We Alighted At The House Of Mr. Wynne, The Government
Agent, Who At Once Said Something Courteous And Hospitable About
Breakfast, which I was longing for; but after I had had a bath I found
that we were to pursue
Our journey, I regretting for the second time
already Mr. Maxwell's abstemiousness and power of going without food!
From this point we drove along an excellent road toward the mountains,
over whose cool summits cloud mists now and then drifted; and near noon
entered this important Chinese town, with a street about a mile long,
with large bazaars and shops making a fine appearance, being much
decorated in Chinese style; halls of meeting for the different tribes,
gambling houses, workshops, the Treasury (a substantial dark wood
building), large detached barracks for the Sikh police, a hospital, a
powder magazine, a parade ground, a Government store-house, a large,
new jail, neat bungalows for the minor English officials, and on the
top of a steep, isolated terraced hill, the British Residency. This
hill is really too steep for a vehicle to ascend, but the plucky pony
and the Kling driver together pulled the gharrie up the zigzags in a
series of spasms, and I was glad to get out of the sunshine into a
cool, airy house, where there was a hope of breakfast, or rather
tiffin.
The Residency is large and lofty, and thoroughly draughty, a high
commendation so near the equator. It consists of a room about thirty
feet wide by sixty long, and about twenty feet high at its highest
part, open at both ends, the front end a great bow window without glass
opening on an immense veranda.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 318 of 437
Words from 87308 to 87588
of 120530
