Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/107

Rh the room lying face downward on the floor, while the gentlemen of the party stood contemplating with more or less knowledge the somewhat uneven surfaces before them; the rotundity of the female sex is not rare and is much admired in the Caucasus.

The beauty of the average Caucasian woman is by no means a negligible quantity, the type being usually dark with large black eyes; but they grow old prematurely, often becoming very fat. The men are usually tall with wasp-like waists; their features are good, but their expression is very often decidedly savage.

In the mountain districts there exists a fair ruddy type amongst some of the tribes; the women are very pretty and are much admired.

It was subsequently explained to me that these ladies on the floor were really practising a Russian dance and they were taking the parts which should have been allotted to their male partners.

I often met Princess Murat, née Princess de Mingrélie, and her daughter Antoinette; her eldest son Lucien had married a daughter of my cousin the late Duc de Rohan, to whom the lovely Castle of Jocelyn in Brittany belongs, while her second son Napoléon, generally called Napo, was fighting on the side of the Russians at the war.

Her daughter Antoinette was looking after her mother's vast estates with the knowledge