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The loom on which Busuk's mother wove the sarongs for the punghulo and for her sons stood by the side of the window, and Busuk, from the sling in which she sat on her mother's side, could see the fishing praus glide by, and also the big lumber tonkangs, and at rare intervals one of his Highness's launches.
In the ordinary course, the process of the bátik occupies about ten days for common patterns, and from fifteen to seventeen days for the finer and more variegated. Some of the sarongs worn by the native aristocracy and the European ladies are not only beautiful in pattern and working but most expensive in price.
From the compact kampong nestling among the trees, the native women, clad in bright coloured sarongs, came with babies, who take to the water as if it were their natural element. Merry shouts of laughter ascend from the valley as the youngsters splash about and chase each other.
The luxuriant verdure of the swampy plain basks in the sunshine of a blazing March day, and children in gaudy sarongs drive a brisk trade at palm-thatched wayside stations, with bamboo trays of sliced pineapple sprinkled with capsicum, the approved "pick-me-up" of Sumatra.
Two ancient waringen-trees, their aerial roots, drooping branches, and colossal main trunks denoting an almost fabulous age, flank the historic seat, where the turbaned Ruler administered justice to the surging crowd which thronged around him, the indigo garb of the Soendanese contrasting with the gay sarongs of Central Java, glowing in the hot sunlight as it poured through the dark trellis of fluttering boughs.
Hygienic regulations are compulsory, and even here the traditions of Holland enjoin an amount of whitewashing and cleaning up unique in tropical colonies. The green and vermilion panelled sarongs of Solo are renowned for their elaborate designs, and the painting of battek, or cotton cloth, remains a flourishing industry of the ancient capital.
Only the eager faces of the listeners stood out clear and distinct against the shadowy background of tapestries from Madras and Bokhara, soft rich rugs from Afghanistan and Persia, curiously wrought finger bowls of brass and copper from Delhi and Siam, and piles of cunningly painted sarongs from Java.
They were swarthy-looking savages, in plaid sarongs of bright colours, these being twisted tightly about their waists, and in the band thus formed each had a kris stuck, above which the man's dark naked body glistened in the sun.
The Maharajah and his native guests were all in English evening dress, with white waistcoats, bright turbans, and sarongs. The room was large and open on all sides, and the fresh evening breeze, in addition to the numerous punkahs, made it delightfully cool. The Maharajah is a strict Mohammedan himself, and drinks nothing but water.
Brown girls, in blue and orange sarongs, occupy the steps of a basket-work shrine, from whence an unknown god, smeared with ochre, extends a sceptred hand, for Hinduism left deep traces on inland Java, dim with the dust of vanished creeds.