Page:Letters from India Vol 2.pdf/91

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LETTERS FROM INDIA.
79

handsome plait of long hair; therefore my great care is to pinch my eyes up in the corners and flatten my nose, and, if that can be achieved, there will be something very attractive in the general appearance of Chang Foo Cottage, Knightsbridge. I know I shall be fined or imprisoned before I leave this, for snipping off by irresistible impulse the long plait of hair our Chinese shoemaker wears. It touches the ground, and one snip would have it off. Perhaps I may do it the very last thing, and scuttle off to the ship instantly with it, as my last trophy.

We should not send home all our furniture so soon, but we shall be away from Calcutta a year and a half, and that is quite enough in this country to injure anything that is not daily looked after and aired and wiped and cleaned; but they say that, left in Government House merely to the care of a few natives, the insects and the damp would have destroyed every item before our return. —— is selling off all his goods, books, arms, horses, curiosities, &c., all to be sold on Thursday; indeed, the newspaper is full of the results of our move. ‘To be sold, the property of Capt. ——, proceeding