To India. I promised you my diary of sports and pastimes from the moment of my arrival. Here it is, from the first day to the moment of my posting you the last scrap by special messenger. Now, to commence * * * (_We omit the first six hundred pages._) * * * The next day SWINDLAH KHAN came to my Kabob where I was sitting, wiling away the time by teaching my favourite Cheetah the three-card trick, which the sagacious animal can now perform as easily as if he were the learnedest pig in Europe--(I am bringing him over, to back him for matches of this sort in England--shall probably get up a company to work it--Learned Pig and Cheetah Company (Limited). Capital, £280,000,000--but of this, more anon)--and, after accepting the _puffum_, which is always offered to a visitor filled and lighted, SWINDLAH waited for me to open the conversation. "SWINDLAH, mebhoy," said I, addressing him familiarly, in his own native language, in which I am a proficient, and shall now give a translation, "What's up?" "ALIBI PASHA," he replied, bending his head, and looking out of the corner of his eyes--a trick he has when he means mischief--(I know the old rascal by this time)--"Is it on or off?" For the moment I had forgotten our wager of the previous night. I confess I had imbibed so much _loshun_ that for once and away I was not quite certain whether I was actually sober or not--nor, indeed, did I decide the point until I had argued it out myself, and settled that, if I went to bed in my _bhootahs_ (worn here on the foot, and very much worn under it), I must be more or less inebriated, but that, if I assumed the ordinary _shimmy dinnee_--(do you remember my song on this Indian night-habit, to the tune of "_Bonnie Dundee_"?--it was in the cold weather, when the stinging winter night-fly is about, and I couldn't find the article of apparel anywhere,-- Then haul down my curtains, and call up my men, And search every cupboard agen and agen. It has a frilled border as far as the knee-- It's the prettiest thing is my _shimmy dinwee_. But, as I didn't quote this to SWINDLAH KHAN, I only allude to it here, and you will find it _in extenso_, as they did in the linen-press, further on, during the course of these Memoirs)--and retired to my _dhownee_ (bed), I must be all right. _Dhownee_ v. _Bhootah_, and the first won. Yet next morning it was with difficulty I could exactly recall the term of the wager. [Illustration: Waiting for the Colonel.]