Tea finished, while we still sat loath to leave, a curious odour forced itself upon our attention.  G. sniffed. I sniffed.  “Whatever is it?” asked G. Mrs. Townley pointed riverwards to where a thin column of blue-grey smoke rose and hung like a cloud in the hot, still air.

“It’s a burning ghat,” she said.  “They are burning a body.”

And that is India!

When one is feeling fairly peaceful and secure, something ghastly, like the smell of burning Hindoo, recalls to one the uncertainty of all things.  We rose to go home, feeling depressed, the smell pursuing us.

I have two pieces of news for this letter.

First, Boggley can take a few days’ holiday at Christmas, so he means to take me to Darjeeling to see if we can catch a glimpse of the snows.  We shall only be there from Saturday afternoon till Monday at noon, and Boggley says that Kangchenjunga is often cloud-covered for weeks, so it is a mere chance whether we shall see it.  But surely, surely Kangchenjunga won’t be coy with me.  I came to India, of course, in the first place to see Boggley, but in the second place to see the snows, and I can’t believe that the gods will be so unkind as to deny a humble worshipper of great mountains a sight of the vision glorious.

The other piece of news is quite important.

Boggley has got a new billet.  What it is I shan’t try to explain, for I don’t understand the game of General Post which is played so frequently among Government officials, but it means that he will have to go on a tour of inspection all over everywhere, and, what is more, I shall go too.  Isn’t it fine?

Boggley actually hesitated about accepting, because he thought I should so hate to leave Calcutta and its gaieties to wander in the jungle.  It isn’t that I don’t enjoy Calcutta; I do, and I am most grateful to the people who have given me such a good time; but I pine to see something of the real India.  Calcutta might be a suburb of London.  I want to see the native of India, not the fat babu; I want to live in tents and be a gipsy; I want to have Boggley all to myself.  We have hardly time at present to pass the time of day with each other.

Boggley tries to frighten me with tales of dak-bungalows and jungly cooking, but I won’t be frightened; I am looking forward to it all too much.

We don’t go till the beginning of January, so I shall be able to attend the Drawing-Room and a few other tamashas before we depart.

This will have to do for a letter this week.  I must clean some gloves now.  That is the only useful thing I do, clean G.’s gloves and my own.  We dirty so many pairs of long white gloves, and it is cheaper to clean them at home.  You do it with petrol and a small piece of flannel, and the result isn’t bad, though somewhat streaky.  G’s part is to sit on my bed and watch me do it, assisted by Bella on the floor.  It reminds me of the inhabitants of the Scilly Islands, who, it is said, earn a precarious livelihood by taking in each other’s washings!