This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
ONE DAY IN INDIA.
63

conceal doors leading into the female penetralia. Here we must leave him. Two servants disappear behind the parda with their master, the others promptly lie down where they are, draw the sheets or blankets which they have been wearing over their faces and feet, and sleep.

About noon we see the King again. He is dressed in white flowing robes with a heavy carcanet of emeralds round his neck. His red turban is tied with strings of seed-pearls and set off with an aigrette springing from a diamond brooch. He sits on the Royal mattress, the gáddi. A big bolster covered with green velvet supports his back; his sword and shield are gracefully disposed before him. At the corner of the gáddi sits a little representation of himself in miniature, complete even to the sword and shield. This is his adopted son and heir. For all the queens and all the grand duchesses are childless, and a little kinsman had to be transplanted from a mud village among the cornfields to this dreamland palace to perpetuate the line. On the corners of the carpet on which the gáddi rests sit Thakores of the royal