Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/185

 oneself and horse. I begged, in a tone of the most dignified cowardice, to be allowed to get off; and then, it was rather grand to see the elephants crash through the hedges to hide behind the bamboos while George passed.

I rather like the great animals of this country; I could make a friend of an elephant, and I have my suspicions that if I were to fall in with a stray tiger or alligator, and had time given me to talk to them, they might listen to reason; but the reptile class is a dreadful one. The snakes almost take possession of the place during this month. The other night at that ball at Government House, they killed a centipede close by my foot: as Emily and I are almost the only women of any age who do not dance, I suppose it thought it could not do better. And there is a new horror burst upon me in the shape of spiders. They do say, that there are spiders as large as the palm of a hand, and that those spiders are poisonous, inasmuch, that wherever you are touched by them, large blisters rise.

Do you ever work now? The natives embroider beautifully.

I shall put this up to-day. No more ships Rh