XX 



CHRISTMAS-TIME IN FOUR CONTINENTS 

 I. ASIA. 



WHEN Christmas came in 1865, the plains of Bhootan, 

 a country lying between Assam and Sikim, in North- 

 Eastern India, and with the former the wettest in the 

 world, had been just a year under English rule. In conse- 

 quence of perpetual raids into British territory, the Bhooteas 

 had been deprived of their low-lying possessions, the famous 

 Dooars, and turned out of a numbor of hill forts, really robber 

 nests, built on the lower spurs of the Himalayas, with but 

 slight opposition and loss. Fate had decreed that I should 

 spend more than a year in charge of the British garrison of 

 one of these, Fort Daling. A tiny fort, a speck in a vast 

 sea of jungle, perched on the summit of a conical hill, it 

 was surrounded on all sides but one by much higher mountains, 

 all covered with the densest vegetation of infinitely variegated 

 green. Towards the south, when not obscured by rain or 

 clouds, or mist, occasions most exceedingly rare, a distant 

 view could be obtained of the plains, the fertile but very 

 feverish Dooars, which at this time were covered with water. 

 Only at one point could this little fort be entered, at all 

 others the sides of our sugar-loaf hill fell away almost per- 

 pendicularly from the thick stone walls surrounding the summit, 

 against which walls the quarters of the garrison a battery 

 of artillery, a wing of the 31st Punjab Native Infantry, 

 some Engineers, and odds and ends were constructed entirely 

 of bamboo. It was a very cramped place, in the early days 

 hardly able to accommodate everybody, but by Christmas, when 

 nearly half of the old garrison had died, there was room in 

 plenty. 



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