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32

flamed and showered sparks in the heavy jungle night.

[[strikethrough]] After the dancing was [[/strikethrough]] Williams and Mrs. Coenraad tried to photograph the scene by flashlight, but were so uncertain of what success they would have, that they asked to have the dancing repeated to-morrow by daylight, when they could take both moving- and colored pictures of it.

We had a sketchy supper of fried-egg sandwiches and tea, and went early to bed. Whether it was the dust and smokiness of the old house (said to be about three hundred years old), or the fuzziness of our new blankets, I do not know, but Mrs. Coenraad and I started to sneeze as soon as we were in bed, and kept it up most of the night. The men, on their side, began to snore. Apparently no one else in the kampong tried to sleep, as voices could be heard all night long, and occasionally someone tiptoed into our quarters from the other part of the house, and tiptoed out again, and no matter how carefully he stepped the whole floor shook when even a dog went through the room. Dogs howled and barked throughout the night, and far in the distance we could hear strange sounds of unidentifiable animals.

March 17 - Dolok Silau

It was a relief to hear the heavy doors of the house swung open, and to see that it was beginning to be daylight at last. Although we were dressed and outdoors before [[strikethrough]] six o'clock [[/strikethrough]] sunrise, the women of the kampong were earlier risers than we, and were already at their interminable task of pounding rice. A stone's throw from the Rajah's house stood an open building where the women, and even the small girls spent the day husking rice. The rice was poured into long troughs made of hollowed-out logs, and pounded with long wooden poles. Afterwards it was sifted in a large flat woven basket, and the chaff allowed to blow away. The muscular endurance of the women was amazing. The steady, monotonous pounding, always in a certain rhythym, and with tremendous long poles that must have been very heavy, would have tired anyone not accustomed to the work in five minutes. But there was never a moment from before sunrise to long after dark when a group of women were not working there.

The dance of last night was repeated for the benefit of the pictures this morning. The Rajah put on his uniform, a military coat and dark trousers, and white shirt, and added all his gold ornaments. Over one eye [[strikethrough]] was a [[/strikethrough]], fastened to his batik turban, was a large gold flower. Projecting from the other side was a curiously shaped decoration - a ringed stick ^ [[insertion]] ^[[of copper]] [[/insertion]] about ten inches long, [[strikethrough]] all of solid gold [[/strikethrough]]. He had a massive [[strikethrough]] gold [[/strikethrough]] silver gilt bracelet, gold rings, and gold buttons in his coat. Two of his wives joined him, and they had ear-rings and rings of gold. A procession was formed, headed by the medicine man, an old man who carried a pole with a tuft of feathers on the end; then came the Rajah, his wives, and the soldiers. [[strikethrough]] Some [[/strikethrough]] They carried knives and guns, and the guns were [[strikethrough]] old [[/strikethrough]] blunderbuses with old coins set in the wood. Some of the coins were British, some Portuguese, some Austrian, some Dutch. One gun had a modern touch - an American silver dollar of 1870. The other decorations were all at least a hundred years older than that.

Wanting to do our share in making the occasion a festive one, we decorated the outside of the house with our flags, and tried to explain to the Rajah what the American and N. C. S. flags stood for.
[[strikethrough]] When [[/strikethrough]]