I was with the Ormondes and, of course, Boggley.  Mrs. Ormonde is so charming, she is a great favourite with men, and is always surrounded when she goes anywhere by about half a dozen eager for her smiles.  She has the quaintest way of handing her surplus cavaliers on to me, but I really much prefer Victor and Boggley as companions.  They don’t need to be amused like other men, and are always good-natured and funny.

I am feeling a little pale with all the excitement, and shall be glad of the change to Darjeeling to-morrow.  Next mail you shall hear all about it—­that is to say, if no person, seditiously inclined, derails the train or does anything horrid.  Some very dreadful things have been happening lately, but I don’t think there is much danger so long as we keep far from the vicinity of dignitaries.

Calcutta, New Year’s Day.

Wednesday already, the mail goes to-morrow, and I with so much to write about.

To begin—­we left Calcutta on Friday afternoon and got to the Ganges about eight, when we embarked in a ferry-boat to cross the river.  It was quite a big steamer, with dinner-tables laid out on deck, decorated for Christmas with palm-branches, Chinese lanterns, and large, deadly-looking iced cakes.

On the other side, the train was waiting that was to take us to Siliguri, and we lost no time in looking for places.  Indian trains are rather different from our trains.  Each carriage has two broad seats running lengthways, which pull out for sleeping berths, and two other berths that let down from the roof.  I found I had to share a carriage with two other females, and an upper berth fell to my share.

The bearer arranged my bed, and Boggley took a glance round, asked if I were all right, and departed to his own place.  Isn’t it a queer idea to carry one’s bedding about with one?  Pillows, blankets, and a quilt, all done up in a canvas hold-all, accompany people wherever they travel—­in trains, hotels, even when staying with friends.

Well, there was I shut up for the night with two strange women, mother and daughter evidently, American certainly; and the horror of an upper berth staring me in the face!  It is quite an experience to sleep in the upper berth of an Indian train.  To begin with, it takes an acrobat of no mean order to reach it at all, and once you are in your nose almost touches the roof of the carriage.  As I climbed to my lofty perch one of the American ladies remarked, “I guess, child, you ain’t going to have the time of your life up there to-night.”  And I hadn’t.  Every time the train gave a jolt—­which it did every few seconds—­I clung wildly to the straps to keep myself from descending suddenly and violently to the floor; and in less than an hour every bone in my body was crying out against the inhuman hardness of my couch.  In spite of everything, I fell asleep, and awoke feeling colder than I ever remember feeling before.  I started up, banging