174 AUGUST 



familiar it will look. Mahgun has enough to 

 occupy him just now in weeding his new rosary. 

 The new red-brown plants are only a foot high, 

 but he declares they will have roses on them next 

 January. Then Unda and the Ancient may have 

 their "battle of flowers," again, after the one-day 

 blossoms have served their purpose at dinner 

 filling the room with rose-leaf sweetness and tonic 

 merriment, and raising the spirits of the ditch- 

 dwellers. As Mahgun sits at his work, I almost 

 think I can see the weeds growing under him. He 

 leaves them in bunches for one night, and next 

 day they are growing again. It takes him some 

 days to get all over it, and certainly by that time 

 he ought to begin afresh, as they are all up 

 again the same as at first. In parts of the garden 

 that have not been touched, the broad - leaved 

 grass and the wild alocasia are 4 feet high, all 

 mingled with a dense creeper, bearing white 

 starry flowers, that afterwards turn into a bright 

 red fruit, beloved by birds. How lovely the 

 trees look when in the rains they are covered 

 every evening with brilliant shimmering fire-flies ! 

 Thousands of them quiver in and out of the 



