Page:Letters from India Vol 2.pdf/123

 here, and then I walk to the window—the open window—and look at the hills crimson with rhododendrons and the mountains covered with snow. I also notice the ceilings without punkahs and people riding and walking in the sunshine, which makes me feel like the same species of human creature I was in England. If we finish off the Dost Mahomed war before our time to go home, I mean to declare war upon old Colonel Japp, the magistrate, who lives in a fortified house on a fine, rocky hill. It will take us the odd six months to reduce him, and then we would drive through Calcutta straight on board ship.

I have not told you anything about Tharawaddie lately; we are not at war with him, so it is not from personal pique I speak. But I cannot think it right of him to have flayed fourteen of his subjects alive the other day upon suspicion of some petty crime. There are other horrid stories about him. What it must be to have that sort of man as a despot over one!

April 18. has just returned from his tiger-shooting, looking all the better for being run