Page 52 - Malay sketches
P. 52
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 incon-
venient 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 appli-
cation of Art to Nature, the Eastern pastime is
capable of easy and successful acclimatisation in
3*
