1 8 General L ife, A m use men ts, etc. 



serve to adorn the bungalow. The flower garden will 

 also require a good deal of care, and will furnish 

 employment for every spare minute. Then there is 

 always work of some sort to do, and should our 

 Assistant still find the time of an evening hang heav- 

 ily upon his hands, he should get some instrument, 

 never mind of what sort, from a hundred-guinea 

 violin or piano down to a penny tin whistle, and 

 practise it until he can play. He need never fear 

 the sound jarring on the native nerves, or offending 

 native ears : these are the only ones likely to hear 

 him. The native of -India is positively fond of dis- 

 cordant sounds ; and he will probably, on slipping out 

 into his verandah in the darkness of the stilly night, 

 after performing every direst kind of excruciating 

 discord on his instrument for the time being violin for 

 preference, if any find, as one assistant did, his chow- 

 kidar behind the door, wrapped in profoundest ex- 

 tacies at the dulcet sounds he had been producing ; 

 and he will be greeted with a respectful but confiden- 

 tially whispered : " Wah / wah ! Huzoor ! ap hhoob 

 bajanewallah hai" which being interpreted is Pushtoo- 

 Sanskrit for : " Well and neatly executed, oh ! pre- 

 server of the poor ; Paganini Sahib himself, were he 

 here, might have been willing, or even anxious, to quote 

 the ever-verdant Artemus, to die after having heard 

 such a masterly medley of sweet sounds as thou, oh \ 



