I have come in from a ride with Boggley.  The proper time to ride is early morning, but I am too lazy and too timid to go when the place is crowded, and so we ride in the cool of the evening, when we have the race-course almost to ourselves.  I ride one of Boggley’s polo ponies, Solomon by name.  Boggley says he is as quiet as a lamb, but I am not sure that he is speaking the strict truth; he has some nasty little ways, it seems to me.  He bites for one thing.  We were riding with a man the other night and quite suddenly his pony got up in the air and nearly threw him. Solomon had bitten him.  The man looked at me as if it were my fault, and I regret to say I laughed.  He has also an ungentlemanly way of trying to rub me off against the railings, and then again, for no apparent reason, he suddenly scurries wildly across the Maidan while I pull desperately, but impotently, with fingers weak from fright.  Boggley coming behind convulsed with laughter, merely remarks that I am a funk-stick—­which, I take it, means the worst kind of coward.

29th.

Think where I have been for the last three days!

Down the river in a launch.  That kind Mrs. Townley was taking G. and asked Boggley if I might go.  We had to leave on Saturday morning before seven to catch the tide, so I warned Bella that she must bring my chota-hazri before six; but I woke and found it was after six, and there were no signs of the perfidious little black Bella.  I wasn’t nearly ready when G. rushed in, but I threw on garments and we fled, while Boggley, in his dressing-gown, followed with a parting benediction of Peliti’s cake as a substitute for tea and toast.  We found the launch delightfully comfortable, not to say luxurious.  It had been done up for some of the royalties who were out here.  There were only we three on board and three young sailor men, so it was a blessedly peaceful three days.  We lay on deck and watched the life of the river, all the ships a-sailing, big ships from Dundee and Greenock, German ships, French ships, every kind and nationality of ships down to the curious native craft.  Sometimes we passed a little village on the river-bank with a temple and an idol on a mound.  When we anchored in the afternoon two of the officers went on shore to shoot, and the sailors let down a net and caught delicious fish for dinner.  I did wish Peter had been there.  He would have felt like Robinson Crusoe and rejoiced in it all.  At dinner the young men told us wonderful stories of their adventures with snakes and tigers.  One man said that he was having his bath one morning when a snake came up the pipe.  When it saw him it went down again, but as it was disappearing he pulled it back by its tail.  Again it tried to go down and again he pulled it back, and then the snake took a look at him and went down tail first.

I believed every word, but when I came home and related the amazing tales to Boggley he received them with derisive shouts of laughter, and said they had been spinning us sailors’ yarns.