charged at the rate of three annas per mile when full,
half that when empty, or cart and oxen fourpence
to sixpence per mile. Not a very extravagant rate !
Here is a sketch of my elegant travelling carriage,
Having left Bangalore at eight o’clock in the evening,
I travelled with tolerable ease until ten the next
morning, when we halted at Yedoor. The Government
bungalow here, like those along the whole line
of the journey, was clean, and being provided with the
prescribed articles of furniture and a good bath-room,
1 soon felt reconciled to my mode of travelling, and
enjoyed the excellent breakfast put before me by
“ George,” such was the chosen name my factotum
indulged in. In fact, the tea I had brought from
Bangalore, ^genuine Neilgherry, I thought much
superior to any China I had ever tasted at home ; and
as for the rice and curry, George was a perfect master
of his a r t ; and how different good Indian curry, made
of fresh ingredients and condiments, to the stale ready-
mixed stuff you buy at home in the shape of paste or
powder t The pinions and liver of a fowl, a vegetable,
sardines or eggs, nay, even toast cut up small, make
excellent material for curry.
The day was excessively hot, and impossible to stir
beyond the verandah, which faced a dreary, sandy-
looking garden, in which trees struggled hard for an
existence ; all that showed life were a few shrubs, producing
a pretty butterfly-like flower of deep orange to
bright scarlet. As soon as it got tolerably .cool, I
renewed my journey, stopping at Heerasavi for supper.
Here the bungalow being occupied by two gentlemen,
who showed little civility, I made my stay as short as
possible, and managed to reach Hassan, an important
Mysore city, early next morning. In making the above
remark I must, however, in common justice state, that
as a rule one meets with the greatest attention and
assistance, when required, from one’s fellow-travellers in
India. On a similar occasion, arriving late one evening
at the bungalow, and finding every room and corner in
it occupied by ladies, gentlemen, and children, I was at
once hospitably admitted into the midst of a party just