Page:Wanderings in India, and Other Sketches of Life in Hindostan.djvu/15

 WANDERINGS IN INDIA.

THE HIMALAYA CLUB.

It is some eighteen years since this institution was founded, at Mussoorie, one of the chief sanataria in the Himalaya mountains. Here all those who can obtain leave, and who can afford the additional expense, repair to escape the hot weather of the plains. The season begins about the end of April, and ends about the first week in October. The club is open to the members of the civil and military service to the members of the bar, the clergy, and to such other private gentlemen as are on the Government House list, which signifies, "in society." The club-house is neither an expensive nor an elegant edifice, but it answers the purposes required of it. It has two large rooms, one on the ground-floor, and the other on the upper story. The lower room, which is some sixty feet long by twenty-five wide, is the dining-room, breakfast-room, and reception-room. The upper room is the reading and the ball-room. The club has also its billard room, which is built on the ledge of a precipice; and its stables,