396 A Sportswoman in India 



Down at the Yacht Club in Bombay something 

 akin to a halo attaches to anybody known to be going 

 home soon to be actually in the streets of London, 

 and seen and heard no more on this side the globe. 



Eight days before departure, and a thin line of 

 smoke on the horizon of the Indian Ocean heralds the 

 in-coming mail, the sound of the big gun at the fort 

 booms up to Malabar Hill, for the great weekly link 

 with England is coming in. Until the following 

 Saturday the steamer lies up in dock, being generally 

 overhauled, not provisioned, for she carries out from 

 London sufficient supplies for the return voyage. 



Saturday morning, . . . and I say farewell to the white 

 bungalow, to my own especial fat ayah, to the pressing 

 group of thin, angular, beady-eyed servants, cook, 

 dhobie and all assembled unabashed for expected tips ; 

 good-bye to the cool garden with broad plantain leaves 

 round a quaint well, to the shady porch filled with 

 green maidenhair fern. 



Down Malabar Hill we wind ; the blue bay spreads 

 below us, a few white yachts float idly in a "dead calm, 

 the picturesque native boats lie pulled up on the beach, 

 right away in the distance is the long black hull of the 

 great steamer which in a few hours will actually be on 

 her way to England. Even now it is hard to realise 

 that India will this evening be a thing of the past. 



We drive along by the shore, where the polo-ponies are 

 brought by their syces to stand in the sea every morning, 

 where on the wet sand we have had many a merry 

 gallop. In the road we meet the usual string of Parsee 



