ut an ample skirt of red calico reaches to
the ankle. Rings are worn on every toe, and massive silver anklets with
tiny bells attached make music when they walk of dance. They wear a
profusion of bracelets, necklaces of rupees, head-ornaments, ear-rings,
and pendent charms, and a massive gold or brass ring in the left nostril.
The nostril is relieved of its burden by a string that descends from a
head-ornament and takes up the weight.

The Nautch girls arrange themselves into a half-circle, their scarlet
costumes forming a bright crescent, terminating in a mass of spectators,
whose half-naked bodies, varying in color from pale olive to mahogany,
are arrayed in costumes scarcely less showy than the dancers. The
chaperone and eight outside girls tom-tom an appropriate Nautch
accompaniment on drums with their fingers, the four prettiest girls
advance, and favoring me with sundry smiles, and coquettish glances from
their bright black eyes, they commence to dance.

An idea seems to prevail in many Occidental minds that the Nautch dance
is a very naughty thing; but nothing is further from the truth. Of course
it can be made naughty, and no doubt often is; but then so can many
another form of innocent amusement. The Nautch dance is a decorous and
artistic performance when properly danced; the graceful motions and
elegant proportions of the human form, as revealed by lithe and graceful
dancers, are to be viewed with an eye as purely artistic and critical as
that with which one regards a Venus or other production of the sculptor's
studio.

The four dancers take the lower hem of their red garment daintily between
the thumb and finger of the right hand, spreading its ample folds into
the figure of an opened fan, by bringing the outstretched arm almost on a
level with the shoulder. A mantle of transparent muslin, fringed with
silver spangles, is worn about the head and shoulders in the same
indescribably graceful manner as the mantilla of the Spanish senorita.
Raising a portion of this aloft in the left hand, and keeping the "fan"
intact with the right, the dancers twirl around and change positions with
one another, their supple figures meanwhile assuming a variety of
graceful motions and postures from time to time. Now they imitate the
spiral movement of a serpent climbing around and upward on an imaginary
pole; again they assume an attitude of gracefulness, their dusky
countenances half hidden in seeming coquetry behind the mus