106 JUNE 



were known to be hidden. Thousands of natives 

 left the city every day, domestic servants among 

 them. Several people had hardly a servant left, 

 and one husband we knew had to pull his sick 

 wife's punkah all one night. We came off very 

 well, as none of ours fled. I asked one of them 

 why they didn't. He said, " Why should we go ! 

 everywhere is the same, and we know you would 

 do all you could for us, and we think we are 

 safest here." We never had a single case inside 

 the gates, but my poor laundry man succumbed, 

 as he lived outside. I constantly had the in- 

 teriors of their rooms washed with phenyl, 

 and even the wall syringed with it; and gave 

 them soap for their own ablutions, with strict 

 injunctions to the head man to act as Knight of 

 the Bath to all the rest. So, had the plague come 

 to us after all, it would not have been for want of 

 cleanliness. A most curious thing occurred some 

 years ago, whether in connection with plague or 

 what, no one knows to this day. One morning all 

 the mango trees for a hundred miles were found 

 blazed and daubed with mud. Who could have 

 done it, and why ? What did it portend ? Though 



