CHAPTER XIX

Summary

Camp, Kumaul, Nov. 13, 1839.

We arrived here yesterday morning, and it is horrible to think how by constantly campaigning about we have become ‘Kurnaul's tired denizens.’ This is the third time we have been here; the camp is always pitched in precisely the same place; the camp followers go and cook at their old ashes; Chance roots up the bones he buried last year; we disturb the same ants' nests; in fact this is our ‘third Kurnaul season,’ as people would say of London, or Bath.

We had the same display of troops on arriving, except that a bright yellow General N. has taken his liver complaint home, and a pale primrose General D., who has been renovating for some years at Bath, has come out to take his place. We were at home in the evening, and it was an immense party, but except that pretty Mrs. J., who was at Simla, and who looked like a star amongst the others, the women were all plain.

I don't wonder that if a tolerable-looking girl comes up the country that she is persecuted with proposals. There were several gentlemen at Kurnaul avowedly on the look-out for a wife.