Travels in India (Tavernier) 152.2.4

152.2.4

Whether because the repast had already lasted a long time, or that the King was impatient to see what I had brought, he did not delay about finishing, and seated himself in a kind of armchair, the woodwork of which was gilt with gold and moulded like the frames of our pictures. His feet and legs were uncovered, and underneath him there was a small Persian carpet of gold and silk. His garment was a piece of calico, a part of which covered the body from the waist to the knees, the remainder being on his back and about his neck like a scarf. He wore as a head-band a kind of handkerchief, having three ends; and his hair, which was very long, was twisted and bound together on the top of his head. In place of slippers he had placed by the side of his chair sandles with leather straps to go over the feet, like those attached to a spur, which were embroidered with gold and small pearls. Two of his officers stood behind him with large fans, the handles of which were 5 or 6 feet long, and at the ends there were bundles of peacocks’ plumes, which equalled in size the bottom of one of our barrels. On his right side there was an old black woman, who held in her hands a small mortar and a pestle of gold, in which she crushed the betel leaves, with which she mixed areca nuts and dissolved seed pearls.