Viewing page 52 of 185

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

-44-

April 8 - Bali

In the morning we took a drive up to Bedoegoel on Lake Brakan. The road was very steep, but well built. It is a new road, in fact still being worked on, partly with convict labour. We passed a prisoners' camp, and also a monument to the roadbuild[[strikethrough]] r [[/strikethrough]]ers - a stone statue of a Balinese man, carved by a convict artist.
In preparation for the [[strikethrough]] im [[/strikethrough]] visit being put into as good condition as possible, and fresh gravel was being spread where it would do the most good. All road work is done by hand, naturally, but it seemed strange to see men patting out the sides of the road with their bare feet, or busily sweeping away any roughnesses with little brooms.

The rest house at Bedoegoel was being decorated for the G.G. [[strikethrough]] A roadwa [[/strikethrough]] The approach to it was lined withbent sapling arches, and these were covered with palms. A large entrance gate was one mass of ferns, and the posts that supported  the temporary pavilion were covered with croton leaves.

The Lake itself is very pretty, and exasperatingly full of small fish, when we did not bring a seine or net with us. They were just the right size for aquarium fishes, and "probably," says Bill, "new species".

The lake is 4500 feet high, and the air was cool and damp. Clouds trailed across the mountainside across from the resthouse. Huge pandanus trees, tree ferns, epiphytic plants of all sorts, made the surroundings all that one drea^[[m]]s of in a tropical island.

In the evening we saw our first, and probably only, Balinese dance. It was very thrilling to see it in a small village, rather simply done, instead of in a tourist hotel. Two or three hundred natives came, and enjoyed it as much,and more intelligently, than we did. Many of the dancers were small girls, not more than twelve years old, in sarongs, tight little jackets, and flaring head-dresses. the latter were made of gilded buffalo hide, with strips of bamboo, cut to about the [[strikethrough]] size [[/strikethrough]]  ^[[diameter]] of a match stick , stuck into them all the way around. Each stick was tipped with a fragrant white flower ^[[insertion]] ^[[like freesia]] [[/insertion]], and there were more flowers in the girls' long black hair. There were sixteen girls, and about twenty men, who took turns dancing for us. At the close of the dancing two men put on what was evidently an uproarious comedy act, but as most of it was dialogue, and not even in Malay, we were unable to grasp its meaning. The orchestra consisted of eight xyllophone-like instruments, a drum, and a cymbal-like thing that crashed like many bells.

The performance lasted from 6-30 to 9.30, after which we had dinner and went to bed.

April 9 -

We arose at five, and drove down the mountain in the early sunrise, to board the Melchior Treub bound for Macassar.

Transcription Notes:
Added Transcription Centre notation for handwritten text in typed pages ie ^[[text]] - @siobhanleachman