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he was captured. Having passed the day in seeing the sights, the party returned to the Residency, and found a group of servants, from the palace, on the veranda, each carrying a tray laden with sweetmeats and nuts, oranges and fruit. This was an offering from the Prince, and it was necessary that the General should touch some of the fruit and taste it, and say how much he was indebted to His Highness for the remembrance; then the servants returned to the palace.

The Maharajah sent word that he would receive General Grant at five. The Maharajah is a pious prince, a devotee, and almost an ascetic. He gives seven hours a day to devotions. He partakes only of one meal. When he is through with his prayers he plays billiards. He is the husband of ten wives. His tenth wife was married to him a few weeks ago. The court gossip is that he did not want another wife, that nine were enough; but in polygamous countries marriages are made to please families, to consolidate alliances, to win friendships, very often to give a home to the widows or sisters of friends. The Maharajah was under some duress of this kind, and his bride was brought home, and is now with her sister brides behind the stone walls, killing time as she best can, while her lord prays and plays billiards. These wives live in cloistered seclusion. They are guarded by eunuchs, and even when ill are not allowed to look into the face of a physician, but put their hands through a screen. It was said in Jeypore that no face of a Rajput Princess was ever seen by a European.

These prejudices are respected and protected by the Imperial Government, which respects and protects every custom in India so long as the States behave themselves and pay tribute. In their seclusion the princesses adorn themselves, see the Nautch girls dance, and read romances. They are not much troubled by the Maharajah. That great prince, I hear, is tired of everything but his devotions

and his billiards. He has no children, and is not supposed to have hopes of an heir. He will, as is the custom in these high families, adopt some prince of an auxiliary branch.

The government of the kingdom is in the hands of a council, among whom are the Prime Minister and the principal brahmin.

General Grant drove to the palace at four o'clock, and at once inspected the stables. There were some fine horses, and exhibitions of horsemanship which astonished even the General. He was shown the astronomical buildings of Jai Singh II., which were on a large scale and accurately graded. He climbed to the top of the palace, and had a fine view of Jeypore. The palace itself embraces one-sixth of the city, and there are ten thousand people within its walls-beggars, soldiers, priests, politicians, all manner of human beings who live on the royal bounty. The town looked picturesque and cool in the shadows of the descending sun. At five precisely we entered the courtyard leading to the reception hall. The Maharajah came slowly down. the steps, with a serious, preoccupied air, not as an old man, but as one who was too weary with a day's labors to make any effort, and shook hands with the General and Mrs. Grant. He accompanied the General to a seat of honor and sat down at his side. They all arranged themselves in the chairs. On the side of the General sat the members of his party; on the side of the Maharajah the members of his Cabinet. Dr. Hendley acted as interpreter. The Prince said Jeypore was honored in seeing the face of the great American ruler, whose fame had reached Hindostan. The General said he had enjoyed his visit, that he was pleased and surprised with the prosperity of the people, and he should have felt he had lost a great deal if he had come to India and not seen Jeypore. The Maharajah expressed regret that the General made so short a stay. The General answered that he came to

India late, and was rather pressed for time from the fact that he wished to see the Viceroy before he left Calcutta, and to that end had promised to be in Calcutta or March 10.

His Highness then made a gesture, and a troop of dancing girls came into the court-yard. One of th features of a visit to Jeypore is what is called the Nautch The Nautch is a sacred affair, danced by Hindoo girls of a low caste in the presence of the idols in the palace temple. A group of girls came trooping in, under the leadership of an old fellow with a long beard and a hard expression of face, who might have been the original of Dickens' Fagin. The girls wore heavy garments em. broidered, the skirts composed of many folds, covered with gold braid. They had ornaments on their heads and jewels in the side of the nose. They had plain faces, and carried out the theory of caste, if there be anything in such a theory, in the contrast between their features and the delicate, sharply-cut lines of the higher class Brahmins and the other castes who surrounded the Prince. The girls formed in two lines, a third line was composed of four musicians, who performed a low, growling kind of music on unearthly instruments. The dance had no value. in it, either as an expression of harmony, grace or motion. The Nautch dance is meaningless. It is not even improper. It is attended by no excitement, no manifestations of religious feeling. A group of course, ill-formed women stood in the lines, walked and twisted about, breaking now and then into a chorus, which added to the din of the instruments. This was the famous Nautch dance, which they were to see in Jeypore with amazement, and to remember as one of the sights of India. Either as an amusement or a religious ceremony it had no value.

The General did not appreciate the dance, though he remained during its performance. Dr. Hendley, evidently

thinking that the dance had served every useful purpose, said a word to the Prince, who made a sign, the dance stopped, the girls vanished, and the whole party retired to the billiard room.

The Maharajah plays billiards when he is not at prayers. He was anxious to have a game with the General. The General played in an indiscriminate, promiscuous manner, and made some wonderful shots in the way of missing balls he intended to strike. Mr. Borie, whose interest in the General's fortunes extends to billiards, began to deplore those eccentric experiments, when the General said he had not played billiards for thirty years. The Maharajah tried to lose the game, and said to one of his attendants that he was anxious to show the General that delicate mark of hospitality. The game ended, His Highness winning.

Then they strolled into the gardens, and looked at the palace towers, which the Prince took pleasure in showing to the General, and which looked airy and beautiful in the rosy shadows of the descending sun. There were beds of flowers and trees, and the coming night, which comes so swiftly in these latitudes, brought a cooling breeze. Then His Highness gave each a photograph of his royal person, consecrated with his royal autograph, which he wrote on the top of a marble railing. Then they strolled toward the grand hall of ceremony to take leave. Taking leave is a solemn act in India. The party entered the spacious hall, where the Prince received the Prince of Wales. Night had come so rapidly, that servants came in all directions carrying candles and torches that lit up the gaudy and glittering hall. An attendant carried a tray bearing wreaths of the rose and jasmine. The Maharajah, taking two of these wreaths, put them on the neck of the General. He did the same to Mrs. Grant, and all the members of the party. Then, taking a string of gold and silken cord, he placed that on Mrs. Grant as a special honor. The Gen

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NAUTCH GIRLS DANCING BEFORE THE RAJAH AND GENERAL GRANT.

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