arties tucked up inside, in their short
white jackets and skirts and kilts of brightly coloured silks. How happy
they are, old and young--you begin to wish you had been born a Burman
when you hear their laughter and jollity. But I fear we will soon change
all that with our Progress and Law of orderly grab and necessary
ugliness. Everyone is on the move but the priests, for they do not take
part in worldly affairs.

There was a garden party at Government House in the afternoon. G. and
her hosts went. I was told I positively must not go without a frock-coat
and top hat, so I stayed at home. It is pretty far East here, so
frock-coats and toppers are necessary, at Bombay they are still worn
occasionally; there you might have seen Royalty at a garden party
actually chatting to men in pith helmets and tussore silks--gone at the
knee at that!

In the evening the park and lake were beautifully lit up, and a local
shower of rain came, just in time to put out half the lamps on the
trees, so there was not too much light, as I am sure there would have
been had some not been extinguished; but everyone moaned--said it was
"so sad" and "you should have seen it last time." There must have been
a vast concourse of people. We were in the Boat Club grounds, and it was
damp and hot. We waited about the lawn at the water's edge, and people
chatted and smoked away the evening. Everyone seemed very jolly, and to
know everybody else, and we were given the names of many people and the
letters after their names; they all had them, but one would need to live
in official circles for a long time to learn their meanings.

I thought of Whistler's "Cremorne Gardens" and his "Valparaiso," for
this was such a night effect as he could have painted, and so I thought
of The M'Nab's saying, "The night is the night if the men were the
men."--someone, a Neish perhaps, may see the connection of ideas here, I
admit it is slight.

[Illustration]

The Prince and Princess were floated across the calm water of the lake
in a fairy galley all over lamps. I made a jotting from recollection, so
I will put it in here. It had three spires and each spire had seven
roofs tapering to a Hte, and two great heads of paper geese were at the
bow, and hundreds of glowing lamps lit the Royal suite on board. Besides
the great state barge there were many boats fancifully decorated with
glowing arrangements of lamps and flowers. The prettiest, I thought,
a great water lily with