12th Jan, Ture is a very popular and oft-repeated sentiment to the effect that conversa~ tion as a fine art is quite in a moribund state, even if it has not already completely received its quietus; but the truth of this remark can hardly be realised or appreciated by anyone unacquainted with the apparent difficulties which beset, in the East, men who have elsewhere been accustomed to chat freely without conscious effort. Nowhere else does the simple task of talking, even, become such a formidable strain; under no other social conditions do unhappy mortals vainly rack their brains for subjects wherewith to amuse and interest their companions, or help themselves through the wearisome hours of the constantly recurring dinner-parties which Eastern hospitality almost: daily inflicts on its victims. A stranger coming out to the East fresh from England, whose travels have been confined hitherto to a month or two in Scotland or Ireland, and the conventional trip across to Paris, cannot help feeling struck, if he is at all observant, by the enormous amount of new know-and must look forward with immense ledge he has acquired on the voyage, delight to comparing notes with more experienced travellers than himself, on the different characteristics of the places and people he has come in contact with en route. Malta, Egypt, Ceylon, Singapore, Hongkong,—all these names are stored up in his memory now, with vivid recollections of the varied charms and interests connected with each place; and, if he has made a less hackneyed journey, and travelled' by way of America and the Land of the Rising Sun, his mind is literally packed with reminiscences of Yankee wit and Japanese glamour, and he begins to feel that no dinner party, however lengthy, could ever be an infliction again, when he, at least, has so many new ideas ce launch into existence.
But with his first experience of being entertained in the East he receives a rude shock; he certainly meets with a
in its warmth and friendliness, an welcome that is absolutely ovsenielning: receives a dozen invitations to. dinner
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.