winters, though cold, are dry, and there is no real rainy
season, the damp weather spreading itself over the
summer months. Rains being very local, too, it is not
difficult to remove from too plashy parts to drier regions.
In cases of consumption and heart disease the climate
has proved peculiarly restorative, and the dryness of the
cold months makes it delightful to those to whom
ordinary cold is trying. Malarial fever is not at all
common, and enteric is practically unknown. In such
cases as are recorded, the germs of the disease have been
brought into the country by the sufferers. Children
thrive here as they would in England, and look as bonnie
and ruddy; in fact, if it were not for the difficulties of
education, there is no reason that they should ever be
sent home. Even this difficulty may eventually be overcome
.M
en of education and college training have gone
out as heads of native schools, and if the number of
residents increases in the way it has of late, it may be a
profitable undertaking for one to turn his talents and
attention to the instruction and training of white youth.
For girls the difficulties are less considerable. Many
a young woman with a taste for seeing over her own
potato patch and wandering afield, tired of the struggle
at home among many competitors for paid teaching, will
be glad to go out and follow her profession in a country
where much is done to ameliorate the dreariness of a
governess’s life.
Then for hobbies and amusements there is ample
provision. Various English gardens I visited, blazing
with flowers raised from English seeds and plants, were
an encouragement to any with the smallest taste for
gardening. Rich soil, clear, abundant supply of water, a
strong sun, and cheap labour:—are not these conditions
good enough to tempt the laziest to make the small
effort necessary to produce such rich results!
The heat is never so great as to make work unpleasant,
and it is vastly more repaying than in the plains.
Then there is much to' be done in the way of
collecting, complete and careful collections of natural
products, minerals, flowers, etc., being badly wanted
for an accurate knowledge of the country. Good
specimens of coins, curios, and stamps are in demand,
for there is not yet anything like a real record of the
land.B
esides these things, much can be learned from the
natives themselves and their methods of carving, painting,
and metal beating are curious and worth imitation.
For those who prefer out-door exercises, every kind can
be enjoyed—-boating, swimming in the summer, skating,
tobogganing, and sleighing in the winter. There are
good links in various places for golfers. Tennis can also
be indulged in, and for men there are. cricket and football
of varying quality.. Riding of every sort is to be had—
from polo, on well-kept grounds, to wild paper chases,
and still wilder hunts and wanderings on pony backs
among the mountains, where the difficulties and dangers
are such as to please the most ardent seeker of adventure.
For the artistic, the land is so full of beauties of
every kind that no one- for an instant need be without
subject for pencil, brush, or camera, and music may be
indulged as in no other part of India, the climate being
kinder to all instruments. Pianos do not go out of tune
after an hour’s rains, or violins, zithers, etc., crack from
long-continued drought as they do in those parts where
extremes and changes are more sudden,
u