Pepper! As if I couldn't recognize plain dirt when I saw it. Our plates were the kind with hot water inside, and a cork, and as the venerable man removed them for the next course I, watching, saw him wipe them perfunctorily with the corner of his already none too clean garment, then gravely hand them back. After that, I thought dry bread was the safest thing to breakfast on.
Now we are installed in Lakserai Circuit House These rest-houses are kept up by the Government for officials on inspection duty. Dâk-bungalows are rather different. Any traveller may stay in them by paying so much. This house consists of one very large room, dining, drawing, smoking room in one, and two bedrooms. It is rather damp and dreary, but that doesn't matter, for we leave again to-morrow morning. We have been to call this afternoon on the wife of the Collector, Mrs. Edston, a pretty woman with nice manners and a sweet voice. We had tea with her and saw her small son. Her bungalow interested me. It was only the second Mofussil bungalow I had seen. The Takai drawing-room was delightful, a big, rather empty room, with one or two good reproductions of famous pictures on the walls, heaps of books, and an almost entire absence of ornaments
