even deceived ourselves.  We do love brilliant colors and graceful costumes; and at home we will turn out in a storm to see them when the procession goes by—­and envy the wearers.  We go to the theater to look at them and grieve that we can’t be clothed like that.  We go to the King’s ball, when we get a chance, and are glad of a sight of the splendid uniforms and the glittering orders.  When we are granted permission to attend an imperial drawing-room we shut ourselves up in private and parade around in the theatrical court-dress by the hour, and admire ourselves in the glass, and are utterly happy; and every member of every governor’s staff in democratic America does the same with his grand new uniform—­and if he is not watched he will get himself photographed in it, too.  When I see the Lord Mayor’s footman I am dissatisfied with my lot.  Yes, our clothes are a lie, and have been nothing short of that these hundred years.  They are insincere, they are the ugly and appropriate outward exposure of an inward sham and a moral decay.

The last little brown boy I chanced to notice in the crowds and swarms of Colombo had nothing on but a twine string around his waist, but in my memory the frank honesty of his costume still stands out in pleasant contrast with the odious flummery in which the little Sunday-school dowdies were masquerading.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Prosperity is the best protector of principle. 
                                  —­Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.

Evening—­11th.  Sailed in the Rosetta.  This is a poor old ship, and ought to be insured and sunk.  As in the ‘Oceana’, just so here:  everybody dresses for dinner; they make it a sort of pious duty.  These fine and formal costumes are a rather conspicuous contrast to the poverty and shabbiness of the surroundings . . . .  If you want a slice of a lime at four o’clock tea, you must sign an order on the bar.  Limes cost 14 cents a barrel.

January 18th.  We have been running up the Arabian Sea, latterly.  Closing up on Bombay now, and due to arrive this evening.

January 20th.  Bombay!  A bewitching place, a bewildering place, an enchanting place—­the Arabian Nights come again?  It is a vast city; contains about a million inhabitants.  Natives, they are, with a slight sprinkling of white people—­not enough to have the slightest modifying effect upon the massed dark complexion of the public.  It is winter here, yet the weather is the divine weather of June, and the foliage is the fresh and heavenly foliage of June.  There is a rank of noble great shade trees across the way from the hotel, and under them sit groups of picturesque natives of both sexes; and the juggler in his turban is there with his snakes and his magic; and all day long the cabs and the multitudinous varieties of costumes flock by.  It does not seem as if one could ever get tired of watching this moving