IDOLS IN A SIAMESE PAGODA. Page 341.
CHAPTER XXXIX
SALAAM!
How shall I say good-bye to India and to all that I left there? I can’t say it. I say instead, “Salaam, burra salaam.”
Hopes are impotent things often; but I hope that some day I may go back to the East. I wish that I could have written more adequately of the Orient—I wish it very much.
There are many places to which my heart goes back eagerly, but of which I have not found time to write a sentence.
We passed some dreadful but delightful months in the cantonments of the Punjab, when the Punjab was hottest.
Murree was to me the most delightful spot in India. It is a hill place—a resting spot and a breathing station for soldiers who are worn out, or blessed with indulgent Colonels. The pleasantest friends that we made in India, we made in Murree. They were indefatigable amateurs in Murree. Ah, what performances we gave! Major Frere, the Commandant, played Hawtree faultlessly; and Major Chancellor (alas! he is dead now) gave a performance of Sir George Carlyon in In Honour Bound, that would have greatly credited any professional. We had a Talbot Champneys there who played the part better than I ever saw it played, and a Belinda who made me look to my laurels in my favourite part of Mary Melrose.
And the bazaars down the hill! What rugs! What skins! What phulkaris! Murree is up towards Kashmir; and the bazaar teemed with Afghans, and with ten thousand things that were lovely.
How we roamed at night over the mountain paths, and sang songs of home, and regretted that we were going away!