178 RIFLE AND SPEAR WITH THE RAJPOOTS. 



hastily to say he would be eternally disgraced if we left 

 his house to go out in the rain. " Would we try another 

 house ? " and to spare his feelings we consented. A native 

 village is not a nice place to walk in by day, and at 

 night — especially a wet night — it is unspeakable. Pick- 

 ing our way through the filth of the yard, we groped 

 through the kitchen, where our shikaris and coolies rolled 

 in blankets were asleep round the fire. Then along a 

 narrow dirty lane, through which a stream resembling 

 an open sewer now ran. At the end of this was the house, 

 consisting of one room opening into the street. It was 

 however nice and clean, the white walls painted native- 

 fashion with soldiers and processions, and the door and 

 shutters of carved teak. We went straight to bed, 

 slightly uncertain whether the house was a tomb or a 

 private temple. 



Wednesday. — The rain has gone, and the sun is en- 

 deavouring to struggle through the fog-like clouds which 

 still shroud us. I was obliged to dress with door and 

 windows closed, for we evidently excited considerable 

 interest in the village, and in the street outside were 

 several mothers of families who had brought their numer- 

 ous offspring to have a peep, I suppose on the same 

 principle that the schoolmistress took her girls to the 

 Duke of Wellington's funeral — that when they were old 

 women they might be able to say they had seen him. 



