generally they most heartily accept it; so from breakfast to dinner we see nothing of them. Then we do contrive to get out half an hour earlier here than at Calcutta; and there never was anything like the green of the park and the beauty of the river just now. The school is finished—really a beautiful building. And we have a most clever native schoolmaster. In two months he has taught his two first, classes to read English, and answer English questions, quite wonderfully; and, indeed, all the little black boys in the village show their vocation for study by running after the carriage by moonlight and calling out ‘Good morning, sir!’ The menagerie is flourishing too, though the young tiger showed a young fancy for a young child, and is shut, up in consequence; and the little bear gave a little claw at a little officer, and is shut up too; and the large white monkey, which was shut up, got out, walked into the coachman’s bungalow, and bit a little boy’s ear; and the three sloths have been taking a lively turn, which is horrid and supernatural; and his ‘Excellency’ has got an odd twist upon the subject of the rhinoceroses, and connives at their fence not being mended,
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LETTERS FROM INDIA.
