n England. I had
been used to singing in a church choir, and it was pleasant to hear
such familiar cathedral services as Garrett in D, Smart in F, Walmisley
in D minor, and Hopkins in F, so perfectly rendered seven thousand
miles away from home, thanks to that excellent musician, Dr. Slater,
the cathedral organist.

St. Andrew's Scottish Presbyterian Church stands in its own wooded
grounds in which there are two large ponds, or, as Anglo-Indians would
put it, it stands in a compound with large tanks. The church is
consequently infested with mosquitoes. The last time that I was in
Calcutta, the Gordon Highlanders had just relieved an English regiment
in the fort, and on the first Sunday after their arrival, four hundred
Gordons were marched to a parade service at St. Andrew's. The most
optimistic mosquito had never in his wildest dreams imagined such a
succulent banquet as that afforded by four hundred bare-kneed, kilted
Highlanders, and the mosquitoes made the fullest use of their unique
opportunity. Soon the church resounded with the vigorous slapping of
hands on bare knees and thighs, as the men endeavoured to kill a few of
their little tormentors. The minister, hearing the loud clapping, but
entirely misapprehending its purport, paused in his sermon, and said,
"My brethren, it is varra gratifying to a minister of the Word to learn
that his remarks meet with the approbation of his hearers, but I'd have
you remember that all applause is strictly oot of place in the Hoose of
God."

The Gordon Highlanders were originally raised by my great-grandfather,
the fourth Duke of Gordon, in 1794, or perhaps more accurately, by my
great-grandmother, Jean, the beautiful Duchess of Gordon. Duchess Jean,
then in the height of her beauty, attended every market in the towns
round Gordon Castle, and kissed every recruit who took the guinea she
offered. The French Republic had declared war on Great Britain in 1793,
and the Government had made an urgent appeal for fresh levies of
troops. Duchess Jean, by her novel osculatory methods, raised the
Gordons in four months. My father and mother were married at Gordon
Castle in 1832, and the wedding guests grew so excessively convivial
that they carried everything on the tables at the wedding breakfast,
silver plate, glass, china, and all, down to the bridge at Fochabers,
and threw them into the Spey. We may congratulate ourselves on the fact
that it is no longer incumbent on wedding guests to