158 PATNA DURING THE MUTINY. 



damage to my peas, although I keep a boy whose sole occupation is 

 to frighten them away." 



"But only fancy, peas at Christmas ! " 



"Ah! that's all very well," my host exclaimed, "you must curb 

 your ecstasy, for the days are coming when you will long for the 

 cool green fields and pleasant pastures of old England." 



But after all the years of preparation, all the hours passed with 

 the Latin grammar, wet with tears, lying on my desk before me, and 

 all my songs at College, I was now to be put in harness, and begin 

 some really useful study which would enable me to communicate 

 with the natives over whom I had been called to rule. To this 

 end the Government sent me off to Patna, four hundred miles up 

 country, and as that was before the railroad days, I went by steamer 

 up the Ganges. 



That certainly was a delightful, never-to-be-forgotten voyage ; and 

 eagerly I sprang on shore each evening when the anchor dropped 

 to make acquaintance with the strange forms of life and vegetation 

 which thronged the banks. The old gardener at Daylesford House 

 would show me with much pride tuberoses, which he managed to 

 keep alive, although the thermometer marked ten degrees of frost, 

 and then he would point to a wretched india-rubber plant stuck in 

 an earthen pot. But here were tuberose trees covered with fragrant 

 blossoms in every garden on New Year's day, and gigantic india- 

 rubber trees with monkeys — real monkeys, not stuffed with straw, 

 as I had previously seen them in museums — peeping among the 

 branches, whilst parrakeets and other gaily-plumaged birds were 

 flying overhead. Nor was my enjoyment much disturbed by sinister 

 rumours which came to hand about the disaffection of the Sepoys. 



After a ten days' journey up the Ganges I duly arrived at Patna, 

 where at that time Mr. William Tayler was the Pro-Consul or 

 Commissioner, holding authority over the city containing 150,000 

 inhabitants and a large tract of thickly populated and highly fertile 

 country, which in size may be compared to the whole of Ireland. 



Shortly after my arrival, as the mutiny was assuming a serious 



