As the sun rose the mountains grew streaked with descending ridges and shadows, and along the foothills the palms glistened in the early humid light. But with the day the mountains flattened once more into cones, and within an hour, as we landed, the sun was throwing light and heat in all directions.
The little port town of Buleléng lay white along the edge of the sea. On either side of the main street, beneath the shade of enormous overhanging trees, were the shops, half hidden within a long arcade. Here thermos bottles, flashlights and celluloid dolls were sold by the Japanese, batiks and Manchester sarongs by Bombay men. The Chinese shops were crammed with everything under the sun, ironware, porcelain, hams, lacquer, smoked duck, silks and firecrackers. Arabs, Chinese, and Balinese in gay flowered batik strolled through the arcades. They sat peacefully in tiny restaurants, smoking, drinking synthetic pear juice coloured that seductive pink which is the symbol of sweetness in Mexico and Harlem, Naples, Kong and Batavia. The town gave forth the faint, voluptuous scent of all eastern cities, of nutmeg and aromatic cigarettes, coconut oil, gardenias and drying fish. From somewhere came the sound of sweet crystal music; of a gong, and above it thin chimelike melody, commencing, stopping, commencing once again.
A car was waiting to take me over the mountains to the south shore, but I was in no hurry to leave. I turned off the main street and wandered down a maze of lanes. Here the shops were simple boxes with one end knocked away, their contents spilling into the street. Copra and coffee merchants, photographers and dentists crowded side by side. The dentists were Japanese, and their offices held no secrets from the passer-by. In the centre of each a plush chair balanced on uncertain machinery; the walls were covered with terrifying charts, while glass cases exhibited pearly molars and sets of golden teeth.
The music had stopped, but suddenly it began once more, louder, very near. At the end of the street stood a small Chinese temple, and the music came from inside the open door. Now that I was near it was no longer a single voice suspended in the air; instead, it had become strong and definite, composed of many different kinds of sounds. It clashed, rang and echoed, and beneath it all was the persistent beat of drums that rose at one moment to a fury, fell the next to an almost inaudible throb.
Inside the temple it was cool and dark. Incense burned on the altar; along the walls were empty gambling-tables, and on the cement floor beside them lay a few sleeping Chinese, dead to this world. Near the door mats had been spread and on them, in the midst of a confusion of gongs and instruments with great metal keys, sat a score of Balinese musicians. In the shadow you could barely make out the enormous gongs that hung in the back of the orchestra, but the light from the door reflected on the small gongs in front that were set out in horizontal rows. With serene and unified gestures the men struck the gongs and keys with little hammers and mallets; those beside the great gongs at the back held sticks with thickly padded knobs. Only once in a long time did they seem to come to life, raise their hands to strike, with infinite gentleness, the knob of the gong that hung beside them.
The melody unrolled like some ancient chant, grave and metallic, while around it there wove an endless counterpoint of tones from the little gongs in front. From time to time, above the drums there floated the soft, reverberating tone of a great gong, deep, penetrating, seeming to fill the temple with faintly echoing sound.
The music came to an end and the men laid down their mallets. They stared, but their gaze was not unfriendly. A young Chinese came up to speak a few polite words in English, and I began to question him. It seemed that the players had been engaged for the temple ceremonies as there were no Chinese musicians in Buleléng. The name of the piece just played? He consulted the drummer. The Sea of Honey.
Once more the men took up their mallets, to begin the more animated Snapping Crocodile. I stood there utterly fascinated. It was even more incredible than I had imagined. But this time when the musicians came to the end they did not begin again. Some rose and went out. I waited for a while, hoping they would return, but as I looked at my watch I saw it was time to leave if I wanted to reach Den Pasar on the south shore of the Island by sundown. I went out reluctantly and walked back through the narrow streets in the direction from where I came.
The driver kicked off his sandals, curled his toes over the clutch and started the car. Before we had left town the road began to climb, past the trim colonial bungalows, past the house of the Resident, a baroque pile of white columns and cast iron, up and out into the ricefields that rose in ever-diminishing terraces as the road grew steeper. Below us the sea flattened out into a wide expanse of blue, separated from the sky by a sharp black line. The ship, already headed for Celebes, was a tiny object that crawled across the surface of the ocean with the determination of a snail.
The car ran slower and slower as it climbed the mountain, panting in the heat of the sun. As we left the fields and entered the forest there was the sound of a minor explosion and a jet of steam burst from the water cap. The driver stopped the car and got out with a sigh.
I wandered up the road. The forest was flooded with a soft golden light that glanced off the surface of huge thick leaves, turned others transparent, and penetrated caves that lay between tense, clutching roots. Not a flower to brighten this secret world; nor a sound, except the sudden brief note of some bird that rang for a moment like a tuning-fork. I returned to find the driver at work on the radiator. It had boiled dry, and the heat had melted the solder in seams that had obviously opened often. The driver resourcefully packed moss into the spaces, stuffing it in with a match. Then he plugged the hole with a wedge of wood. From the car he produced a tin marked Best Australian Butter and filled it with water from a brook by the road. He poured it in and banged down the cap. Then he smiled, said something I did not understand, and got back in the car.
The forest thinned; we were on the bare summit of the mountain, and the road now ran along the rim of a giant crater. The inner wall was covered with jungle, and far below shone a lake. Within this bowl rose a cone, its slopes streaked with lava that had once run down far into the valley, and from its side came intermittent gusts of steam that slowly dissolved in the air.
Now the road began its long descent to the sea, disappearing ahead of us in the zone where the trees began. Soon there were fields of com, huts, and at last a village, hidden beneath a grove of trees. All at once the road was filled with people and animals. Scenes flashed by; harvesters deep in yellow rice, a ring of noisy children around two copulating horses, a file of chanting women with offerings on their heads, a long procession with golden parasols that marched to the sound of gongs and wildly beating drums. The driver slowed up for pigs and ducks, but cut through chickens and dogs with indifference. Grey, starved and tottering, on walls, in doorways, the dogs infested the villages. They were so anæmic they could hardly drag themselves off the road. We drove along, knocking them to one side with a thud.
All at once we were by the sea, now purple in the late afternoon. Towering pink clouds hung motionless in the sky, making soft glowing patches on the surface of the water. The road ran past unloading fishing praus, past nets already spread on poles to dry. White plaster houses with tiled roofs appeared; in a moment we were in Den Pasar and had turned in the driveway of the hotel.
I was exhausted and could hardly wait to get out of the car. The hotel was a large cool bungalow, and I was shown to a room that opened on to a deep veranda one step above the lawn. Between the palms one could see people and little carriages forever passing along the road. I rang for a drink, and sank into the low, cushioned chair.
As I waited a new sound rose in the sky, high up, shrill and tremulous, sweeter than anything I had heard that day. I looked out. A flock of pigeons circled in the last rays of the sun. The sound seemed to follow them, and I could not think what it was. I called the boy, who said that the owner of the birds had hung little bells to their feet and attached bamboo whistles to their tail feathers. Round and round they flew, trailing across the sky wide hoops of sound. And then they vanished, the bells dying suddenly into nothing.
DEN