ABSTRACT
ONE morning in May, 1927, as I was sitting at my work in the Heit al Ajaib a decoded telegram was put before me. It began "Offer Ingrams appointment as Assistant Colonial Secretary, Mauritius ..." It is strange how in one moment the course of one's life can be altered in this way. You may, so to speak, be flung half round the world, from Fiji to the Falklands, or Jamaica to Jerusalem. More often than not the offer of transfer will be one which you have barely contemplated as a possibility. Although Mauritius was only about fifteen hundred miles in a direct line from Zanzibar I had scarcely heard more than a mention of the place, and the manner of life was to be very different.
