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The latter is almost invariably the first question which occurs to a native mind. The Balinese must be clever actors, since all the while they possessed hundreds of Winchesters and many pieces of field ordnance within those deceitful walls. They were deceitful walls, for they were extensively loop-holed, the apertures being cunningly stopped up with mortar. One evening the crisis came.
From waist to ankle they were tightly wrapped in kains of brilliant batik, which defined, without revealing, every line and contour of their hips and lower limbs, but from the waist up they were entirely nude, barring the flame-colored flowers in their dusky hair. Unlike most Malays, the eyes of the Balinese, instead of being oblique, are set straight in the head.
On our way we passed one or two human skeletons, enclosed within a small bamboo fence, with the clothes, pillow, mat, and betel-box of the unfortunate individual, who had been either murdered or executed. Returning to the house, we found a Balinese chief and his followers on a visit. Those of higher rank sat on chairs, the others squatted on the floor.
The Balinese, being devout Hindus, burn their dead, but the cremations are held only twice yearly, being observed as holidays, like Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July.
They are considerably taller than any other Malays whom I saw and possess less Mongoloid and Negroid characteristics, these being subdued by some strong primeval alien strain which is undoubtedly Caucasian. Though now peaceable enough, every Balinese man carries in his sash a kris the long, curly-bladed knife which is the national weapon of Malaysia.
But, though the Balinese have made no serious trouble for their Dutch rulers for upward of a decade, they long resisted European domination, as evidenced by the four bloody uprisings in the last three-quarters of a century the last was in 1908 which were suppressed only with difficulty and considerable loss of life.
"They call it Menjepee, which, literally translated, means 'silence. The Balinese are Hindus, you know about the only ones left in the Islands and they observe the Hindu festivals very strictly. Their priests raise the very devil with them if they don't.
It was the pipes of Pan.... Rather than that you should be scandalized when you visit Bali, let me make it quite clear that in matters of morality the Balinese women are as easy as an old shoe. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they are unmoral rather than immoral.
Yet I must admit that, when the anchor of the Negros splashed into the blue waters off Boeleleng, on the northern coast of the island, and a boat's crew of white-clad Filipinos rowed me ashore, I half expected to find a Balinese edition of the Ziegfeld Follies chorus waiting to greet me with demonstrations of welcome and garlands of flowers.
Beyond Mataram and close to it is Karangassam, the ancient residence of the native or Sassak Rajahs before the conquest of the island by the Balinese. Soon after passing Mataram the country began gradually to rise in gentle undulations, swelling occasionally into low hills towards the two mountainous tracts in the northern and southern parts of the island.
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