262 AFOOT THROUGH THE 



and tormented my arms ; but I hoped for another rest 

 in eighteen hours' time a short stay at a Central Indian 

 station I had visited in December, and remembered for 

 the beauty of its immemorable flowers. A weary-eyed 

 figure stopped me as I was leaving the carriage. "You 

 must not stay here, we have cholera." The train moved 

 on. 



This, then, was the glorious East, the other side 

 of the shield, unseen, unguessed at by itinerant 

 M.P.'s and cold-weather visitors. Punkahs are a 

 pleasing pretence when the weather is little warmer 

 than an ordinary English summer's day, playing 

 at the tropics, as the G.T. gaily remarks as he 

 sips iced sodas in an easy lounge with a ther- 

 mometer that scarcely touches 86, but somewhere 

 the furnaces are being stoked. Swiftly and suddenly 

 the short cold season is superseded by monotonous 

 months of sweltering sunshine. Will the ra'ns never 

 come to put an end to the suspense? And sometimes 

 they come, but as a mockery. A shower or two, a sense 

 of slight relief, and the awful fact is borne in that the 

 rains have again failed, the monsoon will not break, 

 there can be no change till heavy snow T s on those stern 

 guardians of Upper India bring some slight alleviation 

 to the weary watchers on the far-distant plains. 



My journey to Bombay was accomplished to a sad, 

 monotonous refrain, a death song sung by suffering 

 people beneath a pitiless sun. A description of these 

 things savours of exaggeration; having seen them 

 silence seems the only course. Certain ills must be 

 borne, and it is best not to make them too evident, other- 

 wise none could bear to face them ; for that reason folk 

 at home do not have much mention of this side of Indian 

 life. 



