I found the party under the shade of pepal trees beside the inverted boat, and the lunch basket, surrounded by the villagers of all ages. In front on the dust, in sunlight, a brown woman danced and whipped her bare flesh with a cord like a serpent, and another woman in soft, hanging, Madonna-like draperies, with a kid astride her hip and asleep on her breast, beat a tom-tom vigorously. The dancing woman's steps were the first of our sword dance—you see them round the world; she had ragged black hair, dusty brown skin, with various bits of coloured clothes twisted round her hips. Of the violent light and shade, and hot reflected light from the sandy red ground, and restless movements, I could only make this ghost of a sketch. Behind the women was a box, open on the side next us, fitted up as a shrine; in it sat an Indian goddess in vermilion and gold, with minor deities round her, all very fearsome. I was told it was a cholera goddess, and the dancing was to propitiate her and drive cholera out of the village. I'd fain remember the light and shade and colour, but it is difficult to do these unfamiliar scenes from memory; of scenes at home one can grasp more in the time, for many forms are familiar and others one can reason from these—that they must be so—this last a risky business—and query: is it Art or Fake?—forgive shop again, awfully sorry.
The drive home in mid-day sun with no shade was pretty considerably hot, through miles of unsheltered, hot, dusty road, but with regular tiger jungle on either side! Some of us slept—for me there was too much heat and too much to see for that.
I think we got fourteen duck. There were pochard and pintail and one like a mallard. The pochard are good to eat here.
To-morrow we go South—both sorry and glad to go—sorry to leave the little social circle and glad to be on the road again. Again we have had a glimpse of how quickly friends are made here. I suppose the extreme isolation makes one white man realise his dependence on the next white man, so that they naturally make the best of each other and become friends quickly.