REMINISCENCES OF SONEPORE. 



makers, but that was soon swallowed up, and their Camp was 

 soon beseiged by crowds of planters who wanted to get on 

 at any price, and wound up by offers to lay odds on Pereira 

 and Fenton, but these offers were unheeded. The match was 

 very soon over, as was only natural, when Mr. Pereira, one of 

 the best back court players in India with a lightening service, 

 and Fenton, as smart up at the net as they make them, met 

 two very average opponents. First set, six to one ; second 

 set, six to two, and the tale is told. 



It was a mystery at that Sonepore what used to become 

 during the middle of the day of one of the principal officers of 

 the Thibet Mission, the great Mr. Paul, who had visited the fair, 

 nominally to meet his old Behar friends, till, by chance, some 

 of us, from curiosity, entered one of the many booths on the 

 wayside, in which the gentle Jews turn an honest penny and 

 there he was, he the debonair bachelor, the beloved of Darjeel- 

 ing maidens, doing a roaring trade, disposing by auction of 

 surplus tooth brushes and sponges, thrown on Government by 

 the failure of that ill-fated misson. We left him just as he had 

 stuck an unwashed Rajah with 13 dozen of the former useful 

 articles at six pie each, and with a smile illuminating his speak- 

 ing countenance for he had received a wire announcing he had 

 got the district his soul yearned for, Darjeeling; but a tear 

 stood in his eye for a careless chuprassie had let down the 

 parcel containing the last lot of gum scrapers bang on his 

 gouty toe. Let us draw a veil over the rest of the scene. St. 

 Paul's Jorbation to the Corinthians was nothing to what that 

 chuprassie received. Among other visitors to the meeting 

 was Colonel Macnaghten, a brother of Edmond's, who was on 

 the look out for remounts for his regiment. As ill luck would 

 have it his men, without asking anyone in authority where to 

 put his tent, selected a vacant spot between two small hill 

 tents, in one of which was located Frank Johnson, and in the 

 other the. irrepressible Bertie Short. On the morning after 



