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About The Book: It is some eighteen years since this institution was founded, at Mussoorie, one of the chief sapataria in the Himalaya mountains. Here all those who can obtain leave, and who can afford the additional expense, repair to escape the hot weather of the plains. The season begins about the end of April, and ends about the first week in October. The club is open to the members of the civil and military services, to the members of the bar, the clergy, and to such other private gentlemen as are on the Government House list, which signifies, “in society". We are all idlers at Mussoorie. We are all sick, or supposed to be so; or we have leave on private affairs. About The Author: John Lang (1816–1864) was an Australian lawyer and was Australia's first native born novelist. Lang was born at Parramatta, Sydney, Australia, second and posthumous son of Walter Lang, merchant adventurer, and his wife Elizabeth, née Harris. Lang was educated at Sydney College under William Timothy Cape. Lang went to Cambridge in March 1837 and, after qualifying as a barrister, returned to Australia. Lang also published Geraldine, A Ballad in 1854, and in 1859 Wanderings in India and other Sketches reprinted from Household Words. Lang visited London in 1859, and was for a short time at Calcutta where he issued the Optimist. Lang died in the hill station of Mussoorie, India, and is buried in Camel's Back Cemetery, which enjoys a wide vista of the Lower Western Himalaya, which Lang loved greatly. His grave had been lost for almost a century until it was sought out and discovered by the writer Ruskin Bond.