KASHMIR VALLEYS . 259 



of heat. I was among workers once again, and the 

 realities of Indian life struck harshly on me. It was 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 leisured 

 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 of 

 enteric. Still, we do what we can, but the wards in 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 it ; 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 in 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 



