G. sniffed. _I_ sniffed. "Whatever
is it?" asked G. Mrs. Townley pointed riverwards to where a thin
column of blue-grey smoke rose and hung like a cloud in the hot, still
air.
"It's a burning ghat," she said. "They are burning a body."
And _that_ is India!
When one is feeling fairly peaceful and secure, something ghastly,
like the smell of burning Hindoo, recalls to one the uncertainty of
all things. We rose to go home, feeling depressed, the smell pursuing
us.
I have two pieces of news for this letter.
First, Boggley can take a few days' holiday at Christmas, so he means
to take me to Darjeeling to see if we can catch a glimpse of the
snows. We shall only be there from Saturday afternoon till Monday at
noon, and Boggley says that Kangchenjunga is often cloud-covered for
weeks, so it is a mere chance whether we shall see it. But surely,
surely Kangchenjunga won't be coy with me. I came to India, of course,
in the first place to see Boggley, but in the second place to see the
snows, and I can't believe that the gods will be so unkind as to deny
a humble worshipper of great mountains a sight of the vision glorious.
The other piece of news is quite important.
Boggley has got a new billet. What it is I shan't try to explain,
for I don't understand the game of General Post which is played so
frequently among Government officials, but it means that he will have
to go on a tour of inspection all over everywhere, and, what is more,
I shall go too.
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