imals being decked with flowers and caparisoned in
trappings of scarlet leather trimmed with silver. The bridegrooms,
naked to the waist, were, like their brides, dyed a vivid yellow; their
sarongs were of cloth-of-gold and they were loaded with jeweled
necklaces, bracelets, and anklets. Royal grooms in scarlet liveries led
their prancing horses and other attendants, walking at their stirrups,
bore over their heads golden _payongs_, the Javanese symbol of
royalty. Following them on foot was a great concourse of dignitaries
and courtiers, clad in costumes of every color and description and
walking under a forest of gorgeous parasols, the colors of which
denoted the rank of those they shaded. The _payongs_ of the Sultan, the
Dutch Resident, and the royal princes are of gold, those of the
princesses of the royal family are yellow, of the great nobles white,
of the ministers and the higher officials of the country, red; of the
lesser dignitaries, dark gray, and so on. This sea of swaying parasols,
the gorgeous costumes of the dignitaries, the fantastic uniforms of the
soldiery, the richly caparisoned horses, the gilded litters, the
burnished weapons, the jewels of the women, the flaunting banners, and
the rainbow-tinted batiks worn by the tens of thousands of native
spectators combined to form a scene bewildering in its variety,
dazzling in its brilliancy and kaleidoscopic in its coloring. Mr.
Ziegfeld never produced so fantastic and colorful a spectacle. It would
have been the envy and the despair of that prince of showmen, the late
Phineas T. Barnum.

* * * * *

A dozen miles or so northwest of Djokjakarta, standing in the middle of
a fertile plain which stretches away to the lower slopes of slumbering
Merapi, are the ruins of Boro-Boedor, of all the Hindu temples of Java
the largest and the most magnificent and one of the architectural
marvels of the world. They can be reached from Djokjakarta by motor in
an hour. The road, which skirts the foothills of a volcanic mountain
range, runs through a number of archways roofed with red tiles which in
the rainy season afford convenient refuges from the sudden tropical
showers and in the dry season opportunities to escape from the blinding
glare of the sun. Leaving the main highway at Kalangan, a quaint hamlet
with a picturesque and interesting market, we turned into a side road
and wound for a few miles through cocoanut plantations, then the road