Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/304

282 run to the garden gate at sound of a military band. Few women since Atalanta's time have been able to run gracefully; and this thick-ankled young matron, with her flapping mule slippers, scant sarong, and shapeless jacket, outdid all descriptions and caricatures of "the woman who runs." A friendly cavalier in gaudy battek pajamas, who had been talking to the lady, and blowing clouds of pipe-smoke into her face the while, gaily danced an elephantine fandango as the band went sounding down the street to give its sunset concert in the park.

When tea was taken to the lady's porch after this divertisement, she took a banana to the edge, and called, "Peter! Peter!" There was a rustle and crash of boughs overhead, and a great ape, nearly the size of a man, swung from one tree-branch to another, snatched the banana, and bounded back into the tree, where it peered cunningly at us while he ate. After that every rustle in the shrubbery made us jump; we kept umbrellas at hand for defense, and made solemn compact that no one of us should be left asleep unguarded while doors and windows were open to this dreadful reminder of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."