Page:ER Scidmore--Winter India.djvu/81

Rh, throned upon the peons' shoulders, were with us; and the august company of Brahmans seated themselves in a half-circle upon the stone floor, Pattu, the Superb, towering head and shoulders in the front row of the highest-caste marks. There was a May-pole in the middle of the vaulted hall, hung over with long streamers.

Six barefooted, neat-looking colored girls in starched muslin dress skirts and velvet jackets of antiquated cut and no fit whatever, stepped forward and, in methodical march and countermarch to a nasal chorus, braided the May-pole's ribbons down to their hands; in reverse order unbraided them, and stepped demurely back in line. We were breathless with surprise.

Was that the famous sacred temple dance? Could six octoroons, matter-of-fact young "yaller gals," shuffling slowly around a May-pole, ever give rise to such visions of beauty and grace as only the name of the Nautch dance conjures up? Oh, no! It was surely coming next. There would be something graceful and bewitching, something in gorgeous native costume, after this purposely tame and tedious cake-walk by colored church members in velveteen basques trimmed with cotton lace.

The same wooden young persons marched out again in line. We cheered ourselves, noting then that they were almost Oriental from the collar upward—what with necklaces and ear-studs and earrings looped back to the decorated waterfall, the "bath bun" of hair at the back of their heads, and nose-rings whose lowest pearl trembled on their