Page:Letters from India Vol 2.pdf/134

 nor Tories are really governing. Why don’t you do as we do when things are at a standstill—go and take a city? Leominster is famous for its carpets; so is Cabul. Go and take Leominster.

There is an awful number of morning visitors just now upon the break-up of the rains. We regulate all we do in India by the weather; the morning visiting result is amongst the most painful.

September 15.

We are in such a way; the July letters won’t come, and have been due these ten days. And people have brought forward a horrible idea—that there is war in Egypt, and that all the letters are stopped and will have to go back to England, and then round by the Cape, in which case we shall hear something of you this time twelvemonth. I now know in its fullest extent what is meant by the ‘horrors of war,’ but I don’t remember ever reading in history of anything so bad. From all you were made to swallow last year about the Punjâb, I expect you to have the most profound interest about its state, now Kurruck is reigning and Run-