concerned, it is probable that it came originally from Java; the instruments used
by the orchestra and the airs played are certainly far more common in Java and
Sumatra than in the Peninsula.
“I had gone to Păhang on a political mission accompanied by a friend, and we
were vainly courting sleep in a miserable lodging, when at 1 A.M. a message
came from the Sultan inviting us to witness a jôget. We accepted with alacrity,
and at once made our way to the astâna, a picturesque, well-built, and
commodious house on the right bank of the Păhang river. A palisade enclosed
the courtyard, and the front of the house was a very large hall, open on three
sides, but covered by a lofty roof of fantastic design supported on pillars. The
floor of this hall was approached by three wide steps continued round the three
open sides, the fourth being closed by a wooden wall which entirely shut off the
private apartments save for one central door over which hung a heavy curtain.
The three steps were to provide sitting accommodation according to their rank
for those admitted to the astâna. The middle of the floor on the night in question
was covered by a large carpet, chairs were placed for us, and the rest of the
guests sat on the steps of the dais.
“When we entered, we saw, seated on the carpet, four girls, two of them about
eighteen and two about eleven years old, all attractive according to Malay ideas
of beauty, and all gorgeously and picturesquely clothed. On their heads they
each wore a large and curious but very pretty ornament of delicate workmanship
—a sort of square flower garden where all the flowers were gold, trembling and
glittering with every movement of the wearer. These ornaments were secured to
the head by twisted cords of silver and gold. The girls’ hair, combed down in a
fringe, was cut in a perfect oval round their foreheads and very becomingly
dressed behind.
“The bodices of their dresses were made of tight-fitting silk, leaving the neck
and arms bare, whilst a white band of fine cambric (about one and a half inches
wide), passing round the neck, came down on the front of the bodice in the form
of a V, and was there fastened by a golden flower. Round their waists were belts
fastened with large and curiously-worked pinding or buckles of gold, so large
that they reached quite across the waist. The rest of the costume consisted of a
skirt of cloth of gold (not at all like the sârong), reaching to the ankles, while a
scarf of the same material, fastened in its centre to the waist-buckle, hung down