candle-bells, and a British profusion of electroplated furnishings. The butler, three assistants, David and Daniel, a pankha boy, and whispering coolies uncounted beyond the latticed door, combined to serve a good dinner to perfection. We wondered how the residential guests were faring with so much of the headquarters staff on duty in our apartment, and the next day learned that we were the only guests in the new hotel; that the invisible manager was a myth, and the black butler the greatest Pooh Bah off the stage.
Madras residents had, long in advance, engaged all the "budgery-boats" on the Buckingham Canal for Christmas week; and instead of one of those comfortable house-boats, where civilized existence continues its regular routine, we had to content ourselves with a coal-barge—a "spacious and commodious fourteen-passenger-boat," Samuel Daniel called it—for the visit to the Seven Pagodas, the ruins of Mahabalipur. Our Turveydrop assured us that all tourists went in such craft; that Bishop Phillips Brooks had traveled that way to see this one of the seven great wonders of the Indian world; and as he talked on, we almost forgot the ignominious cargo-lighter.
The guide-book said to pay seven rupees for such a boat to go to the Seven Pagodas; the butler said fifty rupees; Daniel and David stoutly maintained fifteen rupees; and we finally gave ten rupees. Coal-barge No. 1350 was some twenty feet long, with a mat roof, side awnings, and a single mast; and when swept, scrubbed, and drenched under our eyes, we
