But we have been long enough at the commissioner's dinner-table; so let us go home and to bed. It is ten o'clock, and for the people in the Mofussil that is a very late hour. I have told you what a nuisance the mosquitoes are, and also the white ants. There is another creature from which you are comparatively free in England, and that is the bat. Numbers of all sizes make their nests up above the chats or ceiling-cloths in the bungalows, some not bigger than the humming-bird, others, as I have told you, so large as to deserve the name of flying foxes. Often at night they come into the rooms. One evening, when my wife was going to bed, she found five large bats wheeling round and round in her dressing-room. On such occasions as this I post myself in one corner of the room, and my chokedar or watchman in another, both armed with long sticks, with which we keep hitting at the bats until we knock them down, and then we throw them out of doors. Often, as they whirl round the room, one will hit himself against the punkah, and fall to the ground. Instantly the mungoose springs upon him, and we hear the bones crushing in his jaws. One night I was suddenly awakened by something moving and scratching about my head; I raised my hand, and found a large bat clinging to my hair; dreading a snake, I had started up--there was a weight upon my head. I dashed him off, and soon went to sleep again; but he appeared to have taken a fancy to me, and I was again awakened in the same manner; this time, therefore, I got out of bed, knocked the animal down, and killed him. I have several times been roused at night by a great cockroach, three or four inches long, crawling over my lace. The other evening a flight of large maulises came into the parlour, and soon drove us to bed. I have two cobras, which were both killed in my own house; also a tarantula, which I caught in my dressing-room. To turn to another subject. I have been endeavouring to render society here more friendly and agreeable than it can be at large formal dinner-parties, and I am happy to say it has been followed by some of the most influential, and I trust that the custom may become general. The plan is to invite about eight, and those all friendly and intimate, to a quiet dinner at four o'clock. By the time this is over the sun is getting low; and, instead of sitting for a couple of hours over the wine, we soon follow the ladies into the drawing-room. The carriages come to the door for those who like a drive. Some stroll into the wood with their guns; some talk; and so the time passes for about an hour, when the sudden darkness falls upon us almost without warning. We all reassemble at seven for tea and coffee; then spend a pleasant chatty hour or two, or disperse at about half-past nine, having had more amusement than can be enjoyed at a mere dinner-party.