There are a lot of planters, however, living round about.
We had callers this morning. Mr. Royle, to whose place we go on
Monday, rode over with his two small daughters, to say they would
expect us to stay with them. We meant to camp, but it will be much
pleasanter to stay with the Royles; everyone says they are charming
people.
Boggley and I went for a walk after tea to see the country. There
isn't much to see except a long, straight brown road and a most
insanitary-looking tank. The village is more interesting with its
queer booths. I do think it is an incongruous sight to see, as I
saw this afternoon, a native, naked but for a loin cloth, plying
a Singer's sewing-machine. The natives looked sullen and rather
suspicious, or is it only that I imagine it because they are so unlike
the broad-smiling Santals with their cheerful _johar_? There are four
trees before this bungalow, and at present two vultures are perching
on each--horrible creatures, with long, scraggy necks. I pointed them
out to Boggley, who was immediately reminded of a tale of a bumptious
young civilian, new to the country, who was told, by one who had
suffered many things at his hands, that the birds were wild turkeys, a
much-valued delicacy; hearing which the youth promptly shot some and
sent them round to the ladies of the station. Do you believe that
tale? I don't.
... We have just finished dinner--much the most amusing dinner I ever
ate. There is an intense rivalry, it seems, between our cook and the
engineer-man's cook; and although we dined together, our bills-of-fare
were kept jealously apart.
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