It was a delicious evening after a day of fiery heat. So oppressive had been the sun, that even the orange leaves flagged on their stems and the song-birds were mute. In the broad plains without, the rarefied air trembled; nothing but the sharp note of the cicala broke the silence of mid-day.
Now the air was cool in these leafy gardens, over-hanging the river, from which delicate
rippling gusts rose up to fan the atmosphere. The dazzling pavilions with open galleries lay in shadow, and only a transient ray from the setting sun lit up some detail of lace-worked panel or gilded pinnacle into a transient flame.
On a broad terrace, from which the roofs of the city are dimmed into vague outlines, a merry party of the queen’s maidens emerge from one of the galleries, amid peals of that shrill and joyous laughter heard only among the young, and running swiftly along scare the peacocks, who drop their tails and fly into the covered avenues beyond. Some of the maidens ensconce themselves in verdant kiosks, others wander into the bamboo-thickets to lie on flowery banks, or wade in the shallow streams which flow around. One delicately limbed girl, oppressed by the heat, divests herself of the light draperies she wears, and like a playful Nereid plunges into a pool, scattering water on her laughing companions.