they generally get into violent political arguments; so on Friday evening they had set in to their smoking—eight of them, and a row of servants round them, and about twenty jackals again beyond them. Fairy had only jumped off ’s knee one moment before they heard a little shriek, which they took to be a cat screaming; and then they heard another noise, and one of the Hurkarus saw a jackal carrying off Fairy by the throat; so then they all ran and frightened the beast away, and Fairy was picked up with her throat and paws shockingly torn, and apparently so dead that told one of the men to bury her. But after the man carried her off she showed signs of life, and her funeral was countermanded, and now she has been nursed and petted for a week, and is getting better. She screamed and howled terribly for two days, and, as dogs that have been bitten by jackals generally go mad, it has been necessary to keep her in a large cage; but I think now she will recover. There are sometimes fifty jackals at a time round the house at Barrackpore, and I assure you, my dear , that I have not a moment’s peace about the Prince Royal, only I think his
