viting arbours, the herding of the cattle, and the heavier
part of various handicrafts, fell upon the men; while the women looked
after the domestic arrangements--cooked, made or mended and washed the
_chelas_' clothes and their own (both men and women were dressed
according to the purest principles of aesthetic taste), looked after the
dairy, and helped the men in the lighter parts of their industries.

Various inventions, known only to the occult sisterhood by means of their
studies in the esoteric science of mechanics, contributed to shorten
these labours to an extent which would be scarcely credited by the
uninitiated; but some idea of their nature may be formed from the fact
that methods of storing and applying electricity, unknown as yet in the
West, have here been in operation for many centuries, while telephones,
flying-machines, and many other contrivances still in their infancy with
us, are carried to a high pitch of perfection. In a word, what struck me
at once as the fundamental difference between this sisterhood and the
fraternity of adepts with which I had been associated, was that the
former turned all their occult experiences to practical account in their
daily life in this world, instead of reserving them solely for the
subjective conditions which are supposed by _mahatmas_ to attach
exclusively to another state of existence.

Owing to these appliances the heavy work of the day was got through
usually in time for a late breakfast, the plates and dishes being washed
up and the knives cleaned by a mechanical process scarcely occupying two
minutes; and the afternoon was usually devoted to the instruction of
_chelas_ in esoteric branches of learning, and their practical
application to mundane affairs, until the cool of the evening, when
parties would be made up either for playing out-of-door games, in the
less violent of which the women took part, or in riding the beautiful
horses of the country, or in flying swiftly over its richly cultivated
and variegated surface, paying visits to other _damas_ or homes, each of
which was occupied on the same scale and in the same manner as our own.
After a late dinner, we usually had concerts, balls, and private
theatricals.

On the day following my arrival, Ushas explained to me the relationship
in which we were to stand towards each other. She said that marriage was
an institution as yet unknown to them, because their organisms had not
yet attained the conditions