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Updated: June 20, 2025
And, as a final touch, the Dutch decreed that the cost of maintaining the elaborate establishments of these hated rivals must be defrayed from the privy purses of the Susuhunan and the Sultan. The "independent" prince at Surakarta is known as the Pangeran Adipati Mangku Negoro; the one at Djokjakarta as the Pangeran Adipati Paku Alam.
Like the palaces of most Asiatic rulers, the kraton of the Sultan of Djokjakarta is really a royal city in the heart of his capital. It consists of a vast congeries of palaces, barracks, stables, pagodas, temples, offices, courtyards, corridors, alleys and bazaars, containing upward of fifteen thousand inhabitants, the whole encircled by a high wall four miles in length.
When one notes the energetic advertising campaigns which are being conducted by the governments of Japan, China, Java, and even Indo-China, where the visitor is confronted at every turn by advertisements urging him to "Spend the Week-End at Kamakura," "Go to the Great Wall," "Don't Miss Boroboedor and Djokjakarta," "Take Advantage of the Special Fares to the Ruins of Angkor," you wonder why Siam, which has so much that is novel and picturesque to offer, makes no effort to swell its revenues by encouraging the tourist industry.
Conditions at Surakarta usually called Solo for short are the exact counterpart of those in Djokjakarta: the same puppet ruler, who is called Susuhunan instead of Sultan, the same semi-barbaric court life, the same fantastic costumes, a Dutch resident, a Dutch fort, and a Dutch garrison.
There were still other ruined temples in the vicinity which could not be visited, but we drove back the nine miles to Djokjakarta, feeling that we had had a rich morning's experience and also deeply impressed with the labor, patience, and skill which these ruins represented.
The figure is nude and the expression on its features is very mild. The journey from Djokjakarta to Soerabaia consumes about half a day and the trip is pleasanter than that of the previous day, when the rolling of the fast express on a narrow-gauge track was rather trying, while at dinner-time the soup and water were thrown about in an annoying manner.
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.
If you will take the trouble to cross the aloun-aloun to the gates of the palace, your attention will be attracted by a row of iron-barred cages built against the kraton wall. Should you be so fortunate as to find yourself in Djokjakarta on the eve of a religious festival or other holiday, each of these cages will be found to contain a full-grown tiger.
But the kraton of the Susuhunan is far better kept than that of his fellow ruler at Djokjakarta, and shows more evidences of Europeanization.
But the gallows and the rope have superseded the wall and the kris in Djokjakarta, just as they have superseded the age-old custom of hurling criminals from the top of a high tower in Bokhara or of having the brains of the condemned stamped out by an elephant, a method of execution which was long in vogue in Burmah.
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