' i been shown an address, on a piece of
p a p e r while far from the beaten track in the eastern end
of the valley, and directed a befogged coolie to his
proper destination at Gulmerg, and a friend, hurriedly
ordered to pm the Tochi Valley army, welcomed even-
ually his pony, sent off at the same time as himself, after
two months, during which time it and its “ sais ” had been
°Ver the North-West frontier, in and out of
the fighting zone, having first gone to a place somewhat
akin m name but two hundred miles away from the scene
« ’T?aC’10n Fortunately in India the old home rule,
kre s a stranger, ’eave a brick at him,” is reversed,
ut there we are all one vast white family, and one does
ones brother, or his ponies, or his chattels a good turn
whenever opportunity occurs, knowing that in all human
probability the day will not.be far off when we shall
welcome a return, in money or kind! Stranger,
G. 1,, griffin whatever opprobrious title I had a right
to, I was made free of all the privileges of my caste from
the moment of arrival, and it will always be a matter
of regret to me that I had no power of “ doing likewise.”
few new books, a plentiful supply of papers, a
small power of musickmg,. and a slight fund of information
about the march of events “ at home,” was all
the slender return I could make for countless kindnesses
boundless hospitality. Fortunately these trifles must
not be gaugea by their intrinsic value, but considered
as they are m a country where literature and art, as we
understand them ,m England, are practically non-
existent for the white sojourner.
Murree was reached early in the afternoon, and I
tfiere renewed my acquaintance with that “ darkest of
earths dark places,” an Indian hotel. In my pleasant
sojoumings in my canvas house, or under the doonga’s
straw roof,' I had forgotten them and their noisome
interior. Their bareness and insufficiency were now
borne in upon me with all the freshness of new
acquaintance — dirty, ragged, ceiling cloths, stained
walls, the plaster peeling off in great flakes, scraps
•of cotton carpets, serving no purpose save the
tripping up of the unwary, chairs with fragmentary
legs, tables of unplaned wood, draped with cotton
■cloths of another decade, a bed with furnishings
that filled the imagination with awesome phantoms,
iron washstands and cracked crockery, a glass
minus its quicksilver,' and a ;window dark with dust—
for these luxuries, plus three daily meals of more
than ordinary deadliness, does the wanderer in India pay
prices that at home would procure if not luxuries, at
least- comfort and cleanliness.
Oh, ye managers of country inns and ye manageresses
of seaside hotels away in England, why not leave
the country of over-competition, where you are crowded
out by sheer weight of numbers, and in a new land
introduce another system and a more consoling cookery
which shall be composed of other compounds than
curries and custards?
Having elected to rest a few hours among the pine
trees at Murree, my dak tonga proceeded without me.
I finished my journey in another, a public vehicle, a
private one not being procurable at such short notice
in mid-season. By half-past four we were rattling off
again, worn out by the rough-and-tumble method of
jolting over three hundred miles of road. For some
time I realised nothing but my discomfort, first thrown
backwards and forwards till my head and neck held