MALAY SKETCHES
should be chosen with discrimination and with due regard to individual affinities.
A sunny climate and surroundings of natural beauty are necessary; but a wooded ravine on the Riviera or by the shore of an Italian lake, a clear stream leaping down a steep rocky bed, and the rest can be easily arranged by a little cutting and polishing of stone.
Besides the novelty and charm of the exercise, the exhilarating motion, the semblance of danger, the clutchings at the nearest straws for help—there are infinite opportunities for designing and donning attractive garments wherein the graceful lines of the human form would be less jealously hidden than in the trappings of stern convention.
Puffed sleeves and a bell skirt, Louis XIV heels and an eighteen inch waist, would be inconvenient and out of place when sliding down a waterfall in the hope of a safe and graceful plunge into a shallow lynn.
But if the company be well chosen, the venue and the climate such as can be found at a hundred places between St Tropez and Salerno, if there is in the costumes and the luncheon only a fair application of Art to Nature, the Eastern pastime is capable of easy and successful acclimatisation in
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