accordance with his means. Next morning
the required number of musicians was
hunted up and engaged. Two cornets, two
flutes, two violins, a clarionet, a fife, and
several drums. It is the twenty-ninth of
May— a day always celebrated in "this great
military camp," as Lord Ellenborough described
British India. At a given signal,
the band strikes up God save the Queen.
We all flock round the band, which has
taken up a position on a rock beetling over
the road. The male portion of us raise our
hats and remain uncovered while the anthem
is played. We are thousands of miles distant
from our fatherland and our Queen; but our
hearts are as true and as loyal as though
she were in the midst of us.

This is the first time that the Himalaya
mountains have listened to the joyous sound
of music. We have danced to music within
doors; but never, until this day, have we heard
a band in the open air in the Himalaya
mountains. How wonderful is the effect!
From valley to valley echo carries the sound,
until at last it seems as though

        Every mountain now had found a band.

Long after the strain has ceased with us we
can hear it penetrating into and reverberating
amidst regions which the foot of man has
never yet trodden, and probably will never
tread. The sun has gone down, but his light
is still with us.

Back to the club! Dinner is served. We
sit down, seventy-five of us. The fare is excellent,
and the champagne has been iced in
the hail which fell the other night, during a
storm. Jack Apsley is on my right, and I
have thrice begged of him to remember that he
must not stay later than half-past twelve;
and he has thrice responded that Mary has
given him an extension of leave until daylight.
Jack and I were midshipmen together,
some years ago, in a line-of-battle ship that
went by the name of the House of Correction,
And there is Wywell sitting opposite to us—
Wywell who was in the frigate which belonged
to our squadron— the squadron that
went round the world, and buried the commodore,
poor old Sir James! in Sydney
churchyard. Fancy we three meeting again
in the Himalaya mountains!

The cloth is removed, for the dinner is
over. The president of the club— the gentleman
who founded it— rises. He is a
very little man of seventy years of age—
fifty-three of which have been spent in India.
He is far from feeble, and is in full possession
of all his faculties. His voice is not loud;
but it is very distinct and pierces the ear.

They do not sit long after dinner at the
club. It is only nine, and the members are
already diminishing. Some are off to the
billiard-room, to smoke, drink brandy-and-water,
and look on at the play. The whist
parties are now at work, and seven men are
engaged at brag. A few remain; and, drawing
their chairs to the fire-place, form a ring and
chat cosily.

Halloa! what is this? The club-house is
heaving and pitching like a ship at anchor in
a gale of wind. Some of us feel qualmish. It is
a shock of an earthquake; and a very violent
shock. It is now midnight. A thunderstorm is
about to sweep over Mussoorie. Only look
at that lurid forked lightning striking yonder
hill, and listen to that thunder! While the
storm lasts, the thunder will never for a
second cease roaring; for, long before the
sound of one peal has died away, it will be
succeeded by another more awful. And now,
look at the Dhoon! Those millions of acres
are illuminated by incessant sheet lightning.
How plainly we discern the trees and the
streams in the Dhoon. and the outline of the
pass which divides the Dhoon from the
plains. What a glorious panorama! We.
can see the black clouds descending rapidly towards
the Dhoon, and it is not until they near
that level land that they discharge the heavy
showers with which they are laden. What a
luxury would this storm be to the inhabitants
of the plains; but, it does not extend
beyond the Dhoon. We shall hear the day
after to-morrow that not a single drop of
rain has fallen at Umballah, Meerut, or
Saharunpore.

The party from the billiard-room has
come up to have supper, now that the storm
is over. They are rather noisy; but the
card players take no heed of them. They
are too intent upon their play to be disturbed.
Two or three of the brag party call for oyster-toast
to be taken to the table, and they
devour it savagely while the cards are dealt
round, placing their lighted cheroots meanwhile
on the edge of the table.

And now there is singing— comic and sentimental.
Isle of Beauty is followed by the
Steam Leg, the Steam Leg by the Queen of
the May, the Queen of the May by the
facetious version of George Barnwell, and so
on. Jack Apsley— who has ascertained that
dear Mary is quite safe, and not at all
alarmed— is still here, and is now singing
Rule Britannia with an energy and enthusiasm
which are at once both pleasing and
ridiculous to behold. He has been a soldier
for upwards of sixteen years; but the sailor
still predominates in his nature; while his
similes have invariably reference to matters
connected with ships and the sea. He told
me just now, that when he first joined his
regiment, he felt as much out of his element
as a live dolphin in a sentry-box, and he has
just described his present colonel as a man
who is as touchy as a boatswain's kitten.
Apsley's Christian name is Francis, but he
has always been called Jack, and always will
be.

It is now broad daylight, and high time
for a man on sick-leave to be in bed. How
seedy and disreputable we all look, in our
evening dresses and patent-leather boots!