Meanwhile the music had started. A clear space was left in the centre of the room, and three young Tanjong girls were sitting there in preparation. They were a pretty group, huddled close together, their eyes cast down and their features expressionless. Two of them pinched the strings of bamboo guitars, thereby producing the mildest, meekest little tinkles imaginable. The third damsel beat the ends of a bamboo drum, thus bending her fingers back almost to her elbows. The music continued through the pantomime of refusal, the musicians taking no notice of what was going on. We began to think we should not see any dancing that night, and even Mingo seemed about to lose his temper. He stood in the middle of the room, storming at the girls, threatening them with fines, with imprisonment, and with all manner of punishments, unless they commenced to dance. I must say Mingo’s threats did not appear to have much effect on them, for they stood obstinate and immovable. But by and by, for no apparent reason, their bodies began to sway to and fro, and we understood that at last the performance had begun. The change that came over these girls was wonderful. Their nervous giggling came to an end, an expression of scorn appeared on their faces, their eyebrows were lifted higher than usual, and their heavy eyelids were half-drawn over their eyes. They looked like tiny sphinxes, ancient and inscrutable, as though moving in a dream, obedient to an occult power. They might have been Hindoo goddesses, torn from off the wall of a Brahmin temple, practising strange rites in the midst of ordinary mortals. They were slim, young, and fragile-looking, with pale yellow skins, made yellower by a liberal amount of turmeric rubbed over their faces, necks, and arms. Their mouths were large, their noses flat and broad, but we scarcely noticed their departure from our European standards of beauty, so charmingly did the girls fit into their surroundings. We could almost admire the lobes of their ears, hanging down to their collar-bones, weighted with pieces of lead. We remembered Sakhya Mouni’s descendants who are always depicted with very long ear-lobes. Some people will tell you this ear fashion is a sign of princely descent amongst Buddhist believers. The girls stood and moved so well, a straight line might have been drawn from the crown of their heads to their heels. Their costumes were pretty, their black satin jackets, fringed round with little bells, reaching half-way to their knees, and their long petticoats of fine dark red and blue tints sweeping over their feet. Their straight black hair hung as far as their shoulder-blades, from whence it was gathered up in sweeps of darkness and tucked inside little crowns of plaited straw, brightened with beads, cowrie shells and all manner of glistening things. Knobs of beaten gold fastened their collars, and the sleeves of their jackets were pushed above their elbows, revealing