Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/322

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314
LETTERS FROM INDIA.

and quiet, and we were the colour of lobsters. After a time I got on the elephant which we had sent up from Barrackpore, and at last George joined me, and we saw the review very well from thence. There was a mine blown up, which was a pretty sight, and shot nearly as redhot as the people looking on, and the thousands of spectators were past all calculation. ‘Me tell Missee Wright,’ Rosina said, ‘that my governor, poor ting, his hand ache with bow, bow, bow, to everybody’s salaam, and everybody say my governor very nice man.’

We got home in time to dress, then to the messroom, where we sat down with 200 people, George and I in the middle, supported by ‘the Brigadier’ and ‘Mrs. Colonel ——:’ don’t you see the sort of thing, with an ‘Auckland’ and stars and illuminations all above us, and the heat! My jemadar, with his usual cleverness had provided himself with a great fan, or I must have disappeared into my own plate, and been carried off by mistake for melted jelly. Then there were fireworks the instant dinner was over, and a ball the moment the fireworks were extinguished; and as soon as that began we came away, and the drive home