86 A COLLECTING TRIP 
aay 
From Lucknow we went at nine o’clock in the 
forenoon to Benares, where we arrived at half past 
seven the following morning. We drove about there 
all day and about half past three in the afternoon 
we left for Caleutta where we arrived at 7.41 this 
morning. Resamond is now writing to you about 
Benares. 
Good bye; love to all from 
Your son 
Tom. 
S. S. Bangala, December 11, 1906. 
Dear Mother : 
This has been a very pleasant trip; the sea has 
been like a mill pond — fortunately for us, as this 
ship is just about one-tenth the size of a trans-Atlantic 
liner and we have eight hundred miles of open sea to 
eross. The trip down the Hooghly river from Calcut- 
ta to the Bay of Bengal, one hundred and twenty 
miles, is very interesting. There are so many peculiar 
types of boats, all very clumsy according to our ideas. 
We have some good photographs of them, I think. We 
shall now soon be in the entrance of that branch of the 
Irrawaddy on which Rangoon is situated. We intend 
to remain there about three days, for it is a rather 
warm place, and then go up country to Mandalay 
and, if we can secure a comfortable river boat, on to 
Bhamo and Katha, almost on the boundary of the 
Chinese province of Yunnan. The scenery is said to 
be very grand along the upper river; the people, who 
are Shans and Kachins, are very wild, often attack- 
ing the Chinese caravans. Almost all the rubies in the 
world come from up that way. I would like to see the 
