Interference, Volume III by B. M. Croker

"And thereby hangs a tale. " / -- OTHELLO.

With the first appearance of punkhas, and the first "notice about ice" most of the people at Mangobad fled away to Simla, Mussoorie, or Naini-Tal -- chiefly to Naini-Tal. Mr. Redmond's face was an amusing study (in black) when Belle suggested in her most kittenish and effusive manner, that "she should share a house with him, as George could only get two months' leave, and that it would be great fun to live together! " but Mr. Redmond grimly declined this unalluring proposition in a few brief words, and subsequently (purposely) took a mansion that set the whole length of the lake, and a distance of two miles, between his abode and Mrs. Holroyd's cheap, damp, out-of-the-way little bungalow -- for Belle was now nothing if not economical, and thrifty, to the verge of parsimony, save in the matter of her personal adornment. Naini-Tal, named after the goddess Naini (or Nynee), is a lake that lies six thousand feet above the plains, in the lap of the Himalayas; the surrounding hills rise from the edge of the water and are covered with houses half hidden among trees. These houses are reached by narrow paths, in some instances goat tracks, and the only means of locomotion is either on a pony's back, or in a jhampan or dandy, carried on the shoulders of four men. A jhampan -- the gondola of the hills -- is something between a chair and a coffin, and, to an uneducated eye, the first glimpse of Naini-Tal, with its crowds of people being borne along, suggests the victims of some frightful colliery or railway accident.