Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstrait121878roya).pdf/228

 I said the Band stuck [sic] up as we entered and I have tried to describe the principal figures in the scene which greeted us, and which impressed me, with much interest as a sight to which I was unaccustomed.

The Orchestra was on the left of the entrance, that is rather to the side and rather in the back ground, and I was glad of it. The position had evidently been chosen with due regard to the feelings of the audience.

From the elaborate and vehement execution of the players, and the want of regular time in the music. I judged, and rightly, that we had entered as the ouverture began. During it'sits [sic] performance, the dancers sat leaning forward and hiding their faces as I have described, but when it concluded, and without any break, the music changed into the regular time for dancing, the four girls dropped their fans, raised their hands in the act of "Sambah" or homage, and then began the nautch by swaying their bodies and slowly waving their arms and hands in the most graceful movements, making much and effective use all the while of the scarf hanging from their belts.

Gradually raising themselves from a sitting to a kneeling posture, acting in perfect accord in every motion, then rising to their feet, they began a series of figures hardly to be exceeded in grace and difficulty, considering that the movements are essentially slow, the arms hands and body being the real performers whilst the feet are scarcely noticed and for half the time not visible.

They danced 5 or 6 dances, each lasting quite half an hour, with materially different figures and time in the music. All these dances I was told were symbolical, one, of agriculture, with the tilling of the soil, the sewing of the seed, the reaping and winnowing of the grain, might easily have been guessed from the dancers movements. But those of the audience whom I was near enough to question were, Malay like, unable to give tue much information. Attendants stool or sat near the dancers and from time to time, as the girls tossed one thing on the floor, handed them another. Sometimes it was a fan or a glass they held, sometimes a flower or small vessel, but oftener their hands were empty, as it is in the movement of the fingers that the chief art of Malay nautches consists.

The last dance, symbolical of war, was perhaps the best, the music being much faster almost inspiriting and the move-