sincerely too, without noticing the patronage, “ and will
fight again for you.”
^ Now those Afridis they knew we’d just pour
in men and guns again and again till we had
the best of it, but they fought us, though they only
rode for a fall. ’ The Sikh relished but moderately
the comparison with the Pathan, their immemorial race
antagonists, so he merely added, “ Well, we fought them
too; it is good fighting, but not being guard, when
not one little shot at enemy allowed.” This, a t least,
was a Common sentiment, and though the sergeant gave
vent to his dislike of India and all things pertaining
thereto, his companion bore no ill-will, bidding good-bye
with all the flowery expressions that pass current in the
East ; the other nodded curtly.
Rum devils,” he ejaculated, as the lithe white
figure disappeared in the gloom; and so we of
alien races shall always be to each other. Our
fighting instincts give us at least one common
ground, and a religious tolerance touches their
sympathies, and just so long as we keep up their pride
as soldiers, and give them liberty to choose their own
methods of approaching the “ Unknown,” so long shall
we strengthen the only bonds possible between East
and West.
All the way from Murree we had been penetrating
deeper into the burning pit, and as we entered the
station of Pindi we stifled, the weight of unbroken
thunderstorms heavy upon us. I was almost asleep as
the tonga drew up before my hostess’s bungalow, and
I fell out into kind, welcoming arms, and was restored
with tea and refreshments. I t was nearly midnight,
but no breeze had arisen to break the awful monotony
of heat. I was among workers once again, and the
realities of Indian life struck harshly on me. Itw a s a
sad record I received of the period while I had been
absent, and enteric and heat were the chief factors in
it. As I looked at white faces and thin drawn hands
one needed to apologise for one’s existence as a leisure
person in a world of strenuous endeavour. ^
“ Yes, it has been very bad,” said one; “ only
two showers to represent the rains, and with the
reduced hot weather garrison over thirty cases ot
enteric. Still, we do what we can, but the wards m the
hospital are over 94 deg. at nine in the morning. If
the men stay they die, and if they go they die. You knew
Captain ____? He had fever, a touch; made sure
Murree would cure i t ; of course, the jolting up and. the
cold did for him. He died three hours after he arrived.
What gives enteric? Everything they say, water, milk,
cold, heat! I think it’s dust storms. Sorry to trouble
us? Thank goodness you have come; you are worth
your weight in gold if you will talk of anything but
fever and deaths, at least during meals.”
I turned in almost too tired to note the great pile
of correspondence awaiting me, but m that heat no
punkah even could induce sleep; so I took a Europe
morning, and dawdled slowly through my dressing,
standing under the punkah to gasp between each short
stage. The kind sister came in; she also had not slept,
but then she had already put in four hours in the wards.
The white face in the daylight was more piteous than it
had been at night. * I can’t -sleep ever in the daytime,
and at night all the native city wakes up, so there is no
quiet then either,” was a simple explanation. “ The
worst is, that terrible as this want of rain is now in its