Deodars and soft green stretches of turf, surrounded by a map of Asia in high relief; silver streaks of rivers at the bottom of the map; snowy peaks and passes at the top of the map, just as if they were set there to show comparative lengths and heights. Such was the scene from the ridge chosen out for what is called a Rajah's picnic. What Rajah or Maharajah, what Nizam or Nawab, matters not. Some one of the many feudatories who crowd to prefer their claims to something at Simla had asserted his dignity by giving a picnic to society, and society had consented to come and eat _pâte de foie gras_ and drink champagne on a hill-side, at the expense of a man to whom one or other of these two things was an abomination. That is the case in a nutshell; and so long as the _pâte_ was not bought cheap from a box-wallah, and the champagne was drinkable, nobody cared whether the host was or was not performing the whole duty of man in tempting his fellows to do those things which he himself considered worthy of purgatorial pains. But then, to nine-tenths of the guests the host was a mere lay figure imported into society on certain occasions, in order to give it local colour by the display of gold tissue and diamonds. Barring the shock it gives to first principles in some minds, a Rajah's entertainment is generally pleasant enough; never more so than when it takes the form of a picnic--which, by the way, the natives translate adroitly into pâgul khâna, or 'fool's dinner.' This one was no exception to the rule. Two huge flat-roofed tents, open on all sides save for a deep valance of gay appliqué-work, and supported by fern and flower-wreathed poles, served as marquees, where a most elaborate lunch was laid out in a style worthy of the great Simla caterer. What the cost was to be per head to the unfortunate noble playing the part of host is a trivial detail. So, to him, was the lunch itself, seeing that in this particular case, the host was a Hindu of the strictest caste; too pure, too proud even to sit down at a table spread with such abhorred viands. His part consisted, therefore, in receiving the company in a Cashmir shawl tent with silver poles, yawning between the handshakes, and thereinafter, when the outcasts were safely started on the champagne and the _pâte_, jolting back joyfully in a _jhan-pan_ to Simla in order to purify himself in unmentionable ways before eating his own dinner. The next day or the day after he would pay the bills, some official would be told off to congratulate him on the success of the entertainment; perhaps, if he was a great swell, to say that H---- E----y had enjoyed it immensely. And then the only thing remaining to be done would be to enter the cost in the State accounts. Under what heading outsiders cannot presume to say; possibly civilisation.