having burst on introduction to the climate of this place. Mrs. W.
told me that there was a Chaplain, one Kirwan, here just back from the
Persian Gulf, so I resolved to pursue him.

I finished up the day by dining P. and G. at the Club, and after
dinner Purefoy, by a succession of the most hirsute flukes, succeeded
in beating me by ten to his great delight.

I went to bed quite tired, but this morning it was so lovely that I
revived and mounted a horse at 7.0 leaving the other two snoring. I
rode up the mountain. I was rewarded by a most glorious view of the
snows, one of the finest I have ever seen. Between me and them were
four or five ranges of lower hills, the deepest richest blue
conceivable, and many of their valleys were filled with shining seas
of rolling sunlit cloud. Against this foreground rose a quarter-circle
sweep of the snows, wreathed and garlanded with cloud wracks here and
there, but for the most part silhouetted sharply in the morning sun.
The grandest mass was in the centre: Nanda Devi, 25,600, which is the
highest mountain in the Empire, and Trisoul, over 22,000. There were
six or eight other peaks of over 20,000 ft.

I got back to the Hotel for breakfast, and from 9.30 to 10.45 we
played tennis, and then changed hastily and went to Church for the War
Anniversary Service. The station turned out for this in unprecedented
numbers--churchgoing is not an Anglo-Indian habit--and there was no
seat to be had, so I sat on the floor. The Bishop of Lucknow, Foss's
uncle, preached.

After the service I waylaid the Revd. Kirwan and found he was staying
with the Bishop, who immediately asked us to lunch. So Purefoy and I