Art Furniture and Household Decoration.
If we may judge from the example of India, the great art in furniture is to do without it. Except where the social life of the people has been influenced by European ideas, furniture in India is conspicuous chiefly by its absence. In Bombay the wealthy native gentlemen have their houses furnished in the European style, but only the reception rooms, from which they themselves live quite apart, often in a distinct house, connected with the larger mansion by a covered bridge or arcade. Europeans, as a rule, and all strangers, are seen in the public rooms ; and only intimate friends in the private apartments. Passing through the open porch, guarded on either side by a room or recess for attendants, you at once enter a sort of antechamber, in which a jeweller is always at work making or repairing the family jewels. Through the windows, across the court, the Brahman cook is seen among the silver drinking vessels and dishes preparing for the mid-day meal. In the opposite verandah, into which you next pass, some young girls are engaged under a matron embroidering silk and satin robes ; and at the end of it a door opens and your host welcomes you heartily into his private parlour. He has sent for a chair for you, but sits on the ground himself, on a grass mat, or cotton satrangi , or Cashmere rug, with a round pillow at his back : and that is all the furniture in the room. Up country you may pass through a whole palace, and the only furniture in it will be rugs and pillows, and of course the cooking pots and pans,
