After breakfast I returned to my house to pass the hours until the afternoon parade. After the dilapidated bungalows of most stations in India, with their thatched roofs sheltering rats, squirrels and even snakes, and their floors of pounded earth and decayed matting full of fleas, ants and the myriad plagues of insect life of the East, my small house seemed luxurious. It was built strongly of rough stone blocks to withstand the awful mountain storms. The roof was of iron which rang like a drum to the heavy rain and monster hailstones of the Monsoon. It contained four small rooms with ceilings and floors of wood, each with its fireplace. For during the winter we found it cold enough to have fires going day and night, the jungle around furnishing us with an ample supply of fuel. The meagre furniture which I had bought from the major of the Punjabis was soon supplemented with a few more articles sent from Calcutta. The little garden contained mango trees and a tree bearing the huge and evil-smelling jack-fruit, of which natives are very fond, though its sickening odour and oversweet taste repel most Europeans. The hedges around my compound were of wild roses. At one side stood my stable and the stone outhouses in which my servants lived; for in India the domestics are not lodged in the bungalow. [Illustration: MY DOUBLE COMPANY.] [Illustration: MY BACHELOR ESTABLISHMENT.] The afternoon was occupied with drills, signalling practice and military lectures to the non-commissioned officers. Buxa offered scant amusement within its limits to us Britishers. We had hockey-matches with the men two or three times a week. Creagh, being a keen golfer, tried to make miniature links about the fort; but, after losing six balls in his first game in the jungle around, he gave it up. We turned our attention to tennis. A comparatively level space hewed out of the mountain-side was fixed on as a court. Rocks four or five feet high were dug out of it; and the elephants were employed for days in bringing up earth from the plains below to spread on it. But more rocks seemed to grow in it and shove their heads through the thin covering of mould, grass came in thick, wiry patches; and altogether our tennis court could not be pronounced a success.