170 JUNGLE PEACE 



daylight, then carry off bride to honeymoon 

 house " — the 'dobe hut plastered all over with 

 the imprints of hundreds of white, outspread 

 fingers and palms. 



The marriage over! This was a shock. The 

 critical moment had come and passed, eluding 

 us, and Budhany, the little bride, had appeared 

 and vanished so hurriedly that we had not recog- 

 nized her. 



The dancer had throughout been the focus of 

 interest for me. There was no perfunctory 

 work or slurring over of the niceties of his part, 

 and his sincerity and absorption inspired and 

 stimulated his four assistants until they fairly 

 lost themselves in abandon to the rhythm and the 

 chant. His name was Gokool and he had come 

 up from one of the great coastal sugar planta- 

 tions. Nowhere outside of India had I seen 

 such conscientious devotion to the dancer's work. 



Rammo the tent-boat captain played the creti- 

 nous violin; he it was who never tired of bring- 

 ing us giant buprestids and rails' eggs, and 

 whose reward was to watch and listen to our 

 typewriter machine through all the time that he 

 dared prolong his visit to our laboratory. Dus- 

 rate played the tiny clinking cymbals; Mattora, 



