Dehra, with all its pleasant memories, has some sad ones too. That fearful scourge, cholera, lurks among green trees and dense vegetation, and suddenly declares its dreaded presence. One autumn the station was more than usually filled by owners of horses who had many stables. The hotel was very comfortable, as Mr. Williams did all he could to make the time pass pleasantly by attention to the cuisine and the arrangement of his hotel. It consisted of two bungalows and extensive stabling. My stables had thirteen loose boxes, and the whole of the first floor in one of the bungalows was my dwelling-place. Captain Dowdeswell, 7th Dragoon Guards, had a stable and lived in the other bungalow in the compound. One morning I went as usual to the stand on the race-course, and found those already assembled there in great wonderment at the severe pace. Dowdeswell was taking one of his horses round the course. As he passed the stand, I shouted to him that the coffee was ready; but he only waved his hand, and then we saw him soon after get on his pony and canter home. As usual, we dispersed, and I well remember going to Dowdeswell’s bungalow in great spirits, for my horses had done their gallops very well, and Hackney was confident of success. The room opened on a verandah on the ground-floor, and I called out Dowdeswell’s name, and, receiving no answer, went in, and was greatly distressed to find that he was very ill. As the doctor lived at some distance, I ordered my trap, and went off to find Dr. Allan of the Ghoorkas, a most able man; but, although I went to different places, I failed to meet him, so I left messages asking him to come quickly to the hotel. I returned, only to be summoned to Dowdeswell’s room; but he was dead. In less than four hours that dreadful disease had carried him off. These sudden shocks amid a gay and thoughtless party are very startling. The day before he was as well as any of us assembled there. The next morning we saw him take his last ride, and the following day he was in his grave! It is surprising how time slips away in the quiet, drowsy atmosphere of an Indian hot weather. The punkah waves to and fro for ever; the coolie who pulls it sits outside in the verandah like a black machine wound up. Meals must be eaten, but it is difficult to know what to order; when the meat that comes in the early morning is unfit to be used in the evening, we fall back a good deal on fowls, curry, quails fattened by ourselves, and tinned provisions. What would the lady of a house in India do without tinned provisions? The salmon which looks so well at her ‘burra khana’ has journeyed from afar in hermetically sealed boxes; in some ladies’ opinion, those who have never left the shores of Hindostan, the use of these sealed dainties is quite general in the highest society at home.