surrounding gloom. The orchestra was placed on the left of the entrance to the
Hall, that is, rather to the side and rather in the background, a position evidently
chosen with due regard to the feelings of the audience.
“From the elaborate and vehement execution of the players, and the want of
regular time in the music, I judged, and rightly, that we had entered as the
overture began. During its performance the dancers sat leaning forward, hiding
their faces as I have described; but when it concluded and, without any break,
the music changed into the regular rhythm for dancing, the four girls dropped
their fans, raised their hands in the act of Sĕmbah or homage, and then began the
dance by swaying their bodies and slowly waving their arms and hands in the
most graceful movements making much and effective use all the while of the
scarf hanging from their belts. Gradually raising themselves from a sitting to a
kneeling posture, acting in perfect accord in every motion, then rising to their
feet, they floated through a series of figures hardly to be exceeded in grace and
difficulty, considering that the movements are essentially slow, the arms, hands,
and body being the real performers, whilst the feet are scarcely noticed and for
half the time not visible.
“They danced five or six dances, each lasting quite half an hour, with materially
different figures and time in the music. All these dances, I was told, were
symbolical: one of agriculture, with the tilling of the soil, the sowing of the seed,
the reaping and winnowing of the grain, might easily have been guessed from
the dancer’s movements. But those of the audience whom I was near enough to
question were, Malay-like, unable to give me much information. Attendants
stood or sat near the dancers, and from time to time, as the girls tossed one thing
on the floor, handed them another. Sometimes it was a fan or a mirror they held,
sometimes a flower or small vessel, but oftener their hands were empty, as it is
in the management of the fingers that the chief art of Malay dancers consists.
“The last dance, symbolical of war, was perhaps the best, the music being much
faster, almost inspiriting, and the movements of the dancers more free and even
abandoned. For the latter half of the dance they each held a wand, to represent a
sword, bound with three rings of burnished gold which glittered in the light like
precious stones. This nautch, which began soberly like the others, grew to a wild
revel until the dancers were, or pretended to be, possessed by the Spirit of
Dancing, hantu mĕnâri as they called it, and leaving the Hall for a moment to
smear their fingers and faces with a fragrant oil, they returned, and the two