Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/194

174 "No, no, no!" he cried in alarm; "you must stay there at Boro Boeder. You have no permission to visit Djokja, and I cannot let you stay in my residency. You must stay at Boro Boedor or go back to Buitenzorg."

To be ordered off to the Buddhist shrine at sunrise put the pilgrimage in quite another light; to be sentenced to Nirvana by a local magistrate in brass buttons was not like arriving there by slow stages—meditation and reincarnation; but as the assistant resident seemed to be on the point of repenting his clemency, we acquiesced, and the great man and his minions drove away, the bearer of the pajong, or official umbrella of his rank, testifying to the formal character of the visit he had been paying. The landlord mopped his brow, sighed, and looked like one who had survived great perils; and we then saw that his sightseeing stroll down the street with us had been a ruse, a little clever scouting, a preliminary reconnaissance for the benefit of the puzzled magistrate.

We left Djokja at sunrise, with enthusiasm somewhat dampened from former anticipations of that twenty-five-mile drive to Boro Boedor, "the aged thing" in the Boro district of Kedu Residency, or Bara Budha, "Great Buddha." We had expected to realize a little of the pleasure of travel during the barely ended posting days on this garden island, networked over with smooth park drives all shaded with tamarind-, kanari-, teak-, and waringen-trees, and it proved a half-day of the greatest interest and enjoyment. Our canopied carriage was drawn by four little rats of ponies, driven by a serious old coachman in a