known. Now it is deserted by the sea and by Cupid. The band no longer plays there and the matches are made elsewhere.
Capper House still stands upon the beach near the sea, but it is buried in a casuarina grove that has sprung up since we spent our first night in India. The house was named after Colonel Capper, who built it at the end of the eighteenth century as a private dwelling-house when he retired from the command of the Madras Artillery at St. Thomas's Mount. It is a fine building, pillared with polished chunam columns that look like marble. Here, apparently, the famine had actually penetrated, for the native manager of the hotel came to us an hour after our arrival and borrowed two rupees with which to purchase provisions so he said for dinner that evening and break- fast the next morning. He boldly pleaded the famine as a reason for his destitution and the necessity for a loan. Subsequent experience with the natives and poor Eurasians raised a doubt in our minds as to the truth of his statement.
Indeed, the famine entered into every topic of conversation, and served as an excuse for all kinds of actions. Well-to-do Eurasians came to beg because of the famine. They lost their employment and pleaded for help because of the famine. They could not come to church or send their children to school because of the famine. It even penetrated to the Europeans, and ladies excused themselves from offering hospitality because of the famine. I was given to understand that Madras was a very different sort of place before it was overshadowed by the calamity.
At that time Frederick Gell was the bishop of the diocese, and Charles B. Drury was the archdeacon. The former, who was away on tour at the time, was tall and very thin in figure, a great contrast to the archdeacon,
