CHRISTMAS EVE, 
23V 
native rajah from the interior, in all his savage 
splendour, come to look on the forms of the faith 
he has ostensibly embraced but cannot mentally 
grasp ; and out in the sunshine, under shadowy 
hibiscus trees, a medley crowd of all the nation- 
alities Dilly can boast. 
On Christmas Eve we attended midnight 
mass to celebrate the birth at Bethlehem, and 
viewed a somewhat similar scene under the weird 
charm of brilliant moonlight. That I may not 
weary you with description, I shall only momen- 
tarily hold before you one or two vignettes, 
which remain more clearly impressed on my 
mind than others. The priests in gorgeous robes 
moving to and fro before the illuminated altars ; 
the mass of human beings crowding the grey 
stone building out to the door, where they were 
better individualised by the inshining moon- 
beams than by the sparsely scattered lamps ; 
intervals when we retired from our place in the 
nuns’ gallery, away from light and sound to the 
cool gardens surrounding the edifice, where in 
the fresh night wind the palms gently nodded 
their plumes, and the broad - leaved bananas 
seemed ethereal in the fairy light ; and that, to 
me, strange and striking moment, when at mid- 
night a small image of the Infant was lifted from 
O O 
