eir design and
manufacture is an art which is thoroughly understood in the East, and
in more primitive days they would have formed almost the only
furniture of a reception-hall.

Out in the compound were flowers in pots, after the manner of an
Indian garden, and a few trees, as well as one or two tombs of
Mohammedan saints of a somewhat lower rank than Peer Sayed Hisamodin.
A strip of red cloth from the place where carriages were to set down,
indicated that visitors were to make their way into the shed. I was
amongst the earliest arrivals, and was received by the Inamdar and his
son with all that graceful courtesy which no one knows better how to
show than an Indian. The full dress of a Mohammedan is striking and
effective. They never of course wear the _dhota_, which is the garment
of Hindus, but they wear instead trousers, fitting very close at the
foot, but of great width in the upper part.

I thought it prudent to ask what the order of proceedings would be.
They told me that there would be a little music, and distribution of
garlands and _pan supari_, and finally dancing. I replied that I could
not witness the last item in the programme. The Inamdar's son
intimated that this item would not come off till later on in the
evening, when the Europeans would have left. I asked him how they
could be willing to receive into their house women of the character of
the dancers. He looked sheepish, and was no doubt relieved that
another arrival called him away.

We presented a curious medley when all were assembled. A Hindu
Collector drove up in his motor car, faultlessly dressed in English
clothes, and so like a courteous European in his general bearing that,
except for his white and gold turban, it might have been difficult to
suppose that he was not one. Many Indians are, comparatively speaking,
very fair, and if you are living habitually in the country you become
almost oblivious to shades of complexion. The English Collector also
arrived, with his wife. Collectors are, of course, magistrates and
officials of importance. The Commissioner of the division followed,
who is senior to a Collector. Mohammedans, Hindus, and a few Parsees
arrived, some in smart carriages, a few in hired conveyances, and
others on foot. Another motor car with an Indian owner drove up. At
present the dash, and go, and smartness of a motor-car seem strangely
out of keeping with the spirit of leisure, and delay, and general
shabbiness so marked in t