Letters from Mesopotamia | Page 3

of my minor ailments. I then proceeded to the local chemist and had my
medicine-case filled up, and secured an extra supply of perchloride.
There is no Poisons Act here and you can buy perchloride as freely as
pepper. My next visit was to the dentist. He found two more decayed
teeth and stopped them with incredible rapidity. The climate is so mild
that though I was pretty wet through I never felt like catching a cold
from being operated on. He was an American with a lady assistant to
hold one's mouth open! I never feel sure that these dentists don't just
drill a hole and then stop it: but no doubt teeth decay extremely quickly
out here.
Then I went back to the Telegraph Office and cabled to Papa and got
back in time for lunch after the moistest morning I ever remember
being out in.
This hotel is about the worst in the world, I should say, though there are
two in Naini reputed to be worse still. It takes in no newspaper, has no
writing-paper, only one apology for a sitting-room, and can't supply
one with fuel even for a fire. However, Moni Lal is resourceful and we
have survived three days of it. Luckily there is an excellent custom here
by which visitors belonging to another club, e.g., the Agra Club can
join the Naini Club temporarily for 1s. per day. So we spent the
afternoon and evening at the Club and I spiflicated both Purefoy
(giving him forty and two turns to my one) and Guy at Billiards.
On Tuesday (yesterday) we got up at 7.0 and went for a sail on the lake.
Guy is an expert at this difficult art and we circumnavigated the place

twice before breakfast with complete success and I learned enough
semi-nautical terms to justify the purchase of a yachting cap should
occasion arise.
After breakfast we were even more strenuous and climbed up to
Government House to play golf. It came on to rain violently just as we
arrived, so we waited in the guard-room till it cleared, and then played
a particularly long but very agreeable 3-ball, in which I lost to Guy on
the last green but beat Purefoy three and one. We got back to lunch at
about 3.15.
As if this wasn't enough I sallied out again at 4.0 to play tennis at the
Willmotts, quite successfully, with a borrowed racquet, my own 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
went to lunch--Guy preferring to sail--and I extracted quite a lot of
useful information from K. Incidentally the Bishop showed me a letter
from Foss, who wrote from the apex of the Ypres salient. He isn't
enjoying it much, I'm afraid, but was quite well.
When we left the Bishop, it was coming out so fine that we decided to
ride up and try again to see the snows. So up we rode, and the cloud
effects were lovely, both over the plains and among the mountains; but
they