An officer in the 16th Lancers told me he was amused the other day by his servant designating the trumpeter a "poh poh walla."
The gardener has just brought in a handful of the most beautiful scarlet velvet coloured insects, about the size of two large peas, but flattish, and commonly found on reddish sandy soil, near grass; these insects are used as one of those medicines which native doctors consider efficacious in snake bites: they call them beerbotie; the scientific name is mutella occidentalis.
The carpenter, in cutting down the hedge of the garden, found in the babūl and neem-trees such beautiful creatures; they appear to be locusts; the variety and brilliancy of their colours are wonderful. The upper wings are green, lined out with yellow, the under wings scarlet, the body green, yellow, and black: they are most beautifully marked. I have had some prepared with arsenical soap.
Aug. 4th.—I have just received a present of the first number of Colonel Luard's most beautiful views in India; how true they are! his snake-catchers are the very people themselves. Apropos, we caught a young cobra yesterday in my dressing-room; the natives said, "Do not kill it; it is forbidden to kill the snake with the holy mark on the back of its head,"—a mark like a horse-shoe. However, as it was the most venomous sort of snake, I put it quietly into my "Bottle of Horrors." They say snakes come in pairs; we have searched the room and cannot find its companion. It is not pleasant to have so venomous a snake twisting on the Venetian blinds of one's dressing-room.
8th.—Yesterday, at dinner, our friends were praising the fatted quail, and remarking how well we had preserved them. This morning all the remainder are dead, about two hundred; why or wherefore I know not—it is provoking.
We had the most beautiful bouquet on the table last night! an enormous bowl full of flowers, in such luxuriant beauty! some few of which you may find in hot-houses and green-houses at home. With what pleasure I looked at them! and how much amusement taking off the impressions, or practising the black art, as we call it, will afford me!
