Page:Quartette - Kipling (1885).djvu/16

 Worlds" is painted up in English, Marathi, Guzerati, Urdu and Hindi wherever there's a vacant spot among the pictures, which are a sight of themselves. They are mostly mythological; the Avatars running along the top. But some of them represent ordinary life; and one of the inside of a kutcherry with the English hakim smoking a cigar and a prisoner with his hands joined, and a policeman on each side, is a great favourite. At the top of the gangway are two big figures of Hanuman given to me by a Bengali gentleman—one of those zamindar Rajas,—who fairly fell in love with the Show. He keeps a sort of fancy workshop where he makes all sorts of queer things, and he fitted me up with a whole orchestra of native music. Great, curling ransingha horns, big nagara drums and smaller dholkis, pipes, rasbins, bells and long trumpets. We get local talent to perform on these; and when the whole thing is in full blast, there is row enough to wake the dead. You can't made too loud a din for my clients.

European musical instruments, however, are growing in favour. I can't guess whore they all come from, but there is nowadays scarcely a town of any size that has not a Europe band—that is to say, a cornet, a trombone, a bassoon or two, and side-drums. We only keep three regularly-ordained musicians and singers, but they are considered among the most skilful ever heard. They do not play much before the general public on ordinary days, because, you see, native music is one of these things you must give your mind to; and it takes at least three hours to get through a performance that would satisfy our audiences. But in most places there are local performers who are immense favourites, and sometimes amateurs who are anxious to display their gifts. We arrange singing-matches between these people and my travelling stars, and these competitions are wonderfully popular; audiences coming in crowds from far and near. Sometimes a local magnate presides, and we make it a sort of evening party, allowing him to provide attar and pan but generally it is a popular crush. The worst of it is that a good native singer's throat is as delicate as Sims Reeves's, on account of the queer half notes and falsetto quaverings that are the refinements of their style. And you may take it from me that the vainest creature on this earth is a clever native singer, excepting, perhaps, a clever European one, I