THREE:
THREE:Close to a field that had just been reaped four oxen yoked abreast were threshing out the grain, tramping round and round on a large sheet spread on the ground. The driver chanted a shrill, slow tune; further away women in red were gleaning, and a patriarch contemplated his estate, enthroned on a cart in a halo of sunset gold.
THREE:The little palace of Nilam Bagh, panelled inside throughout with carved wood, looks like a jewel-casket dropped in a vast park of green shade and[Pg 85] broad lawns. Rawl Shri Bhaosinhji, Rajah of Bhawnagar, is very young, almost a child, and still very shy, dressed in the European fashion in a long grey overcoat, with a voluminous turban of turquoise-blue gauze.
TWO:In front of a statue of Kali with a hundred arms, surrounded by rough votive offerings carved in wood, most of them representing legs, a man was pouring out rice, and a whole flight of grey leilasbirds like magpiesalmost settled on his hands: birds of the temple, so familiar that one even allowed me to catch it, and did not fly away at once when I set it at liberty. There are rows of black Buddhas, white Buddhas, Sivas painted redterriblestraddling in fighting attitudes; pilgrims without end bow and pray in front of each idol.