shadows of the trees along shady walks, and the blaze of colour in the formal garden surrounding the white marble fountain in front of the house is positively dazzling.  The house was built especially as a hot-weather residence, and as such is not particularly successful, for it is one of the hottest buildings in the whole of India.  The dining-room is in the centre of the house, and has no windows whatever; an arrangement which, though it may shut out the sun, also excludes all fresh air as well.  The bedrooms extend up through two storeys, and are so extremely lofty that one has the sensation of sleeping in a lift-shaft.  Apart from its heat, the house has a dignified old-world air about it, with vague hints of Adam decoration in its details.

The establishment of Government House consisted of five hundred and twenty servants, all natives, so it could not be termed short-handed.  With so many men, the apparently impossible could be undertaken.  Lord Lansdowne left Calcutta for Barrackpore every Saturday afternoon.  As soon as we had gone into luncheon at Calcutta on the Saturday, perfect armies of men descended on the private part of the house and packed up all the little things about the rooms into big cases.  An hour later they were on their way up the river by steamer, and when we arrived at Barrackpore for tea, the house looked as though it had been lived in for weeks, with every object reposing on the tables in precisely the same position it had occupied earlier in the day in Calcutta.  Late on Sunday night this process was reversed for the return journey at seven on Monday morning.  The Viceroy had a completely fitted-up office in his smart little white-and-gold yacht, and was able to get through a great deal of work on his voyage down the Hooghly before breakfast on Monday mornings.  A conscientious Viceroy of India is one of the hardest-worked men in the world, for he frequently has ten hours of office work in the day, irrespective of his other duties.

An enormous banyan tree stands on the lawn at Barrackpore.  I should be afraid to say how much ground it covers; perhaps nearly an acre, for these trees throw down aerial suckers which form into fresh trunks, and so spread indefinitely.  Lady Lansdowne thought she would have a bamboo house built in this great banyan tree for her little daughter, the same little girl for whom I had built the snow-hut at Ottawa, for she happens to be my god-daughter.  It was to be a sort of “Swiss Family Robinson” tree-house, infinitely superior to the house on the tree-tops of Kensington Gardens, which Wendy destined for Peter Pan.  The house was duly built, with bamboo staircases, and little fenced-off bamboo platforms fitted with seats and tables, at different levels up the tree.  The Swiss Family Robinson would have gone mad with jealousy at seeing such a desirable aerial abode, so immeasurably preferable to their own, and even Wendy might have felt a mild pang of envy.  When the house was completed, one of the Aides-de-Camp inspected it and found a snake hanging by its tail from a branch right over one of the little aerial platforms.  He reported that the tree was full of snakes.  The risk was too great to run, so prompt orders were given to demolish the house, and the little girl never enjoyed her tree-top playground.