Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/139

 have seen anywhere, and they look like grander samples of soldiers than our white people; perhaps they don’t fight so well.

They wanted me to go to the review on an elephant, but I knew better than that; for at the last review, one of them took fright, and trotted away, with its trunk striking out one way and its tail another. Now an elephant’s trot must be like the heaving of an earthquake; however, our maids went upon one, and I could not help laughing at the unnatural positions in which, it seems to me, we are all somehow or other always placed. There are times, too, when I could cry about it. Everything is so utterly strange; so much more strange, even, than I had expected. Except our own selves, it does not seem to me that there is one link between this life and the life we have led. Not even letters, for no ships arrive.

Female intellect certainly does not flourish in India. There is a strong confederacy against allowing them to have any ideas; and it seems to me they have ceased struggling against it: however, at Calcutta we see so many, there is no time for discovering individual merit. I have my eye on one or two, perhaps; if we get