186 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTliAL INDIA. 



I had been eluding the tracks of cholera the whole of 

 the hot season, and had escaped without a single case of 

 the disease in my camp. My people were almost ex- 

 hausted with such a lonoj march in the height of the hot 

 season ; and I joined them at the Yillagc, likewise much 

 knocked up by a long exploration in the hills. I found 

 my tent-pitcher and one or two others who had arrived 

 struggling to pitch the large tent, without the usual 

 assistance rendered by the villagers at the camping 

 place. They placidly told me that the village was no 

 longer the home of the living, every one in the houses 

 being dead of cholera ! The only living object in the 

 place was a white kid, wandering about with a garland 

 round its neck. It was the scape-goat wdiich these 

 simple people, after the manner of the Israelites of old, 

 send out into the wilderness on such occasions to carry 

 with it the spirit of the plague. Tired out as we were, 

 it was death to stay in this place ; so we re-loaded the 

 things and marched eight miles further, straight into 

 the jungle ; and at nightfall pitched our camp by the 

 banks of the wide Tawa river, far from human habita- 

 tion. No one was seized by the disease ; and during 

 all my marching, humanly speaking I believe owing to 

 proper sanitary precautions, I never had a single case 

 ill my camp. 



