I have, however, been very unfavourably impressed with an Anglo-Indian life, not so much from a man's, perhaps, as from a woman's point of view.
If of active temperament, health will in time suffer from exertion during the hot season, and, if otherwise inclined, it is a life of such utter laziness as to unfit any one for life at home afterwards. The social life at civil and military stations is, and must always be, cliquée in the extreme.
We had grumbled ceaselessly at the atrocious hotels, with their cold comfort; at the life and habits in general; at many things, Indian and Anglo-Indian, and yet now turning homewards, our feelings were softened, and we were sorry to think of leaving another of the new countries seen, and to think that another period of proscribed time had slipped away so quickly.
Henceforth our travels were destined to be on beaten tracks.
With a sigh of pleasurable regret we stood on the deck of the P. and O. steamer Peshawur, and steamed past the ugly docks and frontage, which must create such an unfavourable impression on new arrivals to Bombay; looked our last on Back Bay and on Colaba Lighthouse, on Malabar Point and Malabar Hill. We stood out to sea, and lost sight of Indian soil in the growing dusk of twilight.
CHAPTER XXI.
THROUGH EGYPT—HOMEWARDS.
Life on board the well-known decks of the P. and O. is too familiar to require much record.
"A swell from the coast," on the first day, is the usual experience, and ours proved no exception. Few were ill, but all, including ourselves, felt more or less uncomfortable.