africa will overtake Lower Siam. History has shown, again and again, that the nation, particularly if it is as small and feeble as Siam, which forms a barrier between two portions of a powerful and aggressive empire is in anything but an enviable position.
Politically that portion of the Malay Peninsula which is within the British sphere is divided into three sections: the colony of the Straits Settlements, the four Federated Malay States, and the five non-federated states under British protection. The crown colony of the Straits Settlements consists of the twenty-seven-mile-long island of Singapore and the much larger island of Penang; the territory of Province Wellesley, on the mainland opposite Penang; Malacca, a narrow coastal strip between Singapore and Penang; and, to the north of it, the tiny island and insignificant territory known as the Dingdings. By the acquisition of these small and scattered but strategically important territories, England obtained control of the Straits of Malacca, which form the gateway to the China Seas. In 1896, as the result of a treaty between the British Government and the rajahs of the native states of Perak, Selangor, Pahang, and Negri Sembilan, these four states were brought into a confederation under British protection. Though they are still under the nominal rule of their own rajahs—now known as sultans—each has a British adviser attached to his court, the Governor of the Straits Settlements being ex officio the High Commissioner and administrative head of the confederation. The non-federated states consist of Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan, and Trengganu, the rights of suzerainty, protection, administration, and control of which were transferred by treaty from Siam to Great Britain in 1909, and the Sultanate of Johore, which occupies the extreme southern end of the peninsula, opposite Singapore. In the non-federated, as in the Federated Malay States, British advisers reside at the courts of the native sultans.
Starting at Johore, which, some Biblical authorities assert, is identical with the Land of Ophir, and running through the heart of British Malaya from south to north, is the Federated Malay States Railway, which has recently been linked up with the Siamese State Railways, thus making it possible to travel by rail from Singapore to Bangkok in about four days. Aside from the heat (in the railway carriages the mercury occasionally climbs to 120), the insects, the dust, and the swarms of sweating natives who pile into every compartment regardless of the class designated on their tickets, the journey is a comfortable one.