IN THE BAST INDIES. ii 
through with before we could get permission to land 
ourselves and our guns. Now we have our guns on the 
way out of the custom house, I think. This is a won- 
derful place. The gardens are so magnificent that 
words cannot describe them. Ever since we have been 
here I have been very busy indeed getting men to go 
on the ship to Papua with us to skin birds, ete. Then 
I have-been getting bottles and alcohol and passes to 
travel and goodness only knows what not — it is the 
red tapeiest place in the world. 
The Malays (Javanese) about here are fine collec- 
tors and I have regular office hours during which we 
preserve several hundred specimens a day purchased 
for the smallest coppers, squirrels, bats, snakes, lizards 
from three to five inches long, beetles, bees, butter- 
flies, ete. We expect to remain here a short time on 
our return, packing up our things and getting them 
sent off. So much for our plans. 
Last night we had a ‘‘wayang,’’ or native play, 
given here. The people from all the country around 
turned out and it was nearly as interesting to watch 
them as to look at the actors and actresses. The actors 
wore large masks, simply frightfully hideous. The 
acting was very peculiar, just strutting about with 
titanic strides for the men and simpering about for 
the women, who kept their hands in such a strained 
position that they looked like the old Egyptian hierog- 
lyphies. The costumes were very interesting and 
elaborate. The orchestra consisted of one fiddle of 
two strings, four or five strips of heavy hoop iron laid 
one on top of another and the heap beaten with a 
club. Several other instruments were made of pieces 
of bamboo split and of hoop iron of different lengths. 
>?) 
