68 SPORTING IN BOTH HEMISPHERES. 



with reason, as unbecoming, immoral, and void of grace or 

 beauty, still there are exceptions ; and I can well remember 

 that in India, and at the age of nineteen, I have gazed upon 

 the embroidered muslins and graceful pirouettes of some 

 fair dancing girl with quite as much excitement as I have 

 subsequently witnessed the performance of a Taglioni or 

 Duvernay, and listened to the " Tazu be Tazu," warbled 

 by some dark-eyed Moslem songstress, with as much delight 

 as to the solfeggio of an opera-singer. 



Soon afterwards I was the guest of a Mr. John sou, an 

 officer in one of the Nizam's regiments of infantry, whose 

 hospitality was so unbounded, that he was always taxing 

 his brains how to find some means of entertaining me. He 

 Had just been praising the beauty and accomplishments of 

 some dancing-girls at Aurungabad, but that he might pro- 

 cure a particularly good set, make due preparations, and 

 invite some of his native friends to the nautch. He deferred 

 it until the following night. 



Messages were accordingly sent to some of his native 

 friends for the occasion. No people stand more upon cere- 

 mony, and are more punctilious in the observance of all 

 forms of etiquette, than the inhabitants of Hindostan, even 

 to the lowest classes, who bow and salute their acquaintances 

 with much form. In the upper classes it is almost carried 

 to an excess of politeness and deference. 



But to the dance. To quote the words of a friend "These 

 dancing girls were some of them very young, very beautiful, 

 very fond, and possessing the finest and most delicate forms 

 that can be imagined. Willing to please, and desirous to be 

 admired, they neglected nothing that could set off their per- 

 sons, or excite admiration in the beholders. True disciples of 

 the Paphian Queen, still they had very few of the vices that 

 disgrace the sisterhood in Europe. Their manners were good, 

 their tempers mild, and their dispositions of the most affec- 



