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It was not a particularly good show. But it seemed to be 
very popular with the natives. All the booths and games of chance 
were so crowded we could not get close enough to see what was going 
on. Two small theatres were producing Malay plays, end a man and 
a woman, on a. platform, were doing a very slow and rather uninterest 
ing Malay dance. We did get into the '-Chinese-Malay Circus*, and 
watched the one troupe of acrobats, that constituted the entire 
staff of artists, go slowly through some not very difficult 
gymnastics. The audience in the little tent was more interesting 
than the performance, with the flaring lights on their upturned 
faces, that showed the features of nearly every Oriental race. 
Two nice old Chinese, a man and his wife, neatly dressed, sat in 
the front row, and near them were some Chinese tradesmen of the 
town, plump and prosperous. Behind them were two bearded sikhs, 
their swarthy faces grinning with pleasure under their snowy 
turbans. Small boys, Javanese, Malay and Batek, and mixed, howled 
with merriment at the heavy antics of the clowns. We were the 
only Europeans there. 
uly 1 - 
Bill's birthday, and a nice one. The Coenraads and 
Williams and Goud all came to call. We had reistafel, brought over 
nobly by Horas and his bicycle. I was able to find two presents 
for Bill in the local shop - a pair of Macassar filigree cuff links, 
and a Balinese carving of a dancing girl's head. In the evening 
we lit the Japanese lanterns, put on papaer caps, snapped crackers, 
and toasted the Tuan Besar in champagne. The T.B. got into a 
funk over a letter from the Zoo, which was not very clear about 
financial matters, but we calmed him finally with assurances that 
everything must be all right, and anyway he could cable tomorrow. 
July 4 - 
We had expected the Brownes to come up from Medan for a 
patriotic celebration, but at the last wsEixifeBXXXE minute they^ 
sntt word they could not get away. We had the camp decorated with 
flags - Dutch, .American, and Geographic - and had as close an 
imitation of fen American dinner as we could get - fried chicken, 
baked beans and ice cream. After lunch the boys put off a few 
firecrackers, and as we sat on the verandah we decided that it 
was alnost as hot as Fourth of July at home. The dry season is 
upon us, and even Sianter, which has been very comfortable, 
gets pretty warm about three in the afternoon. Nights are still 
chilly however, and that is a blessing. 
We took Barbara Lawrence over to Wbhew's jungle for a 
morning's entomological collecting. She is of course still 
waiting for gun and collecting permits. 
Another morning Mr. Lynkamp took us over the Martoba 
tea estate, which was interesting. Ten thousand acres of tea 
is quite a lot, and we saw the various processes, from picking 
the young tea leaves to tasting the finished product in a cup. 
The factory is a big modern one, air conditioned in order to 
drv the tea in a specified number of hours, and all so clean- 
swept and spicy-smelling that a tour makes one a regular tea 
addict. The Javanese girls who work in the factory are small 
and amazingly strong. They carried baskets on their back that 
I could scarcely lift off the ground. Lynkamp told us they 
