NAUTCH DANCING. AT AN INDIAN COURT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2358, 4 May 1899, Page 56

NAUTCH DANCING. AT AN INDIAN COURT.

Soon there v/as a rustling sound in the pas&age ; it stopped at my door, and someone spoke. " Suhib, the chief calls." I immediately put on my hat, and followed the servant into the garden. There was Ihe Nawab with his golden lantern, the prime minister and the private secretary, and the bodyguard. The Nawab said, *' I thought you would like to see a nautcli." So 1 joined the procession, and we wended our way through another part of the garden, past dusky sentinels, and iuto a walled enclosure, with still another, inclosed with kanats ; but these were unlike those used for pig-sticking, as they were covered with most elaborate designs x>n both sides, in red, green, and lilac, orange and black. The ground was covered with carpets and rugs, and under a shamiana at one end were spread gold-embroidered rugs and pillows on which to sit. Lamps were ranged in two rows nearly half the length of the inclosure. The servant with the box of cigars being at hand, we all had a smoke.

The Nawab took his seat in the middle, and motioned the prime minister to his left, the private secretary to his right. Spaces were reserved for others to come later, and the bodyguard were divided, some behind and the rest in two rows to Ihe right and kit of the middle. Just outside there was a rustling of silks, and the chink-chink, chinkohink of bell anklets. In came 10 or 12 nautch-giris, all glittering with gold and silver. The rich colours of their costumes were not apparent until they emerged into the stronger light. All salaamed to the Nawab. At a sign they sat down, always in a row, each one spreading her 25 yards of skirt carefully about her feet, and arranging and rearranging her sari, which is a shawl — in this case of gauze covered with gold and silver tinsel—used for covering the

head and shoulders and, very often, the face. Then half a dozen musicians entered with strange fiddles, drums, and cymbals. They were tuning, and running over-pas-sages of strange music, full ot trills and grace-notes, producing -plaintive and weird harmonies.

At a sign from a confidential servant who sat behind the Nawab, and who had charge of all amusements, two of the^ nautch girls rose and came forward with a swaying step peculiar to them, and accented greatly by the fulness and shortness of the skirt, under which they wore baggy trousers. The musicians stood only a few feet behind the dancers, and after the saris were properly arranged, and the instruments, including the drums, were in perfect accord, the dancers turned, and reverently touched each instrument, and then the breast and head, in homage to the art. Then the music began to vibrate in strange, subdued, undulating minor trills, suggestive of an iEolian harp singing to the fitful pulses of a summer evening breeze. The dancer began a short forward-and-back-Avard step, accented by the jingling of the anklets, the swaying of the skirts, and a remarkable flexible movement of hands and fingers, which were held as high as the head or slightly above it. The head swayed gently from side to side, and every movement was in time with the music. This continued- for perhaps ten minutes, during which time each of the musicians in turn sang in a most distressful manner certain passages of the song that always accompanies a dance. Then each girl in turn sang a verse, interrupted now and then by p, solo from on© of the musicians. So they trent on, from half "an hour to two hours, according to the wish q£ the Nawab. Then one or two other girls were called, and went through the came sort of performance, each dancer having her own musicians. To the uncultivated ear such sounds grow monotonous, and the monotony induces gentle sleep, indulged in by all the company, including the body-guard, in 'spite of, or on account of, the fact that the songs are classic lyric poems, sung by the best singers in Sanskrit, Urdu, and Hindi, and by the ordinary singers in the colloquial tongue of the district. As at European entertainments the best is always kept till the last, so the performance stretches into the small hours of the morning, when the guests become sufficiently refreshed, perhaps, by their naps fully to appreciate it. But the Nawab, I must'sav, seldom slept, and he kept me so constantly supplied with cigars that I managed to 'remain, awake, although I exhausted a)l \ht- small talk ot my command- before mormni.'. To hare taken leave would have been an unpardonable breach of etiquette. It - appeared that the monotony so depressing to a European is a most delightful recreation of the Oriental. As all things must end or change hi some way, so, just as the dawn began to soften the shadows and silver the lights on the distant group of nautch girls, as they sat half-dozing in the background, the Nawab arose and made a slight motion with the head. The music and singing instantly ceased : the girls arose, salaamed, and slowly disappeared in single- file. As the last jingle of silver and brass faded away, in perfect silence we wended our way to the palace, where all but the bodyguard took their leave. The Nawab, turning to me, said: "You must find it very warm sleeping indoors. I sleep outside on top ox the palace, and you'd better come up with me." So up I went, and there, "under a large swinging fan, were two cots placed side by sicle. He pointed to one, saying, " That is for you."— R. D. MACKENZIE, in the Century.

THE SCHOOLBOY IN ANCIENT EGYPT.

Tie schoolboy was placed under the protection of Thoth, the god of letters, and very great .attention was given to his education. The school discipline was very severe in the land of the bastinado, as some of their witty school maxims show. " The stick came down from heaven," they said, "a blessing from God." "The stick does all the work, and is inevitable." " The ears of a youth are on his back ; he attends when he is" beaten." It was not their way to " spare the rod and spoil the child." They sincerely believed that the rod was the child's friend, and they insisted on hard work at school. Nauglity boys, as in German universities, were locked up in prison. Lesson time took up half the day ; and we can easily believe what is written in a papyrus, that " when noon was announced, the children left the school shouting for joy." Everywhere there was an enthusiastic love of learning. "Give thy heart to learning," says Danuf to his son Pepy, " and love her as a mother, for there is nothing so precious as learning." But they were very world-wise people, and they loved learning for her dowry. Scholarship was almost the only passport to success in life, and the ambition of the Egyptian father was to make his SO2l " a scribe," or servant of the Government. Great attention was thus given to writing, and a good writer of hieroglyphics was really an artist. Many of their copybooks have been discovered. They are wonderfully like our own, except in the style of writing. Some of them have been corrected by the schoolmaster, and have juvenile drawings on the blank page. The headlines display such moral maxims as we are familiar with. The boys were very precocious. About 10 their school days were over, and they began the work of life. The Egyptians, young and old, delighted in story-telling, and in tales of adventure. They had fables about animals like those of JEsop, and they gave absurd allegorical interpretations of their ancient books. Egyptologists believe that many of our popular stories can be traced to the Nile. While the monuments and the papyruses give us the whole of the outer life of the ancient Egyptian child, they supply no hint of his inner life. These primeval historians did not try to trace \the river of human life up to it's new-born rill in the dim uplands of infancy. But this is one of the very latest of the sciences, and it has recently added a new word to our expanding language. Paidology or child study has now many students, and Sully s Studies of Childhood " show us that it has already created an enormous literature in

France, in America, and in our own. country. 'We are told that congresses for childstudy have been held in America. Many are diligently exploring the child's inner life in the hope of discovering the "sources of thought and feeling, of language and action. A mosfc fascinating study it is, and we may hope that it will yield, rich fruit. It is fostered by the love of science and the love of children. But of such studies we discover no trace in ancient Egypt or in any of the nations of antiquity. The history of child life was forgotten by all their historians. We shall search in rain among the historians of the home life of ancient Egypt for any hint of that overflowing love" of children, that self-sacrificing devotion to them, that eagerness to add to then: joys, that baby worship we might almost call it, which are found in Christian lands. Dr Flinders Petrie, in his last book— "Religion and Conscience in Ancient Egypt" — emphasises the fact that the wisdom of the Egyptians was negative, " canny," hard, and calculating. . With all its excellent qualities it lacked ideality and generosity. Both their religion "and their morality were inspired by a reference to worldly "advantage. A man's family was thus his larger self, and his care for them' was not", ennobled by selfi-forgettihg devotion. We may, however,- do wroi»3 to that wonderful people by such depieciating criticisms, for undoubtedly some of their sayings which have oome down to us seem to reveal a deep mutual aifa-i-tion between the parent and the child, — Sunda}* Magazine.