鏃ユ湰姣嶅瓙涔变鸡鐢靛奖_鏃ユ湰鐢峰悓鐢靛奖 鏃ユ湰鐢蜂紭鐢靛奖_鏃ユ湰濂崇増瑗挎父璁扮數褰� 鏃ユ湰濂冲�︾敓鐢靛奖_鏃ユ湰濂充紭鍚屾�х數褰�

THREE:A tea-party in the afternoon at the yacht club. The ladies in smart dresses, the talk all of fashionable gossip—how far away from all I had been seeing. An European atmosphere, where a touch of local colour was only suggested by the native servants. The plague, the ruling terror when I was last in Bombay, was forgotten; the only subject now was the Jubilee, and the latest news from England arrived by that day's mail.I turned back into Grant Road, where bands of tom-toms and harmoniums were hard at it, where the gamblers were stifling each other round the roulette-boards in a frenzy of amusement and high spirits, eager for enjoyment before hovering death should swoop down on them.

THREE:On the bank of the river, where there are no more steps, only beaten earth, in a little raised pit a pile of wood was slowly dying out. A man with[Pg 166] a cane raked back the sticks as they fell and rolled away. A squatting crowd were waiting till their relation was altogether consumed to cast his ashes on the sacred waters.A wide open space covered with rubbish heaps was to be seen where the sepoys' barracks had been, and where from the first the men had died of the plague by hundreds. In one garden, a bungalow where a[Pg 303] man had just died was being burnt down—still burning. A party of police were encouraging the fire, and a cordon of native soldiers kept everybody else off.

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