it was only one room thick, and that every room was protected by a
broad double verandah on both sides. The direct rays of the sun were,
therefore, powerless to penetrate to the interior, and with the double
verandahs the faintest breath of air sent a draught through every room
in the house.

We reached Cooch Behar after dark, and it was somewhat of a surprise
to find the Maharajah and his entire family roller-skating in the
great central domed hall of the palace, to the strains of a really
excellent string band. The Maharajah having a great liking for
European music, had a private orchestra of thirty-five natives who,
under the skilled tuition of a Viennese conductor, had learnt to play
with all the fire and vim of one of those unapproachable Austrian
bands, which were formerly (I emphasise the _were_) the delight
of every foreigner in Vienna. These native players had acquired in
playing dance music the real Austrian "broken time," and could make
their violins wail out the characteristic "thirds" and "sixths" in the
harmonies of little airy, light "Wiener Couplets" nearly as
effectively as Johann Strauss' famous orchestra in the "Volks-Garten"
in Vienna.

The whole scene was rather unexpected in the home of a native prince
in the wilds of East Bengal.

The Maharajah had fixed on a great tract of jungle in Assam, over the
frontier of India proper, as the field of operations for his big-game
shoot of 1891, on account of the rhinoceros and buffaloes that
frequented the swamps there. As he did not do things by halves, he had
had a rough road made connecting Cooch Behar with his great camp, and
had caused temporary bridges to be built over all the streams on the