Fourteen Thousand Feet High 201 



Delhi, Agra, and a few more places which the horrors 

 of the Mutiny surround with a morbid interest. 



It is unkindly said that the gentler sex are shipped 

 across to the East, provided with costly trousseaux, 

 for the mere purpose of meeting gallant captains and 

 prosperous chief commissioners, noble Benedicts who 

 for many years have run the gauntlet of the pick of 

 the very limited ladies 1 society up country, coming 

 unscathed out of the fire, and are only destined now 

 to fall before the latest coiffure from home. 



I am afraid this old wives' tale no longer holds 

 water, and that the palmy days for the women have 

 followed in the wake of other " good old days." It 

 is so easy to run home on three months' leave every 

 subaltern does it ; it is so easy to run out from 

 England every wife and every sister does it ; and 

 thus it comes to pass that there is nothing new under 

 the sun ; that matrimony cannot pose as an unknown 

 and intoxicating Paradise ; in short, familiarity and 

 close inspection betray the copper through the Sheffield 

 plate. 



But time has changed the Mem-sahib, too more of 

 that presently ; suffice it to say that there are, every 

 year, women who come out, and who travel over the 

 globe, with the object of seeing other sides of that 

 interesting individual, man, other corners of the 

 world, other occupations, and other sports women, 

 in short, who will enjoy a little discomfort for the 

 sake of experience. 



To rove about in gipsy fashion, meeting with trifling 



