Arriving at the house about an hour afterwards, we were shown by one of the family into a large chamber, around which were ranged five tables, covered with dishes of curry, rice, and fish, with numerous plates of sugar-cakes. Beyond this apartment was another, very gaudily decorated, in which were sitting, or rather squatting, around bowls of smoking rice, some twenty venerable personages, probably the seniors of the village. Seeing us approach, they good-humoredly bade us be seated at their board. We complied, not so much for the pleasure of partaking of the mess before us, but with a natural curiosity to get a glimpse of the happy couple. Martin, being the most curious, was the first to espy them.
“See,” he said, “there they are; what a couple of guys!”—and he bent his head in the direction of a deep recess on one side of the apartment, where the couple were sitting in silent, solemn state, like a pair of stuffed images, it being the etiquette that they should appear unmoved by whatever was passing. As we quitted the house, Prabu told us a comical story he had heard, touching that demure-looking, mummy-like lady, during the feast.
In that part of Java, when a man marries a second time, it is the custom, at one part of the ceremony, for the bridegroom to advance towards the wife with an ignited brand in his hand, which it is the duty of the bride to extinguish by pouring water over it. Now, this ceremony had been performed in the morning; but the bride—a widow—finding a great difficulty in quenching the flame, became so impatient that she suddenly dashed the contents of the pitcher into her lord’s face.
“And what did he do?” asked Martin, as angrily as if he himself had been the damped husband.
“What could he do?—nothing,” replied Prabu.
“Couldn’t he, though! I tell you what, if it had been me, I would have sent her packing—” but at this moment his thoughts were turned in a very different direction. “Hilloa! what is going on?”
The sight that called forth this remark was a great number of men, women and children, seated in a ring upon a grass-plot, watching the grimaces and gesticulations of two men, each of whom, with a bundle of rattan canes under his arm, was haranguing the audience, at the same time that a band of music was playing.
“Come, Martin, there is nothing worth looking at here,” said I, turning to walk away.
“Isn’t there, though! Why, these two fellows are going to play singlestick,” he replied; and as he spoke, two boys—naked, with the exception of a blue cloth around their waists—stepped into the ring. Each of them being presented with a cane, the men whom we had heard haranguing the audience, and who now acted as seconds, placed the lads face to face, at a yard’s distance from each other, and ordered them to “begin.”
They did begin, as gracefully as fencing-masters, first with a salute, which consisted in touching the ground with the rods, and waving them to the spectators. Next they approached nearer and each one, placing his left hand on the other’s right shoulder, raised his elbow till it nearly met that of his antagonist overhead. In this attitude they frequently continued for several minutes, eyeing one another with the keenest attention, holding their canes extended in the right hand, and watching for a favorable moment to strike.