le, and bed; a cushion or two to recline upon; a few earthen vessels
of the better quality, to hold rice or water; a brass lamp for cocoa-nut
oil; several more primitive lamps rudely made of the shell of the
cocoa-nut; an iron mortar and pestle--foreign, of course--for pounding
curry; a couple of _charpoys_, or wooden cots; a few brass _lotahs_, or
drinking-cups; and two or three hubble-bubbles. But the crowning glories
were a Chinese extension chair, of bamboo and wicker, and quite a pretty
hookah,--both evidently dedicated to company occasions. These were all
that I could see in the two rooms to which I was admitted, and these
were no doubt the very splendors of Karlee's establishment. If he had
been a rich Anglicized baboo, he would have had a profusion of hot,
tawdry chairs, and a vulgar-gorgeous cramming of gilt-edged tables,
sweaty red sofas, coarse pictures in overdone frames, Bowery mirrors,
and Brummagem chandeliers.

Comfortably installed in the Chinese chair, and refreshed with the
Belatta pawnee, I proceeded to take notes. Karlee had discarded his
working dress for festal attire,--the difference being one of quality
merely. Round his waist he wore a _dhotee_ of coarse muslin, tight
above, so as to form the _kummerbund_, or waistband, but thence falling
in loose and not ungraceful folds down the legs to the ankles. Over his
body another ample mantle, in no respect differing from the _dhotee_ as
to texture or color, was wrapped like a broad scarf, and carelessly
flung over the shoulder in the fashion of a Highland plaid. In the
"cold" season he would draw this over his head for a hood. These sheets
of cloth are worn just as they come from the loom; needle or pin has
never touched them, and they are held in place by tucking the ends under
the folds.

Being a Hindoo gentleman of the old school, Karlee repudiated the
headdress at home; for the _puggree_, at least in its present form, was
adopted from the Mohammedan conquerors, and is, historically, a badge of
subjugation. So when he met me at the door his head was uncovered; but I
had no sooner crossed the threshold than he made haste to don his flat
turban,--reflecting, perhaps, that I had never seen him without it, and
might resent his bare head as an indignity. Of course his feet were
unshod. To have worn his sandals in my presence would have been a
flagrant insult; but on the porch I espied those two queer clogs of
wood, shaped to the sole of the foot, and h