present effects, imagine the awful amount of suffering
from famine and disease it entails. I t has been good to
see a, sunburnt face. Tell them at home' what hot
weather ls'like.
The carriage was so hot as I. left in the mail
tram that-night that salamanders would have thought
it homelike. . A weary, anxious-faced woman, lightly
clad—we had dropped into muslin dressing gowns as
soon as -the station was left—was fanning a tiny
wizened, morsel of humanity, I took a turn--any
diversion to -self-centred thought was welcome—while
she prepared food over an etna,-runlets-of heat pouring-
down face and neck. • r
A exPlained> :“ I took baby to
the hills, and Jack was to join us, but they wired
tor mo two days ago; -it seems he is down with fever,
and T could not leave baby with any one, people do not
like.the responsibility of-a sick child; but it'does seem
a pity to :bnng him down just when he was beginning
to look so bonnie.” The sight of the babe’s wrinkled
mouth and tmylimbs made me shudder. “And it is so
bad for him travelling so quickly, but, of course, I felt
1-must come on, and I am to look out for wires they
promised-, to : send one if there' Were a change or 1
anything.” . .
That night mocking demons continually looked in at
the window, and gibing, mouths taunted us as we passed
on, heat phantoms jeering at the weary ghosts who had
at-times believed that the world was made for them,
but were -being taught by , a thousand tortures that they,
werp no lords of creation, just impotent factors in the
worlds hierarchy. J t ;is given us to win victories sometimes,
but the price is promptly entered against us. Just
then it was the turn of those in India to pay the price
of empire and vast-added territories, and climate,
unfortunately, has still to be conquered.
If Pindi had been hot, Umballa station was
the ‘under-side of a ‘ molten mass of metal. ' Unexpectedly
;■ a friend was - on the platform, nearly
unrecognisable from the cheery cold-weather comrade
I had ' known. “ I am the only one in the
station,' I believe; the bungalow cannot be. worse
than the train, and there is a; night mail to go on by.”-
I said - good-bye to the - sad-eyed mother, and passed
quickly from that burning platform to the dusty, thirsty
mall. - We drove, we drank cold drinks, we sat under
punkahs, and a- “ boy” fanned me, but not one single
moment of coolness' was to be> obtained. Have -you
heard there is cholera below ? They had only two days
rains, but they were enough to set it going. They talk,
too, of trouble again in the Swat Valley before the
month is out, but I ’m afraid’there’ll be no such good
luck; anything’s better than rotting out here in this
copper stewing-pan: My best sergeant went out with
heat apoplexy last week, and L/should be gone too only
I get to the hills every ten days or so. I- pity those poor
devils down in Central India, nowhere to go to, and they
are dying like flies of enteric at M—— this season.
Ah, it’s good to see any one sunburnt; talk to me and tell
me about the snows. Yes, everything ; and did you see
any bear; and was Jerky Jones up there; and was it
beautifully cold?” • :
By midnight I was into.The train again. By this
time the carriage was a scalding coffin, and that
particular one was ornamented with thousands of flies..
They squelched’ as I lay down and caught in my hair,