Ceremonial on receiving a Tributary Chief. 201 



It is however strictly forbidden to the Dutch employes to 

 accept any presents of the most trifling nature, and even in 

 cases such as the present, where the refusal of the gifts would 

 be an insult to the donor, all such must be sold for the 

 benefit of the treasmy, or at least a corresponding amount 

 must be retm'ned by the receiver out of the state treasiu-y. 

 Accordingly, it is the custom to recompense all presents 

 made by the various regents with others of far greater 

 value.* 



At the entrance to the palace a guard of honour of Euro- 

 pean soldiers was drawn up in full uniform, between whose 

 ranks the ambassadors were ushered into the hall of re- 

 ception. One of the attendants now held a large ricL-look- 

 ing, highly-gilt parasol above the letter of the Kings of Lom- 

 bok, which was borne along by the master of the ceremonies 

 on a silver waiter. A similar mark of distinction was con- 

 ferred on the two ambassadors and the resident. The 

 Grovemor-general in full official uniform, and surrounded by 

 a number of government officials, received the embassy on a 

 platform, where he sat on a beautifully covered gilt chair, 



* This peculiarity of Eastern manners is universally prevalent wherever Oriental 

 nations have come in contact with Europeans. It is of course as entirely unlike the 

 genuine hospitality of the rude Bedouin or Tartar as it is possible to imagine, 

 and seems to belong to an early and very imperfect notion of true refinement. 

 Traces of it will be found in all countries, even in Europe, and in its original form of 

 making a present in the expectation of receiving something more valuable in return, 

 which hes at the bottom of all this pseudo-generosity. The astuteness of the Scotch 

 Highlanders, themselves a race remarkably free from such meannesses, has hitched A. 

 the system into a pithy proverb, the sense of which is to " send a hen's ^g'g in order 

 to get a goose's in exchange." 



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