262 Vojjage of the Novara. 



The figures of the dance performed by tlie Javanese 

 dancing-girls were nothing but a series of very slow rigid 

 movements of advance and retreat, in the course of which 

 they went through all sorts of attitudes and contortions with 

 their hands and fingers. We were informed that these 

 dancers were representing four sisters who were searching for 

 their lost mother, and by their various postures and figuring 

 hoped to obtain her again from the deity. This exhibition 

 was succeeded by a war-dance, performed by eight maidens 

 clothed as warriors, which however scarcely differed from 

 the former, and was not less tedious, These dancers all ap- 

 peared in extremely elegant richly-appointed dresses, which 

 unfortunately only made the ugliness of their features more 

 disagreeably conspicuous. Amid all these representations 

 the deep boom of the gamelong almost unceasingly resound- 

 ed in our ears, being struck, evidently for the purpose of 

 stunning the senses, by a crowd of Javanese cowering on 

 the ground with tlieir feet crossed beneatli them, while from 

 without there fell on our ear the tunes of a brass band, 

 especially noticeable by its overpowering penetrating sound. 

 About 10 p. M. a number of rockets and fire- wheels were let 

 off, and a disorderly crowd of maskers, on horse and foot, to 

 tlie great delight of the assembled populace, made their 

 appearance and marched about a dozen times round the 

 great room. The chief honours of the entire procession were 



Reisestudien und Reiseskizzen aus den Jahren 1S53 und 1854. Von Ur. M. Wagnei* 

 and Dr. Karl Scherzer. Leipzig, Arnold'sche Buchhandlung. 1856. S. 196 — 197. 



