about, sturdy
fellows in old-fashioned uniforms; I should like to have held converse
with them.

MYSORE.--We got back to Mysore after dark.

Our two homes are gently shoved into a siding, and before you can say
knife, our servants are spreading the table beside the carriage on the
sand by lamplight; there are flowers on the table, silver, linen, and
brass fingerbowls for four--the dinner prepared between Seringapatam and
here _en route_! R. having made final arrangements with his people for a
long hot day's work to-morrow, we fall to; needless to say we do not get
into regulation evening kit, but the regulation warm bath before dinner
was there all in order, even in such limited space!

We left all windows open on the road here, so to-night hope we have got
rid of all the malarial infecting mosquitoes of Seringapatam--those here
are bad enough.

[Illustration]

... Work done, one sketch as above--catalogue misleader, "Dinner on the
Line;" or would a "Meal on the Track" be less descriptive?--Mind
stuffed with those "erroneous, hazy, distorted first impressions,"
which, according to, and with the approval of Mr Aberich Mackay, the
"Anglo-Indian" hastens to throw away; and which I, not being in the
least Anglo-anything, wish most sincerely I could keep!

CHAPTER XIX

TO ARTISTS

[Illustration]

Channapatna.--This is the third station south of Bangalore. It is just
the place for an artist to come to to paint, and a mere step from
Bombay. There's a Dak bungalow where he could put up, a charming place
in a compound, with a servant in attendance. He'd just have to pack his
sticks, take a second or third-class ticket on say the Massagerie--for
an artist to be honest must be frugal--pick up a _Boy_ in Bombay at
twenty to thirty rupees a month, and once out here there's little to
spend money on but the bare cost of living.

Almost no one comes this way to stop, so he could probably have the
bungalow almost as long as he liked, personally I'd have a tent so as
to be absolutely independent. Then for subjects, there's a wealth within
arm's reach; village bazaar pictures every ten yards, and round about
cattle and ruins, temples, moresque and Hindoo, palms and jungle trees,
graceful figures of women and men. Not particularly nice people, I
should say, but certainly picturesque and polite, with some lovely
children. The little ones are nude, prettily shaped and brown and dusty
as the bloom on fruit, and with su