s, who will be sitting down to lunch and thinking of
us; and toasting us for a certainty. So, in the words of the song, of
which these are all I know--

"Here's another kind love,
Here's another kind love,
Here's a health to everybody."

But first we must toast "Relations and Friends," and then "The Memory of
the Dead and the Health of the Living," which being done, properly and
in order, we may go to the window to hear the bells of St Giles and the
cheering at the Cross.... Ah! but it is too far.

CHAPTER XXII

1ST JANUARY 1906

[Illustration]

We have "seen the New Year in," in a way, perhaps not quite so jollily
as at home, but well enough however. And as we went to sleep, we did
hear a little cheering, some jovial north country soldiers, I suppose;
and the dogs were howling, and the moon shining, and the mosquitoes
singing. They got their fill last night--came through a hole in the
mosquito curtains, and our raid on them in the morning ended eight of
their lives; but we were desperately wounded! G. got eight bites on one
hand, which is serious, and means poulticing.

[Illustration]

Various natives hung about this morning, and gave us each a lime and
many salaams, and we are supposed to return the compliment in coin. It
is rather an ingenious plan, and it is a dainty little yellow present,
and costs them nothing, and flatters you; at least it does if you are a
newcomer, and a very small tip pleases them.

Called at Government House on this first day of A.D. 1906, and signed
Lord and Lady Ampthill's great new visitors' volumes. Then we prowled
round the Fort, and the Canon of St Mary's kindly left his work and
showed us records and plate of the Company days, dated 1698, and some of
which was given to the Church by the Governor Yale, afterwards the
benefactor of Yale College of the United States of America. We saw
Clive's marriage in the church records, with Wellesley's signature, and
on the walls of St Mary's church saw the names of many Scots and English
and Irish whose bones lie here and there in Indian soil, all lauded for
"courage, devotion, and care of their men." Truly, "warlike, manly
courage and devotion to duty" seem the flowers that flourish hereaway.
We saw the old colours of the Madras Fusiliers, now the Royal Dublin
Fusiliers, the first British regiment of the East Indian Company, and in
which Sir John Malcolm, Sir Harry Close, and Lord Clive served.

[Illustration]

I