The menu was inordinately long. Dish succeeded dish, and eat we must unless we wished to cause dire offence to our host. He himself, seated at the middle of the table, ate sparingly and drank but water, his air of quiet impassivity giving place to a smile from time to time as he listened to some Persian _bon mot_ or other from one of his neighbours. The Sheikh excelled as a host. No sooner was the banquet at an end than he told us that a display of {33} fireworks had been arranged in our honour. Seats had been placed for the visitors on the long veranda at the back of the palace and facing the extensive grounds. No Persian feast is held to be complete without a pyrotechnic display of some kind, and that organized for our pleasure would have done credit to the best efforts of Brock or Pain. There were Catherine-wheels, rockets, and welcoming mottoes in Persian and English which flared up merrily, until the whole grounds were one blaze of light. The retainers entered fully into the spirit of the affair. Clad in fireproof suits, they were hung round with squibs which were set alight, and then the human Catherine-wheels carried out an astonishing series of somersaults, to the intense delight of the native portion of the audience. An English gunnery instructor, aided by native workmen with material from the Sheikh's arsenal, had been responsible for the pyrotechnic part of the entertainment. In the meantime the banqueting hall had been cleared, and presently we were conducted thither, where, to the strains of a Persian orchestra, native dancing boys showed their skill in a series of emotional and highly sensuous gyrations. These youths were of a distinctly effeminate appearance in their long flowing Persian robes, and there was a look of brazen abandon in their more than suggestive evolutions as they whirled round and round on the floor. {34}