Page:Letters from India Vol 2.pdf/31

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LETTERS FROM INDIA.
19

of the goat, and they both run away and the doorias can’t catch them.

L. Very well. Ask all those gardeners what they are doing to my garden.

J. They say the storm yesterday blow Ladyship’s garden away, and they putting it all back again very neat.

There! That is word for word what passed this evening as I was reading your journal, and I thought I would write it straight down for fun, that you might know exactly that bit of my life. I had not gone out, as it was very close and I had not been well.

A ‘tomtom’ is a drum, a ‘dooria’ is a man who looks after dogs and animals. Fanny is always called the choota lady, and I am the burra lady, when they talk of us, and the ‘ladyship’ which they address to us is only a corruption of Lady Sahib, not an English ladyship.

We have had two such storms since we have been here. Three of our boats were sunk, but fished up again, the thatch over the verandah blown into the trees, the trees blown into the river, the garden into the house, and the chairs