g a _little
bit_ too cold, at an elevation of 10,000 and odd. I have little or no
news to give, as it is now some time since I saw a pale face, but
somehow or another solitude has its charms for me." The writer of that
letter soon after applied for three months' leave, having experienced
broken health for some time previously, in constant returns of fever,
but owing to the delay that occurs in getting post letters despatched
from the frontier away from posting stations, and the circumlocution
which is a feature in all great departments of State, McNair did not
get his leave sanctioned till sometime in July, 1889, and he was not
able to start from Quetta for his mountain home in Mussooree, a
distance of several days' trying journey, until the early days of
August. The fond hearts of a mother and sister that awaited him there
had no knowledge of the dangerous character of the fever from which he
had been suffering for nearly a fortnight before he started from
Quetta.

Within a very few days after his arrival at Mussooree, the doctors held
a consultation over his case, as the fever could not be subdued by any
treatment tried, and then the truth that it was typhoid had to be
acknowledged. All that medical skill and affectionate nursing of
devoted relatives, friends, and a qualified nurse, could do towards
saving the patient was done, and hopes were entertained of recovery
till almost the last; but three days before the fatal end, hemorrhage
of the intestines set in, and then the medical attendants despaired.
McNair himself spoke soon after his arrival at Mussooree of the hour of
separation having come, and asked for his brother George. The
suddenness of the end gave all his friends a painful shock, for many
had not even heard that he was dangerously ill; and, as to the
relatives, silent consternation for the moment are the only words that
can adequately describe their desolation and sorrow. A fervently
attached younger brother George, a popular member of the well-known
firm of Messrs. Morgan and Company, the solicitors for the East Indian
Railway Company, hurried up from Calcutta, on a telegram to join his
family at Mussooree, but when he left he did not know of his brother's
death. It was only when he reached the foot of the mountains, at a
place called "Rajpore," within two hours' ride of Mussooree, where he
inquired of the hotel manager if any recent news had been received of
his brother's condition, that he got news no