ting or quilting a comfortable--and are just about as
exciting. Each dance is supposed to be a poem expressed by gesture
and posturing--the poetry of motion--a sentimental pantomime,
and imaginative Hindus claim to be able to follow the story.
The orchestra, playing several queer looking fiddles, drums,
clarinets and other instruments, is employed to assist in the
interpretation, and produces the most dreary and monotonous sounds
without the slightest trace of theme or melody or rhythm. While I
don't want to be irreverent, they reminded me of a slang phrase
you hear in the country about "the tune the old cow died of."
Hindu music is worse than that you hear in China or Japan, because
it is so awfully solemn and slow. The Chinese and Japanese give
you a lot of noise if they lack harmony, but when a Hindu band
reaches a fortissimo passage it sounds exactly as if some child
were trying to play a bagpipe for the first time.

When I made an observation concerning the apparent innocence
and unattractiveness of the nautch girls to a missionary lady
who sat in the next seat, she looked horrified, and admonished
me in a whisper that, while there was nothing immodest in the
performance, they were depraved, deceitful and dissolute creatures,
arrayed in gorgeous raiment for the purpose of enticing men. And
it is certainly true that they were clad in the most dazzling
costumes of gold brocades and gauzy stuffs that floated like
clouds around their heads and shoulders, and their ears, noses,
arms, ankles, necks, fingers and toes were all loaded with jewelry.

But their costumes were not half as gay as those worn by some
of the gentlemen guests. The Parsees wore black or white with
closely buttoned frocks and caps that look like fly-traps; the
Mohammedans wore flowing robes of white, and the Hindus silks
of the liveliest patterns and the most vivid colors. No ballroom
belle ever was enveloped by brighter tinted fabrics than the silks,
satins, brocades and velvets that were worn by the dignified
Hindu gentlemen at this wedding, and their jewels were such as
our richest women wear. A Hindu gentleman in full dress must
have a necklace, an aigrette of diamonds, a sunburst in front
of his turban, and two or three brooches upon his shoulders or
breast. And all this over bare legs and bare feet. They wear
slippers or sandals out of doors, but leave them in the hallway
or in the vestibule, and cross the threshold of the house in
naked fee