XXIX 

 THE INDIAN REDSTART 



POETS, naturalists, essayists, and novelists have 

 with one accord and from time immemorial 

 extolled the English spring. In this par- 

 ticular instance their eulogies are justified, 

 for spring in England is like a wayward maiden : when 

 she does choose to be amiable, she is so amiable that 

 her past perverseness is at once forgiven. But why 

 do not Anglo-Indian writers sing to the glories of the 

 Indian autumn ? Is it not worthy of all praise ? It is 

 the season which corresponds most nearly to spring 

 in England, and is as much longed for. Even as spring 

 chases away the gloomy, cheerless English winter, so 

 does autumn drive away the Indian hot weather, un- 

 pleasant everywhere, and terrible in the plains of the 

 Punjab and the United Provinces. Those condemned 

 to live in Portland Gaol probably suffer fewer physical 

 discomforts than they who spend the summer in any 

 part of the plains of Northern India. First, weeks of a 

 furnace-like heat, when to breathe seems an effort ; 

 then a long spell of close, steamy heat, so that the earth 

 seems to have become a great washhouse. From this 

 the Anglo-Indian emerges, limp, listless, and languid. 



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