THE JAVANESE MUSICIANS.
“You can ride right into the Javanese village,” one of the guides told them; so they bought their tickets and were pushed into the grounds.
Surrounded by a bamboo fence with a lofty gateway was a collection of steep-roofed, grass-thatched, one-story huts. Each had a little veranda in front, and as it was sunny, many of the short, dark-skinned little people sat outdoors at work.
Here Philip expected to get a few more pictures. He had already taken one outside. Leaving the chair in the main roadway, he had gone to the side, where the ground was higher, and had secured a negative (or hoped he had!) showing the crowd thronging the long street between the houses.
But on entering the Javanese village he was told that he could not take pictures without another permit. After a little search and inquiry he found a hut within an inclosure marked “private” and “office.” Here he met the superintendent, and was given permission to take views inside the village.
THE JAVANESE BABY.
All the time they were among the Javanese, they had heard a queer musical, liquid pounding. Near the center of the grounds they found the cause. An odd water-wheel of bamboo revolved beneath a stream that flowed from an upright iron pipe, and as this wheel went around it struck short hanging bits of wood that gave forth the musical notes. The wheel had apparently no other purpose than to make a noise—it was a primitive music-box. This was Philip’s first camera subject.
His second was also musical. There was a band of musicians playing upon some sweet-sounding metal gongs, and another species of Javanese tom-toms. The musicians smiled encouragingly as Philip waved his camera and gazed through his glasses with eager inquiry, and as soon as they were hard at their music Philip took them.