white gauze with stripes alternately
opaque and transparent, the narrow sleeves of which left bare the
delicate, round arms covered with bracelets from the wrist to the elbow:
others, bare to the waist, wore a skirt of pale lilac rayed with darker
stripes, and covered with a fillet of little rose beads which showed in
the diaper the cartouche of the Pharaoh traced on the stuff; others wore
red skirts with black-pearl fillets; others again, draped in a tissue as
light as woven air, as transparent as glass, wound the folds around
them, and managed to show off coquettishly the shape of their lovely
bosoms; others were enclosed in a sheath covered with blue, green, or
red scales which moulded their forms accurately; and others again had
their shoulders covered with a sort of pleated cape, and their fringed
skirts were fastened below the breast with a scarf with long, floating
ends.

The head-dresses were no less varied. Sometimes the plaited hair was
spun out into curls; sometimes it was divided into three parts, one of
which fell down the back and the other two on either side of the cheeks.
Huge periwigs, closely curled, with numberless cords maintained
transversely by golden threads, rows of enamels, or pearls, were put on
like helmets over young and lovely faces, which sought of art an aid
which their beauty did not need.

All these women held in their hands a flower of the blue or white lotus,
and breathed amorously, with a fluttering of their nostrils, the
penetrating odour which the broad calyx exhaled. A stalk of the same
flower, springing from the back of their necks, bowed over their heads
and showed its bud between their eyebrows darkened with antimony.

In front of them black or white slaves, with no other garment than a
waist girdle, held out to them necklaces of flowers made of crocuses,
the blooms of which, white outside, are yellow inside, purple
safflowers, golden-yellow chrysanthemums, red-berried nightshade,
myosotis whose flowers seemed made of blue enamel of the statues of
Isis, and nepenthes whose intoxicating odour makes one forget
everything, even the far-distant home.

These slaves were followed by others, who on the upturned palm of their
right hands bore cups of silver or bronze full of wine, and in the left
held napkins with which the guests wiped their lips.

The wines were drawn from amphorae of clay, glass, or metal held in
elegant woven baskets placed on four-footed pedestals made of a li