wanting; and landed in Calcutta about the middle of February as pretty a specimen of a young prig as any one could wish to see.
By my father's wish I made no stay in Calcutta. He had given me a letter of introduction to a planter up-country with whose name I was familiar upon invoices and other uninteresting documents, and had desired me to present this as soon as possible after my arrival. Accordingly I went on at once to my destination.
It was an out-of-the-way place, and looked to me very dismal. Calcutta had seemed far enough from my own world, and from the centre of the only civilisation which I considered to be worthy of the name; but here was a place so unlike any I had ever seen or imagined that, with the contempt born of ignorance, I made up my mind that existence would be impossible with such surroundings.
The planter's house was the only European dwelling within miles; and though, with the hospitality for which his class is so justly celebrated, he gave me a cordial welcome and bade me consider myself at home for as long as I cared to stay, my spirits sank hopelessly as I accepted his invitation. He was a man of about forty years of age, slightly bald, and his figure already showed that thickening of the outlines which so often accompanies the approach of middle age; but he was active and alert, and had a boisterous cheerfulness of manner which jarred upon me horribly. It was impossible, I thought- with the fine scorn of youth—to have an idea or feeling in common with a man of that kind. He spoke of his wife and child; apologising for the absence of the former, whom he said I should meet at dinner, and led me to my room with a warning that I should hear the gong very shortly, as they kept early hours.
The sun had scarcely set, but the big barrack in which I found myself was almost dark. In one corner was my baggage, and a bearer whom I had engaged in Calcutta, on the strength of a lying chit—which said he could speak English, but which omitted to mention that he was a liar and a thief, the writer probably thinking it unnecessary to mention what any master would be sure to find out for himself,- was overhauling my possessions as if they belonged to him.
I felt as blue as the wretched stuff that had brought me out. "Two years of this!" I said, as I heard in the distance the
