Another way of passing time in which we indulged, was cooking. It was cooking under difficulties, for the most important part (the baking) had perforce to be entrusted to the tender mercies of the cook, no one else being capable of understanding his intricate oven. And the cook, jealous of our trespass on his prerogative, almost invariably served up our cakes in the guise, either of soft dough, or of black cinders.
The chief objects of our cooking experiments were cakes and savouries. We neither of us knew very much about cooking, but we had cookery books, and did what we could, supplying the place of the innumerable ingredients we did not possess, with any we happened to have on hand. The result was usually distasteful.
I made cakes with exceeding great vigour and confidence during almost the whole of my stay, but nobody ate them save myself from bravado, the dogs from greed, and unsuspecting strangers from innocence.
Cake making was a fashionable subject of conversation at the ladies' "five o'clocks" in Remyo, and everyone gave everyone else recipes. I was astonished to hear my sister (whom I knew to be almost entirely ignorant upon such subjects) glibly confiding recipes for all sorts of things, on one of these occasions. I taxed her with the matter later, but she explained that it was the fashion to give recipes, and so long as she was careful to include an ingredient or two, impossible to obtain, she could safely trust that no one would find her out.
There is one shop in Remyo in addition to the native Bazaar, and the ladies usually pay it a daily visit, in order, I suppose, to add realism to their pretence of housekeeping.
The method adopted on these occasions is remarkable. No one expects to find anything she really wants in the shop, as it is kept by a native of India, but she begins hopefully asking for various articles, each demand being greeted by a shake of the head. She then asks the shopkeeper what he does happen to sell, at which he appears doubtful, but suggests some useless thing such as antimacassars. The purchaser at length makes a tour of the shop, picks out the least useless article she can find, and bears it home in triumph.
The unwise thing to do, is to order an article from Rangoon or Mandalay. One is indeed lucky if it arrives within twelve months after being ordered, and without an expenditure of all one's powers of sarcasm in letters of remonstrance, and a fortune in stamps.
Firstly, there will be received about a dozen letters, with intervals of four days or so between each, demanding fresh descriptions and explanations of the desired article. Then, when more specific description is an impossibility, letters for money will arrive; a request for a rupee for carriage, another request for five annas for something else, for half a rupee that has been overlooked in the first account, and so on for four weeks more. Then the article is announced to be upon the way, but it does not arrive. More letters bring to light the fact that it is lost; has most mysteriously disappeared; cannot be traced anywhere.
New people come upon the scene. Letters from carriers and agents arrive. Weeks elapse, still the article cannot be found. Another is in course of construction, when it is suddenly discovered that by some strange oversight the original was overlooked, never sent off at all, and is still reposing in the same tiresome shop. At length the once desired purchase arrives, but the purchaser has now long ceased to feel any interest in it whatever.