the letter ran thus:

"'Our entire brigade, ten thousand strong, halted about six in the
morning, and by seven the whole of the tents were snugly pitched, and we
were taking our breakfast comfortably in the tops of trees which grew on
both sides of the road.'

"He spelt the word Topes without the capital or letter e. Tents for ten
thousand men pitched in the tops of trees. Oh, was there ever such a
monstrous falsehood, and the poor old lady fairly shook from head to
foot with pious indignation. The letter was returned to the writer
without remark or comment, and she was never again heard to mention the
name of her nephew, and on her death, which occurred soon after, it was
found that she had bequeathed the whole of her property to establish a
mission for diffusing the Gospel truth among the natives of the Fiji
Islands, and the unfortunate victim to bad spelling was left lamenting."

In another of his epistles to the fair young girl in merry England, he
winds up with the following: "Much has been said and written concerning
the sagacity of some animals, especially the elephant, horse and dog,
but the other day I was an eye witness to a fact which developed the
cunning, reason, instinct, or call it what you will, of the Indian
Jackall. Having sauntered from my tent in the cool of the evening
through some wild cotton plants, down to a clump of shady trees that
grew at no great distance from the river, I sat down to enjoy a cigar,
and while so doing I observed the following incident: A jackall, one of
the largest I believe I had ever seen, came quietly out from the cover
of the jungle and made for the river, having in his mouth a large bunch
of cotton; curious to know to what purpose he intended applying his
mouthful, I watched him. Having reached the water's edge he turned