Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/175

 sent you a pair of silver earrings, made as the natives wear them, and a little pair of silver bracelets for Emily. They bend into any shape. About ten of these bracelets on each arm are literally the only clothes worn by the native children till they are seven or eight years old, with perhaps a silver chain round each ankle; and when they are married, which they are at five, or six years old, a large gold ring is put through the noses of the little girls.

I wish I could find anything to send Willie, but I shall in time. I could find heaps of beautiful birds; but, except a friend would offer to take charge of one on the voyage, they are sure to die. However, I shall watch for an opportunity of sending him a pet, probably a lory. I have had a goat given me that is too handsome—an immense creature with white silk hair half a yard and more long. It stalks upstairs and into my room, and is a nice good-humoured animal. If he had not been a present from a near neighbour I should have liked to send him home. He does not smell at all, and is accustomed to carry children on his back.

We had rather a lively afternoon yesterday