secretaries and attaches, and maintains quite a little court.  Indeed, his quarters, his staff and his style of living are much more pretentious than those of the President of the United States, and his salary is quite as large.  Everywhere he goes he is escorted by a bodyguard of splendid looking native soldiers in scarlet uniforms, big turbans and long spears.  They are Sikhs, from the north of India, the greatest fighters in the empire, men of large stature, military bearing and unswerving loyalty to the British crown, and when the Governor of Bombay drives in to his office in the morning or drives back again to his lovely home at night, his carriage is surrounded by a squad of those tawny warriors, who ride as well as they look.

About half-way on the road to the government house is the Gymkhana, and I venture to say that nobody who has not been in India can guess what that means.  And if you want another conundrum, what is a chotohazree?  It is customary for smart people to have their chotohazree at the Gymkhana, and I think that you would be pleased to join them after taking the beautiful drive which leads to the place.  Nobody knows what the word was derived from, but it is used to describe a country club—­a bungalow hidden under a beautiful grove on the brow of a cliff that overhangs the bay—­with all of the appurtenances, golf links, tennis courts, cricket grounds, racquet courts and indoor gymnasium, and everybody stops there on their afternoon drive to have chotohazree, which is the local term for afternoon tea and for early morning coffee.

There are peculiar customs in Bombay.  The proper time for making visits everywhere in India is between 11 a. m. and 1:30 p. m., and fashionable ladies are always at home between those hours and seldom at any other.  It seems unnatural, because they are the hottest of the day.  One would think that common sense as well as comfort would induce people to stay at home at noon and make themselves as cool as possible.  In other tropical countries these are the hours of the siesta, the noonday nap, which is as common and as necessary as breakfast or dinner, and none but a lunatic would think of calling upon a friend after 11 in the morning or before 3 in the afternoon.  It would be as ridiculous as to return a social visit at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning, and the same reasons which govern that custom ought to apply in India as well as in Egypt, Cuba or Brazil.  But here ladies put on their best gowns, order their carriages, take their card cases, and start out in the burning noontide glare to return visits and make formal dinner and party calls.  Strangers are expected to do the same, and if you have letters of introduction you are expected to present them during those hours, and not at any other time.  In the cool of the day, after 5 o’clock, everybody who owns or can hire a carriage goes out to drive, and usually stops at the Gymkhana in the country or at the Yacht Club in the city for chotohazree.  It is a good