Dr. Russel has built a hospital, and the natives come from far and near bringing their sick.  As I sit here writing, they come trooping past, taking a short cut past the bungalow, stopping to stare at me quite unabashed, sometimes carrying a sick child, sometimes a blind old man or woman.  They know they can come at any time and the Padre Sahib will never tell them to go away.  It is different with a Government official.  He is hedged round by chuprassis who levy toll on the poor natives before they allow them to enter the presence of the Sahib.  It is a scandal, but it seems impossible to stop it.  You may catch a chuprassi in the act, you may beat him and insist on his handing back the money, but almost before your back is turned the annas or pice have changed hands again!  It is dustoor!

My first view of the hospital was rather a shock.  Nothing was what I had expected.  The beds are square blocks of cement, without even a mattress.  The patients bring their own bedding and their cooking pots and pans, and generally a friend to look after them.  The said friends camp all round the hospital, and it is pretty to see them at sunset, each cooking his evening meal over his own little fire.  This morning being Sunday I went to a service at the hospital.  The mingled smell of carbolic, hookahs, and coco-nut oil was, I confess, rather overpowering, but when Dr. Russel asked me, “Is this at all interesting to you, or is it merely disgusting?” I could reply truthfully that it was more interesting than disgusting.  The patients sat rolled up in their blankets, and listened while the tale of the Prodigal Son was read to them, holding up their hands in horror when they heard he herded swine:  they regard that as a very low job indeed.  It is odd the way they respond:  just as if during church service at home a man were to answer each statement made by the clergyman, “Right you are, guv’nor.”

Coming home, we saw a native cooking his dinner on a little charcoal fire, and as I passed he threw the contents of the pot away.  Surprised, I asked why.  “Because,” I was told, “your shadow fell on it and defiled it!”

One can hardly overestimate the boon a man like Dr. Russel is to a district.  Trust is a plant of slow growth with the natives, but they have learned to trust him entirely, and go to him in all their troubles as children go to a father.  And he has a very real helpmate in his wife.  I never saw such a busy woman.  If she isn’t in the hospital helping at operations (she has a medical degree), she is teaching girls to sew, or women to read, and yet the children are beautifully cared for, and the house excellently managed.  I suppose most women would pity Mrs. Russel sincerely.  She passes her life in a place many miles from another European, with absolutely no society, no gaieties, no theatres, not even shops where she can while away the time buying things she doesn’t want.  Yet I never met a woman so utterly satisfied with her lot.  Honestly, I don’t think she has a single thing left to wish for:  devoted to her husband, devoted to her children, heart and soul in her work.