Living in the Fort, having spent a month of really wonderful camp-life in a high alpine valley. Had good weather there and had collected 45 Rhododendrons and will return in October to collect their seeds. Bought a horse, Ma in Chinese, which has got fat and will only carry him, the Master. States how Jumps [Euan H.M. Cox] is highly companionable, shall miss him when he leaves, but looks forward to the Scottish Derrick joining him in the winter. Jumps writing a novel. Recounts scenes of the coolies from the alpine village doing their folk-dances & songs by the camp-fire - views them as the real thing, real art. The Cook has another drunken bout, and R. Farrer administered justice on the verandah, docking some of his wages, the rupees were thrown away and he, R. Farrer almost collapsed in tears. Speaks of letters from home in the aftermath of the War being sad and glad he had decided wisely to get away. Hopes E. Gye will get away, suggests Peking 1921 to attain care-free-ness. Requests him to supervise Mr Bain to send out useful books, seeks two sets of Winchester Edition of the Divine One, for himself and Jumps.
Camp was in a high-alpine valley, in a beautiful open glade, filled with golden Anemones, beside a babbling beck, with gaunt hungry-looking granite peaks aspiring overhead all round. Derrick [Milner] he describes as 10 feet high, and you want a flight of steps to see his large rosy face! From the batches of letters, he gets a uniform impression of utter failure, of fatigue so acute that it can't fine rest, of disappointment, old age, & general failure.
