that I doubted whether half that number could get in. "Very well,"
said Lord Kitchener, "I shall have the whole of the Fort ditch turned
into a garden to-morrow." Next day he had eight hundred coolies at
work. They levelled the rough sand, marked out with pegs walks of
pounded bricks, which they flattened, sowed the sand with mustard and
cress and watered it abundantly to counterfeit lawns, and finally
brought cartloads of growing flowers, shrubs and palms, which they
"plunged" in the mustard-and-cress lawns, and in thirty-six hours
there was a garden apparently established for years. It is true that
the mustard-and-cress lawns did not bear close inspection, but, on the
other hand, you could eat them, which you cannot do with ours. Lord
Kitchener was fond of saying that he had never been intended for a
soldier, but for an architect and house-decorator. Certainly the
additions made to his official house, which were all carried out from
his own designs, were very effective and in excellent taste.

In a country like India, where so much takes place out of doors,
wonderful effects can be produced, as Lord Kitchener said, with some
rupees, some native boys, and a good many yards of insulated wire. The
boys are sent climbing up the trees; they drop long pieces of twine to
which the electric wires are tied; they haul them up, and proceed to
wire the trees and to fix coloured bulbs up to their very tops. Night
comes; a switch is pressed, and every tree in the garden is a blaze of
ruby, sapphire, or emerald, with the most admirable result.

Lord Minto was holding a large Investiture of the "Star of India" the
last time that I was in Calcutta. He wished to have at least two
thousand people present, and large as are the rooms at Government
House, not one of them would contain anything like that number, so
Lord Minto had an immense canvas Durbar Hall constructed. Here again