INDIAN NAUTCH.
heads, arms, or legs; and walking along the narrow
streets one meets with unceasing sounds of discordant
instruments issuing from religious institutions and
Hindu temples.
About two miles from the town is the little village
of Secrote, where the British officials reside, and the
military cantonment.
The bazaars of Benares are well worth a visit, for
it is the great mart for shawls, silks, diamonds, ’ and
a particular kind of brass-ware handsomely engraved,
a kind of intaglio, and much superior to the Moorish
trays and nicknacks.
The mercantile and agricultural classes in this
province are said to be wealthy, of which one notices
many indications; and sugar, opium, and., indigo
factories are numerous.
Before leaving Benares, it fell to my lot to witness
a grand nautch, which, to my mind, did in no respect
come -up to those I had seen in Upper Egypt, where
good features and faultless figures, picturesque posing
and grouping, and harmonious music, although quaint,
form an agreeable supplement to the actual dancing or
graceful movements of the body. The dancing syrens
I saw in India are as a rule plain-looking, and their
performance consists of eel-like sideling, moving their
arms gently round the head and arranging, displacing
PATNA— THE WAHABEES. 91
and rearranging their drapery, which is always as
gaudy as colour and tinsel will make it,—their ears,
noses, arms and ankles are encumbered with rings and
glass jewels. The natives are very fond of nautches,
and pay the actors handsomely for the display of their
art.
Twenty-five years ago travellers for Calcutta had
to make the Ganges their highway and proceed
thither by the budgerow, a clumsy rowing boat,
carrying sail, with a high poop-deck. They had
the opportunity of seeing much pretty scenery, studying
the character of natives and doing a little shikar-
ring or sketching en route according to their taste
and inclination ; now all the poetry of such a journey
is lost by the introduction of railways, one is hurried
along and has little more than a glimpse of the
country. We stopped an hour at Dinapore, of unenviable
notoriety as those will remember who have followed
the events of the mutiny, and ten miles farther we
reached Patna with its gh&ts and temples, a small
—very small—edition of Benares without the latter’s
life and wealth. The soil of this district is fertile,
rice and poppy grow in abundance, and a variety
of palm trees enliven the aspect of its extensive
plains.