Every day of my short stay seemed to have its particular gaiety. The races at Lebong were a sporting and a fashionable event. Down the steep hill roads from Darjeeling, a thousand feet above, poured the stream of Europeans in rickshaws or on ponies and of natives afoot early in the afternoon to the miniature race-course which is built on the cut-away hill-top. There is scant room for any horse to bolt out of it; for a few yards will bring it to the edge of the precipitous slopes around. In fact, the "straight" for the run home is gained by finishing up the Darjeeling road. Most of the events were for hill ponies, sturdy and plucky little animals; and the jockeys were mainly natives. But the excitement of the crowds of race-goers of many shades of colour, the keenness of the plungers on the totalisator or with the few bookmakers, and the gaiety of the pleasure-seekers, could not be exceeded at Ascot or Epsom. The scene was an animated one. The enclosure was gay with the colours of the English ladies' frocks, the bright hues of Parsee women's _saris_, the white refreshment tents, and the uniforms of the military bandsmen; while outside was the varied crowd of British Infantry soldiers in red, gunners in blue, and natives of a score of different races, each in their distinctive garb. And over it all towered the heights of Darjeeling and Jalapahar; while on three sides lay the deep valleys, beyond which stood the mountains that barred the way to Sikkim and Tibet. Such is life in a Hill Station. To a man not devoted to social frivolities existence in them soon palls. He tires of the sameness of tennis in the afternoons, the vapid conversation of the tea-tables, and nights spent in the heated atmosphere of ball-rooms. But to the fair sex it appeals strongly; and they gladly hail the approach of the hot weather, which will free them from the monotony of small Stations in the plains and send them flocking to Simla, Darjeeling, Missourie or Naini Tal. Who would not be an English woman in India? As Gilbert says: "They are treasured as precious stones And for the self-same reason--for their scarcity."