much grace, extending her arms and spreading out her scarf in gracefully-waving curves.  In these slow and languid changes of posture, which accommodated themselves to the music like undulations in running water to undulations in the sand of its bed, and in the strange trembling of her body, which seemed to be an inner miniature dance of the nerves, consisted her entire performance.  She intensified the languid nature of her movements by the languishing coquetries of her enormous black eyes, from which she sent piercing glances between half-closed lids.  It was a dance which only southern peoples understand.  Any one who has ever beheld the slow juba of the negro in the Southern United States will recognize its affinity to these movements, which, apparently deliberate, are yet surcharged with intense energy and fire.

[Illustration:  MEWATI DANCING-GIRL.]

Her performance being finished, the bayadere was succeeded by others, each of whom appeared to have her specialty—­one imitating by her postures a serpent-charmer; another quite unequivocally representing a man-charmer; another rapidly executing what seemed an interminable pirouette.  Finally, all joined in a song and a closing round, adding the sound of clapping hands to the more energetic measures of the music.

“I can now understand,” I said when the nautch was finished, “the remark of the shah of Persia which set everybody laughing not long ago in England.  During his visit to that country, being present at a ball where ladies and gentlemen were enjoying themselves in a somewhat laborious way in dancing, he finally asked, ’Why do you not make your servants do this for you?’ It is at least entertaining to see a nautch, but to wade through the English interpretation of a waltz, hic labor hoc opus est, and the servants ought to perform it.”

“Do you know,” said Bhima Gandharva, “that much the same national mode of thought which prompts the Hindu to have his dancing done by the nautch-girls also prompts him to have his tax-gathering and general governing done by the English?  We are often asked why the spectacle has so often been seen of our native princes quietly yielding up their kingdoms to strangers, and even why we do not now rise and expel the foreigner from power over us.  The truth is, most Hindus are only glad to get some one else to do the very hard work of governing.  The Englishman is always glad to get a French cook, because the French can cook better than the English.  Why should not we be also glad to get English governors, when the English govern so much better than the Hindus?  In truth, governing and cooking are very like—­the successful ruler, like the successful cook, has only to consult the tastes of his employers; and upon any proper theory of politics government becomes just as purely an economic business as cooking.  You do not cook your own dinner:  why?  Because you desire to devote your time to something better