Note 336 — Part 5.
Reading edition
Sir G. Birdwood, with all his enthusiasm for Indian art and its forms, yet cannot resist a touch of humour when he describes a state umbrella, of which the handle and ribs are pure gold, tipped with rubies and diamonds, the silken covering bordered with thirty-two fringed loops of pearls, and “also appropriately decorated with the feathers of the peacock, heron, parrot, and goose.”—Birdwood, “Indian Arts,” ii. p. 182.