[68] The Javanese do not kiss in the disgusting, unwholesome, western fashion; they smell or sniff, using the olfactory instead of the osculatory organs, as sufficiently indicated by the words of the native vocabulary describing the operation referred to. In this matter again, the Hindu immigrants may have made their influence felt. Cf. Professor E. Washburn Hopkins’ interesting paper on The Sniff-Kiss in Ancient India, in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. xxviii., first half, 1907.
[69] Including, besides the palaces and palace grounds, thickly inhabited little towns. The kraton of Surakarta contains, e.g., more than ten thousand people, all belonging to the imperial family and household, from the princes to their dependents, servants and hangers on: court dignitaries, court functionaries, gold- and silversmiths, wood-carvers, carpenters, masons, musicians, etc. Within its walls is also the imperial mesdjid, a fine, large building with a widely visible gilt roof.
[70] The garebeg mulood, garebeg puasa and garebeg besar, corresponding with the maulid (feast of the Prophet’s birth), id al-fitr (feast of breaking the fast) and id al-qorban (feast of the sacrifice).
[71] Krissing, a form of capital punishment until recently still in use in the island of Bali, consisted in driving a kris to the heart of the condemned man, sometimes under circumstances of refined cruelty, the executioner not being permitted to put an end to his victim’s agony before the prince, presiding in person or by deputy, had given the signal for the coup de grâce.
[72] A story is told of a Susuhunan of Surakarta having ordered a magnificent landau from one of the first carrossiers in Paris, that the favoured industrial was advised to send some cooking-pans with it on delivery. Asking: What for? he got the answer: To poach the eggs his Highness’ chickens will lay in your carriage. Splendour and squalor live near together in the households of thriftless oriental potentates.
For usage with mortal man is like the leaf
On the bough, which goes and another comes.
[74] Governor and Director of Java’s northeast coast, afterwards member of the Governor-General’s Council at Batavia.
[75] Published by H. D. H. Bosboom from papers in the Dutch National Archives.
[76] Titular Major, afterwards Lieutenant-Colonel of the Corps of Engineers, Director of Fortifications and Inspector of Canals, Dams, Dikes and Waterways.