round with much noise and gesticulation, wondering who and what we are, while the noise brings out a sort of majordomo, who recognizes us as friends of the master, and soon clears a way for us across the courtyard, takes us up a flight of steps, and ushers us into a long and tolerably well-lighted room.  Our host comes forward with outstretched hands, and with great cordiality welcomes and presents us to his friends.  We can’t understand all he says, for his English at the best is not always intelligible, and he is now particularly talkative and jolly:  it is evident he has dined.  There is a great noise; every one is talking and laughing; and the talking is loud, for it has to overcome the sounds made by sundry musicians seated at the other end of the room, who are striking their tomtoms and singing a most doleful chant.  The baboo bustles about, and makes vacant for us two sofas, the places of honor.  Little marble tables are before them, on which are placed wine, brandy and soda-water.  The other guests resume their seats along the two sides of the room on our right and left.  There are eight or ten men and two or three ladies; the ladies very handsomely dressed.  Lower down are several young girls in light drapery, laughing, talking and smoking their hookahs.  The fair sex look rather scared and shyly at the foreigners, but some of the men are evidently trying to reassure them.  Order being at length restored, our cheroots lighted and our iced brandy-pawnee made ready, the performance recommences.  The corps de ballet are not hired for the occasion, but form part of the establishment of our friend the baboo.  One of the girls seated near the musician advances slowly, in time with the music, to within a few feet of one of our sofas, and she is followed by another, who places herself opposite the other sofa.  Others in the same way prepare to dance before the other guests.  They all stand for a moment in a languid and graceful attitude, the music strikes up a fresh air, and each nautch-girl assumes the first position of her dance.  She stands with outstretched arm and hand, quivering them, and allowing her body very slightly to partake of the same movement.  Her feet mark the time of the music, not by being raised, but by merely pressing the floor with the toes.  The action and movement thus seem to run like a wave through the body, greatest where it begins in the hand, and gradually diminishing as it dies away in the foot.  With a change of time in the accompaniment the girl drops her arm, advances a step or two nearer the person before whom she is dancing, and leans back, supporting her whole weight on one foot, with the other put forward, and pressing against the floor the border of her drapery.