it had been agreed that strict native fashion was to be observed, we
were all shoeless. The Maharanee, laughing like a child, sprinkled us
with rose-water, and threw garlands of flowers and wreaths of tinsel
round our necks. I felt like a walking Christmas-tree as we went down
to dinner.

Round a large, empty, marble-paved room, twelve little red-silk beds
were disposed, one for each guest. In front of each bed stood an
assemblage of some thirty silver bowls, big and little, all grouped
round a large silver platter, piled a foot high with a pyramid of
rice. This was the entire dinner, and there were, of course, neither
knives nor forks. No one who has not tried it can have any idea of the
difficulty of plunging the right hand into a pile of rice, of
attempting to form a ball of it, and then dipping it at haphazard into
one of the silver bowls of mysterious preparations. Very little of my
rice ever reached my mouth, for it insisted on spreading itself
greasily over the marble floor, and I was gratified at noting that the
European ladies managed no better than I did. Added to which,
half-lying, half-reclining on the little silk beds, the unaccustomed
European gets attacked by violent cramps; one is also conscious of the
presence of bones in the most unexpected portions of one's anatomy,
and these bones begin aching furiously in the novel position. Some
native dishes are excellent; others must certainly be acquired tastes.
For instance, after a long course of apprenticeship one might be in a
position to appreciate snipe stewed in rose-water, and I am convinced
that asafoetida as a dressing to chicken must be delicious to those
trained to it from their infancy. A quaint sweet, compounded of
cocoa-nut cream and rose-water, and gilded all over with gold-leaf,
lingers in my memory. As hands naturally get greasy, eating in this
novel fashion, two servants were constantly ready with a silver basin