"One bird I may tell you is not fit for human food, and that bird is a peacock."
Thereupon ensued an awful pause, in the midst of which the servants entered, carrying the peacock in all its glory.
Nothing could be done. The bird was shorn of its tail, so to relieve our guest's mind we alluded to it as "goose," but no one could have been for an instant deceived. And the worst of it was, our guest was quite right, it was not fit for human food.
Another source of anxiety on giving a dinner party in Remyo is the decoration of the table. A Burmese loogalay has his own ideas about table decorations, and these ideas he will carry out, even if to do so obliges him to leave all his other work undone. In vain we may try to explain that we prefer to arrange the flowers ourselves, he looks pained, waits till we have completed our arrangements and have retired to dress, and then pounces upon the table and places his own elaborate decorations on the top of what we fondly imagined a triumph of artistic arrangement.
And his decorations are indeed elaborate; round every piece of glass, china, or cutlery he weaves a marvellous pattern, sometimes in bits of bracken, sometimes in coloured beads or rice, and occasionally in rose petals. When all is finished, the table looks like a kaleidoscope, and one is afraid to move a spoon or glass lest the design be destroyed.
On Christmas eve a large and important dinner party was given by some old inhabitants of the station. All the Europeans were invited, and it was intended that the evening should be spent in jovial and merry games like a typical Christmas eve at home. But alas! never was an entertainment beset with greater difficulties.
In the first place, nearly all the guests upon whom we most depended for amusement sent word that they had fever. We suspected that fever at the time, and suspected it still more next day, when we heard of a jovial bachelor gathering that same evening in the house of one of the stricken ones.
Then the weather was not cheering. It was a terribly cold night, and the houses in Remyo, being mostly of Government design, consequently the same for both hills and plains, are not calculated to keep out the cold; there are large chinks in the unpapered walls, and few of the doors and windows will shut. In this particular house there was no fire place, only a small stove which gave out about as much warmth as a spirit kettle. We all felt grateful to our host and hostess for their hospitality, and did our best to be entertained and entertaining in our turn, but it is hard to keep up a cheerful appearance and jovial spirits, in evening dress, in a mat house, with no fire and the temperature almost down to freezing point.
We played games such as "Kitchen Furniture" and "Family Post" which necessitated plenty of movement, and gave every one in turn an opportunity of occupying the chair by the stove.