smiled; and after this I was not asked to dance." The Persian princes,
when in a similar dilemma, evaded the request by "taking oath that we did
not know how, and that our mother did not care to teach us; and thank
God," concludes Najef-Kooli with heartfelt gratitude, "we never did dance.
God protect the faithful from it!" Independent of the above recorded
opinions on the singularity of quadrilles and waltzes, the khan takes this
occasion to enter into a disquisition on the inconsistency (doubly
incongruous to an Oriental eye) of the ladies having their necks, arms,
and shoulders uncovered, while the men are clothed up to the chin, "and
not even their hands are allowed to be seen bare," and returned from the
ball, no doubt, more lost than ever in wonder at the strange extravagances
of the Feringhis.

These opinions are repeated, shortly after, on the occasion of the Khan's
being present at an evening party at Clapham, which, as the invitation was
_for the country_, he seems to have expected to find quite a different
sort of affair from the entertainments at which he had already assisted in
London. He was greatly surprised, therefore, to find the assemblage, on
his arrival, engaged in the everlasting toil of dancing, "the men, as
usual in this country, clad all in dismal black, and the ladies sparkling
in handsome costumes of bright and variegated colours--another singular
custom, of which I never could learn or guess the reason." But, however
great a bore the sight of quadrilles may have been to the khan, ample
amends were made to him on this occasion by the musical performances, with
which several of the ladies ("though they all at first refused, evidently
from modesty") gratified the company in the intervals of the dance, and at
which he expresses unbounded delight; but this does not prevent his again
launching out into a tirade against the unseemly methods, as they appear
to him, used by the English to signify applause or approbation. "The
strangest custom is, that the audience _clapped their hands_ in token of