Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/318

296 our homes and journeys with great earnestness and seeming interest.

The old prince, whose high military rank makes him an offset and check upon the Sultan of Djokja, and who, by his lineage and connections with the imperial house of Solo, almost ranks the sultan, is very literally a serene highness, a most gracious and courtly host, whose dignity and charming address befit his rank and exalted name. His lands and mills and highly improved estates bring him a large private income; and progressive as he may be, I am sure his people speak of him admiringly as a gentleman of the old school—and that old school must have been an admirable one in Java, where the native manners are as fine as in Japan. Prince Pakoe Alam received a foreign military education in his youth, and his sons have enjoyed still greater advantages to fit them for the still newer order. They are the most charming, natural, and unaffected young men, unspoiled and with truly princely mien and manners. To be told hereafter that a young man has the manners of a prince will mean a great deal in simple courtesy, fine finish, and perfection, to those who remember these Javanese princes, the handsome young Pakoe Alams. The natural refinement and charm that one is sensible of in even the lowliest Javanese have their fullest and finest flowering in these princely ones; and that delightful hour spent in the vast shady white pringitan offset many misadventures in Java.

Rows of red-coated and -cowled servitors sat around the edges of the pringitan's shining floor, holding the state pajongs and hooded spears of ceremony; and a