If he had
been a rich Anglicized baboo, he would have had a profusion of hot,
tawdry chairs, and a vulgar-gorgeous cramming of gilt-edged tables,
sweaty red sofas, coarse pictures in overdone frames, Bowery mirrors,
and Brummagem chandeliers.
Comfortably installed in the Chinese chair, and refreshed with the
Belatta pawnee, I proceeded to take notes. Karlee had discarded his
working dress for festal attire,--the difference being one of quality
merely. Round his waist he wore a _dhotee_ of coarse muslin, tight
above, so as to form the _kummerbund_, or waistband, but thence falling
in loose and not ungraceful folds down the legs to the ankles. Over his
body another ample mantle, in no respect differing from the _dhotee_ as
to texture or color, was wrapped like a broad scarf, and carelessly
flung over the shoulder in the fashion of a Highland plaid. In the
"cold" season he would draw this over his head for a hood. These sheets
of cloth are worn just as they come from the loom; needle or pin has
never touched them, and they are held in place by tucking the ends under
the folds.
Being a Hindoo gentleman of the old school, Karlee repudiated the
headdress at home; for the _puggree_, at least in its present form, was
adopted from the Mohammedan conquerors, and is, historically, a badge of
subjugation.
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