fiddle, timber-toned drum, clanging cymbal, and harsh metallic
triangle, is a sore affliction, and when the dusky prima donna throws
back her head, extends her chest, gets up to her high note, with her
hand behind her ear, and her poura-stained mouth and teeth wide
expanded like the jaws of a fangless wolf, and the demoniac
instruments and performers redouble their din, the noise is something
too dreadful to experience often. The native women sit mute and
hushed, seeming to like it. I have heard it said that the Germans eat
ants. Finlanders relish penny candles. The Nepaulese gourmandise on
putrid fish. I am fond of mouldy cheese, and organ-grinders are an
object of affection with some of our home community. I _know_ that the
general run of natives delight in a nautch. Tastes differ, but to me
it is an inexplicable phenomenon.

Amid all this noise we sit till we are wearied. Parin-leaves and betel
nut are handed round by the servants. There is a very sudorific odour
from the crowd. All are comfortably seated on the ground. The torches
flare, and send up volumes of smoke to the ornamented roof of the
canopy. The lights are reflected in the deep glassy bosom of the
silent tank. The combined sounds and odours get oppressive, and we are
glad to get back to the bungalow, to consume our 'peg' and our 'weed'
in the congenial company of our friends.

In some factories the night closes with a grand dance by all the
inhabitants of the _dangur tola_. The men and women range themselves
in two semicircles, standing opposite each other. The tallest of both
lines at the one end, diminishing away at the other extremity to the
children and little ones who can scarcely toddle. They have a wild,
plaintive song, with swelling cadences and abrupt stops. They go
through an extraordinary variety of evolutions, stamping with one foot