My own luck has been curious all my literary life; I never could tell a lie that anybody would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.
Lots of pets on board--birds and things.

In these far countries the white people do seem to run remarkably to pets.

Our host in Cawnpore had a fine collection of birds--the finest we saw in a private house in India.

And in Colombo, Dr.Murray's great compound and commodious bungalow were well populated with domesticated company from the woods: frisky little squirrels; a Ceylon mina walking sociably about the house; a small green parrot that whistled a single urgent note of call without motion of its beak; also chuckled; a monkey in a cage on the back veranda, and some more out in the trees; also a number of beautiful macaws in the trees; and various and sundry birds and animals of breeds not known to me.

But no cat.