Mem Sahib; Or Should She Have Told Him? (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VI. FIRST IMPRESSIONS. JLT is no doubt bad taste on my part, but I have never = much admired Calcutta; and I shall never quite forget my first view of it. The rainy season had set in, and the houses in Garden Reach, its principal suburb, being nearly all of stucco, had begun to show that discoloured and mouldy appearance which before the winter season would be scraped off them. The gardens, too, looked to me, in their luxuriance, wild and ill-kept, waiting, no doubt, till dry and cold weather enabled them to be trimmed. And as we entered the city itself, a thick misty rain concealed everything. The rainy season is far from being a pleasant one in Calcutta, and as the hotels are indifferent and expensive we resolved to stay there as short a time as possible, to leave in fact, as soon as we could get our belongings off the ship, and hear from headquarters of our destination. I found a letter from my mother, a heart-broken epistle, written in the midst of her preparations to leave Narborough. "My only comfort, darling, is that I am sure you will be happy," she wrote; and added a kind message to George, which cheered me somewhat. The station to which George was appointed was in the northern part of Bengal, and involved a three days' journey to reach it, the first day by train, the other two by palkis. We left Calcutta by the night train, and I was greatly pleased at the comfort of the carriage. Pulman cars were new inventions then, at home; therefore to find myself in a carriage fitted up with tables, sleeping berths, and a little dressing room with washing apparatus, seemed to me most luxurious. My comfort, however, was greatly interfered with by my first introduction to mosquitoes, which swarmed out of the cushions; in vain I tried to get a little s...