able, they
have been so long practised that their making is an art that only an
amateur might imitate at home.

[Illustration]

... That squirrel--to change the subject--on a branch outside the
verandah, is cheeping so that one can barely think, or even write! It is
as like a rat as a squirrel, with two yellowish stripes down the length
of each side; its tail is carried in the same way as our squirrel's at
home, but it is not half so bushy, and thank Heaven our squirrel has not
a brain-piercing note like this little beast. It runs about every
bungalow's verandah and the compound trees, and its note is like a
creaking wheel-barrow going along slowly, then it gets faster till it is
like the blackbird's scream when frightened out of the gooseberries. It
makes many people grow quite bald--this, another piece of information, I
have gathered from my cousin Robert! He also tells me they take wool out
of his drawing-room cushions to line their nest. For further information
of this kind the reader may care to refer to the writings of Mark Twain;
he writes a great deal about this squirrel--says it is the same as the
"chip munk" in his "erroneous, hazy, first impressions of India."

We have just been asked to a Christmas Tree over the way at twelve
o'clock mid-day, but we think it will be rather too hot for us to go
then. My often quoted informant tells me that seeing there are no fir
trees here they use instead a tamarisk branch, and its feathery,
pine-like needles look almost as well as our fir trees at home, and go
on fire in much the same way. We do not have a Christmas Tree or a dance
for the Servants' Hall, but R. and D. have sent them a notice and they
appear tidied up till their black hair shines again. R. has some
difficulty in remembering the names of the second and third generations,
but makes a good attempt. I am certain I couldn't remember, or care for,
even the senior male servants' names. They each get a small sum of
money, which is received with beaming smiles. One little mite comes
guilelessly round for a second payment and is told she must not. It is
in vain you try to sketch them as they stand naturally; they see the
corner of your eye with their's even though you are pretending to read
the "Pioneer," and once they know you look they pull themselves
together, if they are sitting they rise, and if they are standing they
run, or go on salaaming.

To-day I'd such a sell in this respect--went to the Maharajah's