Multan (The Punjaub).
We have discovered the weak spot in Hi: du nomenclature. In Russia the bewildered stranger was worried with a hotchpotch of consonantal confusedness which did duty as titles for town. The only guide, or misguide, was that they ended with'*ski," a trick 10 magnify slips' od: hamlets into unworthy importance. The Hindus have the same dodge. Every city, town, village, mud-wattle, glories in the same termination, and printers. of maps smother the defect by ringing the changes on "pur," "poor," "pore." Tt is ingenious. We have only to ask for Sowething-pur to be easy in our minds that we are-on the right track. There is Oonurpoor, topped by Darlatpor-, crowned by Shikarpur and breasted by Khairpur, Meerpoor, Khanpur, Abmadpore, Baba walpur, with the flaming humbugs of Erin-puta, Shapoora, and Skambhupura flanking the distance. Thee are enough "purs" in India t+ g" round twice, and leave enough to found a colony in Central Africa.
As_a pious Moslem im assures his approach to the trans-styxian bowers of blis+ by the number of beads he counts, so we reckoned the progress we made by the; "purs" we ticked in a day. It was our! eagerness to reach " certain point 07 the interminable " puring" string thst in-luced us to leave the rigid, unromantic, lolerab'y safe rail y track ud go careeriny along dusty road, which was all right for.thoso who like dust.
But it was a fatal mi-tate. We were to have reached our destination in two hours. +t the end of three hours it was deemed advisable to enquire. A jovial troup of gaudy travellers, mount-d on slouching, billowy camels that mide one sea-sick to ook at them, have in sight swaying branches of green overhead, and resembling Birnam Wood out fora walk. © S'raight they shouted.
We went as straight as the road would permit. In an hour we encountered " fatidneyed rogue with a Fulstaftian paunch, and asked him. 'Ah, sahibs, you should have turned off to the righ', Budila knows how many mites bick. But I will show you.
Tt was a drew walk, and we developed thirsts that would have honoured brewer's drayman. In the middle of the jungle he "Now Llive i is bulky form vani Come back, you villain, he heed-d nob Wo went on agai Inthe dark we fell upon a driver and his wheat: laden pony. He was terribly frightened trict to hide in ditch." We hauled out and intimated we desired to wch Khairpur. Too chutter-toothed to speak, he wailed. We d his pony's head round and' said, "Now, lead on, and you will be eternally grateful for the rupee you will rec-ive." "But he dit not understand. He knew little Hindustand and no English. His tong j, and that was about as hav Patagonian. We were under the he was leading us. Ultimately, it was quite clear he thought we were driving him. He was a Wandering Jehu, and accepted meekly the eternal plodding which appeared his fate. At eleven o'clock at night we reached our ha ting-place, and cramming ourselves with distressful chupatties, flooded in poisonous tea, we lay down to sleep.
At one place th t day we met two pious Hindus, Bral by caste and railway inspectors by profession. They spoke English excellently well. One wasa blunt Gerbus" sort of x man, prolific in the firing of ponderous epigrams and conscious of his powers. His companion was a slim, pukow faced saint, wearing a white turban of enormous proportions that towered fantes. tically like a triumph of wedding conte i 'A genre contempt illuminated s he watched us gri swing the bones of antiquated fowls "Asa Brahmin you never cat flesh?" we asked, Never; is a sin," he said. We probed him diplomatically and spiritually. As a believer in tranamigration he might, in a former existence, have been a guinea fowl, a sheep, or a calf, promoted now to lofty manhood fur: doing as kind-hearted and philanthropic guinea fowls, sheep, and calves should do.
"By being a vegetarian I am-a_philesopher," he added. We hardly followed the reasoning, but admitted the possibility. S" we sat and talked into the night about the futilities of life, the amount. of soul in 8 bull-pup, protoplasmatic globules, -and generally, why things are as they happen to be and don't happen to be different. From that we started by easy stages, soaring towards the unattainable, realising the i comprehensible, and plumbing the unfathomable, Our Hindu was budding all over with piety, xnd-he shuddered at the levity which suggested that two-annas worth of polted cow. would snuff out his Brahmin-hood for ever.
He never smoked and he never drsnk, he never went toa music hall, and he never played cards. He had not a single redeeming vice.
We teached a magnificent road that wildered the jungle aside, and was shaded by an army of glorious trees, slim, fingery palms, tufts of giant rebellious grass, boughs donsiing with festooned glory, revealing " bewilderment of scented fore t, caressingly sensuous, ad dark, sun-defying avenues where one might stray and muse in Cistercian solitude or follow the sweep of the bright-plumed birds.
This is lovely indeed," we said, whizz. whizzi-g along. The ripe air' was draught of wne, somewhat intoxicating jwe looked at everything an! admitted all was good; even the herds of goats with ears fispping like fall-b-t ome! Lord Coancellor's ws were posi-g for ar is's pencil. In silence we whirled. Then we slackened. It's poetry 1" said one. "I'm blessed if it isn't punctures sail another. A dozen bulbul-spurs were poked from the tyres. They were our bane. During the first fortnight of our ride in India we hal more punctures than during the accumulated months since we left London, We took to the railway track again minns leafy protection, where the sun' was so strong that it was impos. sible to touch the bare steel work of the machines without scorching our fingers, where there were long girder b idges, which trompe! with x good Unee-foot stride, biese'es on shoulders, and bowenth the beams drops of thirty' or f ty feet to the stony channels of dry rivers, One night after nightfall we trudged a Invel fourteen miles over bumping sleepers.
thundering, seream'ng express train overt ok us, and another swooped down upon us, and we clutched the bank sida and held on tight while the monsters went tearing by. That night we were glad to purchase from the smirking Hindu station-taster any weete e! food h+ was willing 10 sell. We acted up to the East-ender's definition of an epicure: ' bloomiut bloke tht "Il ext cwt."
All this tims we were journeying through the independent native state of Bahawalpur. The Nawab, tubby man, bloareyed, who dresses in a pair of eye-classes, turban, a Norfolk jacket and foppy trousers, and rolls in hia walk like a Tyne~ sile coul-bargee, bassa palace at Abmadpur. Ie resembles Alexandra Palace freshly tricked out. The towers give points to
central dome hunts an emerald flag with the ky, in sapphire hues, "and over ths a white crescent. His Highness is un authority on whisky blending, and horses, and ho xa collector of all makes of bicycles. But he never risks his noble neck onan of them. We sav him out for a drive, in a lumbering coach dragged by six horses, outriders princing ahead to clear the way, horsemen capering round with drawn swords, and a dozen solemn attend-an's jogging unc"mfurtably behind springless mule cart. Belteving in the time-honoured p inciple that a cat may look at a king, cue venturesome cyclist turned his gaze on His Highness. At once there was a fi sh of sabres, and he was threatened with cutting into small pieces for his presumption. Around the palace Iounged slithering guards. The chief was a man to command respect: tall, scowling, with a henna-dyed beard, that would have been an admirable advo-fisement for any patent hair invigorator; eyes rimmed with paint, that glared like caverns of sin: and a fearsome scimitar, that hinted the striking off of heads. Punjaubi lancers poison, long Innces, whisked about, A general fanfare of wild music, whooping, sword-ging, and lance-waving, hinted a itary tournament tent-pegging at our
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.