How is your garden? You have not mentioned any particular change in your East Combe grounds, and you rather neglect Dandy in your letters. Chance is particularly well, and has found a new pursuit in some yellow flying frogs in a tank at Barrackpore, quite as good flying fish as any I saw at sea, though they say they skim along the water only by the assistance of their very long legs. However, the ‘Prince Royal’ puts them up on the bank, and points as if they were partridges, and then goes in after them; and a flying-frog pursuit is evidently extremely fascinating, as his man had to go into the water to fetch him out of it, all entreaties having failed.
I always meant to tell you of an ixora at Barrackpore, which grows so like a twisted thorn, and the stem is eight feet in circumference. It is covered with those beautiful scarlet flowers. Don’t you remember when you and I went over to Bromley Hill House we raved about the ixoras? We have such accounts of trees and shrubs in the Himalayas; I think you had better come and join us there. It is no trouble, and a lovely climate—fires and blankets quite pleasant, they say. We can build you a house
