When I had finished reading this too-too all but morsel of exquisiteness, the Boy said he'd be punctured if he could exactly catch the hang of the thing (the Philistine!), but he thought he would like some of those (the heathen!), and having seen an announcement that a troupe of Eastern Dancers were then appearing at Earl's Court, he had determined to let his passionate, with fire-aflaming spirit "drink deep of the hush of the hyacinth heavens."
On the way to Earl's Court, I filled up the Boy with such general information about Nautch Girls, as I had gathered in my studies.
I informed him that nothing could exceed the transcendent beauty, both in form and lineament, of these admirable creatures; that their dancing was the most elegant and gently graceful ever seen, for that it comprised no prodigious springs, no vehement pirouettes, no painful tension of the muscles, or extravagant contortions of the limbs; no violent sawing of the arms; no unnatural curving of the limbs, no bringing of the legs at right angles with the trunk; no violent hops or jerks, or dizzy jumps.
The Nautch Girl's arms, I assured him, move in unison with her tiny, naked feet, which fall on earth as mute as snow. She occasionally turns quickly round, expanding the loose folds of her thin petticoat, when the heavy silk border with which it is trimmed opens into a circle round her, showing for an instant the beautiful outline of her form, draped with the most becoming and judicious taste.
She wears, I continued, scarlet or purple celestial pants, and veils of beautiful gauze with tassels of silver and gold. The graceful management of the veil by archly peeping under it, then radiantly beaming over it, was in itself enough, I assured him, to make one's eyes celestially pant, but—
"Dis way for Indu juggler, Indu tumbler, Nautch Dance," at this moment cried a shrill voice at my side; and I perceived that we were actually standing outside the Temple where the passionate spirits in celestial pants drink deep of the hush of the hyacinth heavens!
The performance had begun. An able-bodied, well-footed Christy Minstrel was doing a sort of shuffling walk-round, droning out the while a monotonous wail in a voice that might have been more profitably employed to kill cats.
"Lor'," the Boy complained, "will that suffering nigger last long? Couldn't they get him to reserve his funeral service for his own graveyard? Ask them how soon they mean to trot out the exquisite, subtle Tremulous Dawns,—the swaying and swinging Sandalwood Slumber-soft Flutter in celestial pants,—the wantonly winding Lingering Languishers?"