The next evening we were all invited to be present at the _gammelang_, or orchestral and dramatic entertainment, in the harem of this prince. The invitation was gladly accepted, and so novel an exhibition I have seldom witnessed. Many of the musicians were masked, and wore queer-looking, conical caps that looked like exaggerated extinguishers, and a sort of light armor in which their unaccustomed limbs were evidently ill at ease. Occupying a conspicuous position in the very front, I noticed a Siamese _raknat_-player, robed in the native dress--or rather _un_dress--of his country, and his hair cut _a la_ Bangkok. He was singularly expert in the use of his instrument; and I learned afterward that, though taken to Java as a slave, his great musical talents had won for him not only liberty, but the highest favor of the regent of Bandong. He was the only rahnat-player in the gammelang, but there were some two hundred timbrels, half a dozen drums, ten or twelve tom-toms, twenty violins, sixteen pairs of cymbals, and any imaginable number of horns, flutes and flageolets. I leave the reader to imagine the amount of noise produced by such a combination: my ears did not cease tingling for a week. But everybody praised the music, and evidently enjoyed the fun. The dancing was like all Oriental dancing, very voluptuous and enthusiastic, adapted especially to display the exquisite charms of the performers and move the passions of the audience. The play that followed possessed no merit, except in the bewildering beauty of the girlish actresses, and their superb adornments of natural flowers artistically arranged in coronets and wreaths, with costly pearls and diamonds. The play itself was simply a farce--a series of ridiculous passages between some lovesick swains and their rather tantalizing lady-loves, who eventually escaped, amid a shower of roses and bon-bons, from their pursuers, and disappeared behind a huge palm tree, which the next instant had vanished into air, roots, branches and all.