NOTES ON TRAVEL 249 



his employers, but not so much so as regarded their 

 interests. If they admired anything in their room, it 

 appeared in the next house they stayed at, and on one 

 occasion an entire set of toilet bottles that had been 

 on the dressing-table of the room in a friend's house, 

 where they had dressed and dined, appeared on their 

 table next morning. As he had a walk of over six miles 

 to restore them, he learned to curb his enthusiasm to 

 a certain extent, but books that he thought " his lady " 

 was reading he purloined till the last. 



The travelling was almost incessant, and not parti- 

 cularly pleasant just at that point. To save time, they 

 went mostly by night, and as they were coming from a 

 plague-infected area, at the boundary of every state 

 they entered official doctors came on the trains and 

 felt pulses and generally disturbed the travelling public. 

 Poonah and Bangalore were both possible sites, and 

 had to be seen. The latter was finally selected. Then 

 came Madras, where there were more colleges and 

 institutions to be visited, and people to be interviewed. 

 There they stayed with Mr. and Mrs. (now Sir John 

 and Lady) Atkinson, connections by marriage of Ram- 

 say's, and they did all they could, not only to help him 

 in his work but to make the time in Madras a very 

 happy one. A few days before their arrival the new 

 railway to Calcutta had been opened, and as going by 

 it would save a day or two the idea of the sea voyage 

 was given up, and on Christmas Eve they started on their 

 journey northwards. It was a very odd Christmas Day. 



