It is the spring of 1851. In the Delhi plains the mornings are close and muggy, a yellow, jaundice-like haze hangs over the levels, the winds are hot and dry, a foretaste of the scorching months of May and June. The animal and vegetable worlds show signs of the approaching season. Sheep find little to tempt them in the dry grass, and bleat mournfully; crows and minahs open their beaks and gasp. Myriads of curled bundles of vegetation are transformed in twenty-four hours into fully expanded leaves, flowers bloom rapidly and die as rapidly. Society ladies begin to look pale and languid, and are too indifferent to all things earthly to find any enjoyment in flirtation. The one thought of every Anglo-Indian Delhi resident is to get away to the Simla hills as soon as possible.