gentlemen who frequented our house, with a sort of Indo-mania. I was never tired of hearing of its people, their manners, dress, &c., and was perfectly read on the subject of alligators and Bengal tigers. I used, indeed, regularly and systematically to persecute and bore every Anglo-Indian that came in my way for authentic accounts of their history and mode of destruction, &c. One most benevolent old gentleman, a fine specimen of the Indian of other days, and a particular friend of my family, used to “fool us to the top of our bent” in that way. I say us, for the Indo-mania was not confined to myself. My mother, too, used to entertain us with her experiences, which served to feed the ardent longing which I felt to visit the East. How often in the winter evenings of pleasant “lang syne,” when the urn hissed on the table, and the cat purred on the comfortable rug, has our then happy domestic circle listened with delight to her account of that far-distant land! What respect did the sonorous names of Bangalore and Cuddalore, and Nundy Droog and Severn Droog, and Hookhaburdar and Soontaburdars, and a host of others, excite in our young minds! In what happy accordance with school-boy thoughts were the descriptions she gave us of the fruits of that sunny clime—the luscious mango—the huge jack—the refreshing guava—and, above all, the delicious custard-apple, a production which I never in the least doubted contained the exact counterpart of that pleasant admixture of milk and eggs which daily excited my longing eyes amongst the tempting display of a pastry-cook’s window! Sometimes she rose to higher themes, in which the pathetic or adventurous predominated. How my poor cousin Will fell by the dagger of an assassin at the celebrated massacre of Patna; and how another venturous relative shot a tiger on foot, thereby earning the benedictions of a whole community of peaceful Hindoos, whose village had long been the scene of his midnight maraudings: this story, by the way, had a dash of the humorous in it, though relating in the main to a rather serious affair. It never lost its raciness by repetition, and whenever my mother told it, which at our request she frequently did, and approached what we deemed the comic part, our risibles were always on full-cock for a grand and simultaneous explosion of mirth.