AN INDIAN WEDDING 221 



Khan's ladies fled in terror from their newly built 

 palace. The little room was perfect; even the 

 old doors were there, the woodwork painted with 

 bouquets of flowers in vases — always a favourite 

 Mughal design — against a dull green background. 

 The soft west wind blew through the many 

 windows all day long, and being nearly a hundred 

 feet above the great lower garden, these rooms 

 were free from mosquitoes and the deadly malaria 

 which their bite so often brings. 



Far below, all the garden seemed asleep in 

 the warm noonday haze. On a square of carpet, 

 carefully spread in the shade beside the water, 

 sat the head gardener and some friends. An 

 important person at all times, just now, on 

 his return from the wedding of the Maharaja's 

 last new wife, he was very much to be cultivated. 

 There had been great doings at the capital of 

 the State — marriage processions that took hours 

 to pass through the narrow crowded streets, and 

 much feeding of the poor. All night long the 

 tom-toms had throbbed in a rising wave of sound, 

 broken only by the roar of cannon and the up- 

 rushing hiss and splutter of fireworks. Weeks 

 of festivities sustained the excitement in that 

 curious riot of noise and colour, that fantastic 



