Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/176

 We came here this week quite alone, and settled to ask nobody all the week, and to wear our common coloured gowns, and not to talk all the morning, and to enjoy little luxuries of that sort, and to have a juggler with snakes; and, above all, to drag one of the large ponds in the park, which we did, and I had not an idea there were so many and such large fish in the Ganges as came to land in the net—such varieties, and thousands of small fish!

Fish is the only thing, except rice, that the natives will eat, and this is the only time I have ever seen our servants excited. There were about two hundred of them round the pobegging for fish, and the instant Captain Byrne gave them leave to help themselves the scramble began; and it was great fun to see some of them running off with great fish three feet long, and others, who could not pick up more than a gudgeon, scolding and gesticulating; and there was Chance yapping about in the water after every fish that escaped, and ’s tame otter helping himself, and the elks standing wondering what we were doing to their pond. All last night were little fires round the house with the servants cooking their treasure.