84 SIR VICTOR BROOKE CHAP. 



delightful. Up before day, and sitting on a crag which 

 overlooks a wide extent of wood and glade, waiting for 

 the clouds to melt away and the sun to rise, when, like 

 a panorama before me, suddenly appears the whole 

 extent of blue mountains, and many a wild nook and 

 corner, with either the stately bison or an old stag feed- 

 ing unconsciously below us ; the little gay-coloured birds 

 making the beautiful green woods quite joyous with 

 their morning notes, the crows of the wild-cock (com- 

 mon fowl), and perhaps far away the majestic roar 

 of the * dread destroyer,' as he goes to his mountain 

 home. Midst such wild scenes as this I have spent 

 many a happy hour, and hope to do so again. I am 

 working very hard at every Indian subject. The his- 

 tory (most complicated, and allowed by all to be most 

 puzzling), natural history, religious manners and customs 

 of the Hindoos and Mussulmen (the latter are Arabs, 

 who overran the country years ago, and governed it till 

 we took it from them), and last, but by no means the 

 least important, the present Government of India. I 

 am deeply interested in it, and shall always feel so 

 in fact, feel almost an old Indian (not in mind, I most 

 fervently hope). The curious characters I have met 

 this last three months would make a book. I am 

 thoroughly up in all coffee -planter's matters, having 

 stopped off and on a month with one (Porter of the 

 Barbaboodens). It is a most money-making business, 

 and I would like to see Harry well in one. It beats 

 the army to fits ; you learn more and see more of real 

 life, and in ten years you return worth three or four 

 thousand a year. I have met three or four young 

 fellows who are off home, married and settled in Eng- 

 land at the age of thirty, with such like good fortune. 

 That's better than retiring with your pension, minus 

 one leg, or something as melancholy. Besides, the 



