have a cup of tea and meet Mrs. Hauksbee, the Gadsbys, and all the rest we knew so well! We wanted, too, to hear more about those long-past seasons when occult science and the new religion were setting Simla wild; when Mme. Blavatsky, the suspected Russian spy, was working her miracles, and great mahatmas and yogis were arriving from nowhere, with nothing in their hands, and letters dropped from the ceiling as commonly as from the postman's bag. A. P. Sinnett, the editor of the Pioneer, was leader in the occult movement, and by his "Esoteric Buddhism" and "Karma" theosophy spread to the Occident. We had glimpses of those days in "Mr. Isaacs," and Mr. Crawford's Ram Lal is to be taken seriously. The whole clumsy fraud had been exposed when Kipling came, and in "The Sending of Dana Da" we have an irreverent account of a specimen case. When all the claptrap and collusion, the mechanical devices and unblushing frauds had been exposed, laughter shook the Himalayan hills, and the rich natives, who had financed the apostles as furthering a crusade against Christianity and mission work, were left in tears. The London Society for Psychical Research sent their keenest investigator, and there was no mystery left—Isis was completely unveiled, and theosophy has since been a dead issue in Simla; and all its miracles were proved to be in line with Dana Da's sending of the kittens.
In February we walked the terraced promenade by the reservoir alone, and had the sunset view of the snowy range quite to ourselves. Three small
