AN INDIAN LADY'S DINNER PARTY

Bruce Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 3025, 6 January 1899, Page 6

AN INDIAN LADY'S DINNER PARTY

Among the interesting t rperienres related by | Lady Dufferin is that of an Indian dinner. : " Our firet proceeding," she soys, " was to j dress ourselves properly for this festival, and as j soon as we get to tbe home we were taken into ! a dressing-room, were divested of our owe ; gewnß, end were draped in saris. Mine was a : most successful arrangement. The sari was \ lovely, being made of a sort ©f silk muslin with i silver borders ; and I submitted entirely to the ha«ds or the costumier, ho that when I was finished I found myself in a re ry pretty and cool costuxne. "VVe also put on a little extra Jewell- ! ety, which was lent us, and proceeded to the dining-room. The floor-table was very largo, for each person requires a great space to dine > in this fashion ; the cloth laid on the carpet j nearly filled the recm, and om it were caadela- i bra. end iv front of each Beat from twenty-five | to thirty little silver bowls filled with all sorts j of, to our eyes, rather messy food. One large ! silver dish, with a pile of rice in the centre of it, was before each person, and the edgea of this wo had to one instead of ordinary plates. I J was seated at the top of the ' table 'by myself, | with a velvet cushion behind me, and I was i afterwards much complimented on the ease \ with which 1 managed my dinner, seated like a ! Buddha on a mat. I was told that I did it 'as j ' well as any Bengali,' and that I looked like a ; ' Hindu goddess.' It, was difficult to eat, ! • for the food had to be manipulated | with unaided fingers, and yet the dislies j [ were of rather a soft and greasy kind, and soma \ of them would have required a spoon rather j , than a fork to lift them with had either iraple- I ment being allowed. The natire ladies showed ' great dexterity ia working up these savoury morsels with the dry rice so as to form little j ballß, but we were not quite equal to that, and j ' had to eat is a much more untidy fashion. | : I can scarcely tell you what the things | , were, but there were vsry small portions j [of a great number of dishes, and when one came ■ to eatables which one could recognise, ouo found j about tweuty samples of fruit on tie same plate. ' t Two strawberries, two slices of cucumber, two bits of tomato, a few almonds, part of a roseapple, a bit of melon, a pistachio nut. &o. ; 5 homoeopathic helpings of each variety. Thou, f iv the way of svreeU, there were dishes of all sorts of suuary cakes and cocea»ut-paste i fruit, and bowls of a sweet milky stuff, with bits of green nut floating ia r it. I dipped my greasy fingers iato oa« r one dish after another, and finally washed them 3 in a silver basin provided for the purpose. We all enjoyed this dinner very much, and when it wes oTer we received.in addition to the wreath* . of flewers which already adorned our necks and 1 hsads, large bouquets, and a piece of pan, to say nothing of bits of spies handed round in » " silver vessel. Our hostess's sweet - looking , mother, pretty young sisters, and sister-in-law t talked to me in the drawing room, while the i band played outside ; and about ten o'clock we took off our aativo costumes and returned home, > our hostess imsisting upon presenting a> each I with th« net woJuAmou"