t, young, and thin,
genial, and haughty Indian princes, covered with gold and jewellery, got
in or were helped in, and footmen in gorgeous clothes and bare feet
jumped up in front and behind, and off they went, the big princes
leading with horsemen and drawn swords behind them. Smaller carriages
followed till you come down to victorias with perhaps just one syce.
Then the Poona Horse, beautifully mounted, in dark blue, red, and gold,
with drawn swords rode past at a very quick trot, now and then breaking
into a canter with a fine jingle and dust that made almost the best part
of the show.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I can't say I enjoy this damp warm weather here. It feels all right in
the sun out of doors, but indoors after dark and in draughts from
punkahs it is horrid. I'd now give a considerable sum for one whole day
of twenty-four hours clear Arctic or Antarctic sunny air and snow; one
would feel dry then, and lose the cold and fever that sticks to one
here. The Turkish bath is the only place you can get really dry in; at
one hundred and fifty in the hot room you feel more comfortable than
outside at eighty-two. The Turkish bath in the hotel is very nicely
fitted up, but the native masseur wasn't a pleasing experience, his weak
chocolate-coloured hands gave me the sensation of the touch of a
middling strong eel; his lean, lithe figure and the charms round his
neck, and grey hair died brick-red I expect to see again in dreams--a
crease in his teeth and venom in his evil eye.

It is curious that though you do not see any sign of this dampness in
the air either by day or night, whenever the search lights from the war
ships are turned on; you see what appear to be clouds of vapour drifting
across the path of light.

At night we drove to Malabar Hill to the new Viceroy's reception, and it
was all pretty much the same as going to the reception given by their
Royal Highnesses. The air damp, hot, and dusty, and for a long way heavy
with the smell of roasting bodies, and this time inscriptions across the
lamplit road were changed to "God bless our new Viceroy;" but we had the
same waiting outside Government House, met the same people and heard
much the same talk about Lord Curzon's Byculla speech and about this one
and the other. "So and so is looking well isn't he?" "Yes, yes--ha,
ha--laying it on a bit, isn't he! Must be a stone heavier since his
leave--takes his fences thoug