and for "Irishishtew" and "Anchoto" to be resolved into
Irish-stew and Anchovy-toast. Once when a Viceroy was on tour there was
a roast gosling for dinner. This duly appeared on the bill-of-fare as
"Roasted goose's pup." In justice, however, we must own that we would
make far greater blunders in trying to write a menu in Urdu.

The Kumaon district is beautiful, not unlike an enlarged Scotland, with
deep ravines scooped out by clear, rushing rivers, their precipitous
sides clothed with dense growths of deodaras. In the early morning the
view of the long range of the snowy pinnacles of the Himalayas was
splendid. I learnt a great deal from wise old Colonel Erskine with his
intimate knowledge of the workings of the native mind, and of the
psychology of the Oriental.

There is something very touching in the fidelity of Indian native
servants to their employers. Lady Lansdowne returned to India eighteen
years after leaving it, for the marriage of her son (who was killed in
the first three months of the war) to Lord Minto's daughter, and I
accompanied her. One afternoon all the pensioned Government House
servants who had been in Lord Lansdowne's employment arrived in a body
to offer their "salaams" to my sister. They presented a very different
appearance to the resplendent beings in scarlet and gold whom I had
formerly known, for on taking their pension they had ceased troubling
to dye their beards, and they were merely dressed in plain white
cotton. These grey-bearded, toothless old men with their high, aquiline
features (they were nearly all Mohammedans), flowing white garments and
turbans, might have stepped bodily out of stained-glass windows. They
had brought with them all the little presents (principally watches)
which my sister had given them; they remembered all the berths she had
secured for their sons, and the letters she had written on their
behalf. An Oriental has a very long memory for a kindness as well as
for an injury done him. Lady Lansdowne, whose Hindustani had become
rather rusty, began feverishly turning over the pages of a dictionary
in an endeavour to express her feelings and the pleasure she
experienced in seeing these faithful retainers again: she wept, and the
old men wept, and we all agreed, as elderly people will, that in former
days the sun was brighter and life altogether rosier than in these
degenerate times. Before leaving, the old servants simultaneously
lifted their arms in the Mahommedan g