For just twenty-five minutes we had been wandering over a morsel of wh perorating politicians call "*the brightest jewel of Enyland's crown," when " little gentleman with a big moustache cama to us He hat the strut wf a dragoon major "ud. the air of a field-marshal.. "Well," he in wired, "what do you think of India?" 5 We looked at him. "India! is this India?" we said blandly. " ""Of—of course it is In-lia: didn't you know you were in India?" "Oh, we thought this was America; all Americans ask what you think of America before you leave the landing-stage."
"Humph said the pocket ed tion of Mars. "OF course you've many looters of introduction." 'A few; why?" Noneof your happen tobe the nephews of dukes, do your" "Not that we know of; why?" "Have you attended a lovés?".*'Neve-, weare cottam of that; but why?" "I was that one of you was a relative of Can we answer any other questions asked. No, no, thank you. But you 8@ we are very, Very aristocratic in Kurrachao. One must keep up appearances, don't you know; it is 80 necessary to be quite certain whom one does know. Now as a military man—but still 1 needn't go into that, you understand. Oh, we area tremendously haughty crowd, and the man who hasn't got a dress suit, well, as gentlemen you can quite seo—"
One of us interrupted him: "We haven't & address suit amorly the thr of us, Shocking, yet, the tru you step into our bungalow we you a marvellous assortment of tattered trousers. foo' less stockings, and split shoes." England's defender put his heed a little on do and appeared per 1 ood day, gentlemen.' won't you step in to look at cular pair of ragg-a_knickerbocl h, asa military man, you must—'
ad gone.
Kurraches is a place of magaificont distances. It is Surbiton trying to look imposing, and it spreads itself out and blows itself out t" an alarming extent. The streets have English names. Ther is Scandal Point Road, a title probably Iibellous. There is the Sind Club, and the qualification for membership is that you can talk for three hours abo t your liver. 'There is a gymkhana built and intended for inhabitants generally. But unless' you can.produco " documentary tod) evidence that you are related: to a lieutenant-colonel, even through your aunt's cousin, twice removed, you will be of Kurrachee. Without these the Anglo-and liver are the character-tics Indian social world would slither down to mediocrity and the honour of Britain be tarnished, It would not then be pukker, and to be pukker is to be th- proper thing. pane Anice girl isa pukker girl; w fine horse pukker horse; a well-balanced billiard cue a pukker ove. Every: hing must be pukker. Unless the people of Kurrach-e are certain heaven is a pukker place they will resent any invitation to enter Paradise as a piece of presumption.
We made the town our stopping-place for a fortnight, not. because there is anything attractive about it—indeed just now the native quarters are dovantated with the plague—but because we had to fit ourselves up with fresh clothing, cast aside the old garments and be rigged' out' in light attir, bid farewell to the h-linets, that in their time had played many parts—head-protector, water-jug, pillow, ba-ket, candlestick and chsir—and don wondrous pith s*ructures that covered an appreciably putt of an acre. We ran to death the arctic jak" sv often perpetrated on perimbulating policemen of: " Come out of that ha; I know you'e there, for I can se your feet." Ouse is large enough tw do daty as. pith, and the others reprexont mushrooms of aubrella si There was no incido"t to enliven our visit to Kurraches, save one. It huppenet on th+ second morning of our stay. We were peacefully meditating upon the love-lines of nature, wh-n down pounced the police That disturbed the merit tion.
ah," said they, "one of you are called Foster." Well, a bit of one of us called Foster." Then you aru travelling under an alias?" This caneed tremble in our breasts and we murmured a hesi No!" "Well, we have rec: ived telligence that a Mr. Foster and two foreigners have arrived in Kurrachee. They are notorious dynamitards e ming from Am-rica to blow up Governmsnt House. Are you they?" The question was a power. When breath had been recovered, we produced our pocket-handkerchiefs and pyjain 80 that our real names mizht be read on useful articles, and we express-ed our willingness to dreadful oaths on-a v lume of Kipling's billeds that in regard te dynamite we were arrant cowards. "Then," said the officer, "none of you have a strawber—that is, none of you have
stuck out our little fingers. lost a littly finger 2") With alacrity we He wes satis fied none were of wax.
"Sirs," he remarked, turn you are nut the three we jocking for." That pleased willing to writs a testimonial tues the police of Kurrachee beat. Butowing to professional modesty, it was declined.
Well, we got away from the place at last. Every Eng'ishman we lad inet. we I questions xbout the roads through Sind. 'Go such and such away and you will have a trick Ike billiard table," said one. "Why, that' no road at wil: it's nothing but sindwits take my advice id the other lace," said riv "A precious lot they know xbout it," put in number three, *'T have travelled the country these twenty years, and if you do as I tell yon, you will make excellent way." Our search after truth was a weariness; the consequence was that, though we lad the
Ino knowledge of intention of re-ching Hyderabad, we ha we were to gob there.
Some Kurrachve eyotists came to x0 us off." Whica way?" they asked. Lead "Es it No. 1, No. 2, or No.
enquired they, though' not so "Lead on," said. we. They The leading on led to comments. What em nents would hive led to, good:
knows, but there were sundry pills in floes of sand and the conversa i: changed. We got near the railway. A lumbering express, packed with panting Tommy Atkinses along on its way to Quetta. Mr. Atkins gave us a cheer and we ge Mr. Atkiusa cheer. "Then we dewged our bicycles on the rai way shouted ' Eureka and, in defiance of regulations, rode on the path that skirts the rails. The thermometer topped a hundred and riding was warm. At the end of fifteen miles our friends acknowledged that they lad had enough. They bade us fwerell, and an opportune train whizzed them back to Kurrachee.
Sind is the Libyan desert of India. It is flat and sandy, and were it not for the obliging Indus, that rises like the Nile and floods the: adjoining land, it would bs nothing but a scorched wilderness. There is an old proverb that Sind is known for four things, heat, dust, beggars, and tumps.
The whole quartet fell upon us avalanches. Had they come singly it might have been bearable. But, like hounds, they hunted in couples. Where there were tombs most assuredly there were beggars.
Two days we jou-nevo! either on the line or by he sile of the line, halting at the stations to eat indigestible chupatties—that tasted like the first efforts in breadmaking of a little girl who has been given a pice of dough to play with—anda curiously flavoured Irish stew wish prawns m it, You fe-l you shou d be horribly ilt ani are annoyed when you are not.
We got to Kotri, which, like some watering-plices at hone, owes its exis ence to the railway. We turned off the track, spun to the right, and in ten minutes were standing on the shores of mighty Indus. It twice a3 wide as ths Thatnes and twenty times as dirty. It is a vastly overrated atreawn, and hss xs much beauty as the average lady member of a School Board.
Some singu'ae obj-cts came floating by... Were they alligators, or octopuses, or strange monsters, neither beast nor haman? We looked " They were pres tic fishermen, fishing in an une prosaic way. There were immense earthenware jars in the water, and the men lay acrow the mouth on their stomachs and paddled thir heels in the stream. In the hand was "long pole with "net attach-d. This was stuck far down the muddy water, and when foolish fish floated into the mesh it was closed with a jerk, the unortuna'e flounder brought to the surface and a spear ran through its head. It. was pitched into the evthenware jar. Then tve fisherman spread himself over the mouth again and callously pro." czeded on his paddle for more victims.
There was a big crowd waiting to cross the forty. Tt was as kaleidoscopic as any mass of folks could ba, just as if the hues of the rainbow had jumped into the double brilliancy. Soft, art, shady tints wore nowhere. There was ho compromising with colours. A red was a red and it hit you straight between the eyes. 'The blues were ao blue that the eky seemed grey. 'The grows were so green thit the trees were choleric. It was olam-dash gorgeous ne-s. Turbans, jackets, pants, blazed with glory. 'Those that bad' neither turbans, jackets nor pants, showed breasts, shoulders, limbs of exquisite chocolate-brown. And they went down to the river and sposhed in the ooze and splashed one another, and were satisfied they wore performing religious ries. On their foreheads were dabs of red, and blue, and groan put there by priests, and unfailing "5 an antidote to the workings vf the jinns. Some men by bs, ut because they were wore deadly sinful than their neighbours, but for the same reason en ter" in Eugtand bu: i insurance coup the safe side. ied it on their clothes. One immudest who ran it oxtrumely five in the mate ter of clothing, had whitewashed himself, He p-raded tis raintliness up and down the river front. And he carried overhead cheap servant girl umbrella—a ludicrous sight. The ladies, delicate featured, cartying grace in thie figures and ring heir neses, in geons apart smiling sweetly. We p cked out national That imp-rious, high-nowd old fellow, with his scarf of silk, is evidently Moslem. And that big chap, with the long black hair, the Jewish nose, the fiery eye, and whose olive cheek has the bloom of the hills, who is he? An Afghan! And that sturdy, wide-faced, wide-trousered wan with the swagger of a prize bull-dog is really a throat-cutting Baluchi! And those mild men, merchants from Candahar. That scowling brute is a Pathan, is he? Yes; of course those dirty wretches are Sindiis; and those obsequious, shawableshanked little beggéra are Hindus.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.