From Elephant Khcddcr to Crocodile Tank 371 



stituted a shrieking protest against good taste ; but 

 under the glowing Eastern sun, in a garden where tube- 

 roses were growing like daisies, making the air languid 

 with scent, where the shrill Indian birds were scream- 

 ing in the boughs, where the great trees seemed 

 abnormally cool and shady, the well-watered, open 

 lawns a giddy flare of hot sunlight, those scarlet-and- 

 gold walls, daring, glaring though they were, struck 

 the same key, and were true to nature, and therefore 

 good. 



The spirit of Tippoo Sultan, of his opulent, intrigu- 

 ing, and luxurious court, was surely somewhere in those 

 few debonair acres, not upon the ruined bastions of 

 the fort where he had died, nor under the silent 

 marble dome to which his body was consigned. 



Breakfast over, we drove to one more interesting 

 " memory " in Seringapatam, Colonel Scott's bungalow. 

 Years and years ago this man went away on service, 

 and when he came back to his bungalow he found his 

 wife and his children all dead of cholera. He went 

 straight away, back to England, leaving everything 

 behind him, and never turned eastwards again. The 

 Governor of Seringapatam issued an order that the 

 bungalow should be left as it was, untouched, for ever 

 and a day. 



We walked up the mossy, overgrown drive, through 

 a neglected compound scarcely to be recognised as 

 such now a small jungle of bamboos and palms, 

 into the deserted bungalow beyond, which stood open, 

 as Scott had walked out of it, a lifetime since. The 



