Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/229

 showmen mimicked old women and English sailors, greatly to the amusement of our servants.

Saturday, August 13. Mr. Blunt arrived from China, where he went about three months ago, and took some commissions from us to the C. Elliots, which they have not yet had time to execute; but Mrs. Elliot has sent us two very pretty filagree card-cases of silver, and a delicious piece of satin for George, much too good to be the dressing-gown she calls it. Mr. Blunt, too, has brought two Siamese partridges for our menagerie, the only entirely new birds I have seen. They are very small, something like the breast of a peacock on the back, with rich brown crests and scarlet legs, and all other colours speckled here and there, somehow, or another.

George is going to build a school, at his own private expense, for native children, and we went to look for a corner of the Park to put it in.

Monday, August 15. We were in Calcutta by half-past seven.

The theatre is almost finished, and is as