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The money for the gorgeous costumes worn by the dancers is raised by local subscription and the ballet frequently visits the neighboring towns to give exhibitions or to engage in competitions, contingents of the dancers' townspeople usually going along to root for them. The Balinese dances require many years of arduous and constant training.
They did Balinese finger exercises, Chinese body coordination exercises, Hindu breathing exercises and Tibetan spiritual calisthenics to dispel their incipient shakes. When the great moment came, a solemn little group of executives entered the drafting room and stood about in attitudes of grave ceremonial courtesy. The draftsmen then drew their lines.
But, though the Balinese have bowed perforce to the authority of the stout young woman who dwells in The Hague, they have none of the cringing servility, that look of pathetic appeal such as you see in the eyes of dogs which have been mistreated, so characteristic of the Javanese.
In fact, when a Balinese girl becomes embarrassed, she does not betray it by covering her body but by drawing over her face a veil which looks like a piece of black fishnet.
A girl is scarcely out of the sling by which Balinese children are carried on the mother's back before, under the tutelage of her mother, who has herself perhaps been a dancing-girl in her time, she begins the severe course of gymnastics and muscle training which are the foundations of all Eastern dances.
The complexion ranges from a deep but rosy brown to a nuance no darker than that of a European brunette, but in the eyes of the Balinese themselves a golden-yellow complexion, the color of weak tea, is the perfection of female beauty.
I was informed that some years ago one of the English traders had a Balinese woman of good family living with him the connection being considered quite honourable by the natives. During some festival this girl offended against the law by accepting a flower or some such trifle from another man.
It is well for the Balinese that their enchanted island has no harbors, for harbors mean ships, and ships mean white men, and white men, particularly sailors, all too often leave undesirable mementoes of their visits behind them. The men of Bali are a fine, strong, dignified, rather haughty race, fit mates in physique for their women.
The nose, which frequently mars what would otherwise be well-nigh perfect features, is generally small and flat, with too-wide nostrils, though I saw a number of Balinese women with noses which were distinctly aquiline the result of a strain of European blood, perhaps.
What I did find on the wharf was a surly Dutch harbor-master, who, judging from his breath and disposition, had been on a prolonged carouse. Of the women whose beauty I had heard chanted in so many ports, or, indeed, of a native Balinese of any kind, there was no sign. Barring the harbor-master and a handful of Chinese, Boeleleng, which is a place of some size, appeared to be deserted.
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