But even the most magnificent procession hardly excites the faintest curiosity amongst the people of the streets along which it passes. The shopkeeper does not rise from the pillows on the floor of his little shop on which he is dozing; the brass-worker or silversmith will scarcely lift up his eyes from his work; the women will hardly come even to their house-door to look; the little boys busy playing marbles down some side street are too much absorbed in their game to run and see the show. This is a curious contrast to the rapidity with which a crowd will gather on the smallest provocation in a European city. Even a hearse, standing at a house-door in England, will draw a very respectable crowd, merely in order to see the door open and the coffin brought out. A funeral procession in India is of much greater possible interest, because most Hindus are carried to the place of burning, or burial, as the case may be, on a flat bamboo litter with the face visible, so that you have the opportunity of recognising, or not, the face of a friend in the passing corpse. Yet few use the opportunity, and the sight does not appear to excite the slightest curiosity. Nobody bestows any tokens of respect on the funeral procession, and scarcely anybody gives it even a passing glance. This does not apparently arise from superstitious shrinking from the sight of a corpse. Military display does not impress the ordinary Indian. When a governor drives in state to hold a levee he is attended by a brilliant retinue, and the Indian soldiers who form the chief part of his bodyguard are picked men, looking magnificent in their superb uniform. This imposing display is meant presumably to impress the native mind with the dignity and authority of the representative of the ruling monarch. But in reality it does not excite admiration, or interest, or any other sentiment. The glittering cavalcade, which would bring out half London to see it if only they had the opportunity, passes on its way, and the chance passers-by hardly pause to look at it. This is not out of disrespect to the powers that be, but merely because they see nothing to interest or admire. The small body of the disaffected, of course, look upon military display as part of the arrogance of the conqueror towards his subjects. The multitudes who thronged the streets of the great cities which the King visited, came together because they wanted to see the King himself, and they would have been just as pleased, and perhaps even more so, if he had ridden through the streets in solitary majesty without any retinue. Some natives complained that amongst the many English officers in gorgeous uniform it was not always possible to distinguish for certain which was the King.