months, yet there are people who grumble at the mails now taking
eighteen days to traverse the distance between London and Calcutta.

Lady Nugent was much shocked at the universal habit of smoking amongst
Europeans in the East Indies. She sternly refused to allow their two
aides-de-camp to smoke, "for as they are both only twenty-five, they
are too young to begin so odious a custom," an idea which will amuse
the fifteen-year-olds of today.

Not till 1906 did I find myself sailing into Kingston Harbour and
actually set eyes on Port Royal, the Palisadoes, and Fort Augusta, all
very familiar by name to me since my boyhood.

I had taken the trip to shake off a prolonged bronchial attack; a
young Guardsman, a friend of mine, though my junior by many years, was
convalescent after an illness, and was also recommended a sunbath, so
we travelled together. The hotels being all full, we took up our
quarters in a small boarding-house, standing in dense groves of orange
trees, where each shiver of the night breeze sent the branches of the
orange trees swish-swishing, and wafted great breaths of the delicious
fragrance of orange blossom into our rooms. I was in bed, when the
Guardsman, who had never been in the tropics before, rushed
terror-stricken into my room. "I have drunk nothing whatever," he
faltered, "but I must be either very drunk or else mad, for I keep
fancying that my room is full of moving electric lights." I went into
his room, where I found some half-dozen of the peculiarly brilliant
Jamaican fireflies cruising about. The Guardsman refused at first to
believe that any insect could produce so bright a light, and bemoaned
the loss of his mental faculties, until I caught a firefly and showed
him its two lamps gleaming like miniature motor head-lights.