AN INDIAN SUMMER'S DAY. 



MORNING. 



" Koel ! Ko-yel ! " from the feathery tamarinds. 



The faint breeze accompanying an Indian dawn has died 

 away, and a burning March sun is climbing into a hard 

 :blue sky, casting hard blue shadows across the smooth, 

 white, tree-bordered road of the little Cantonment. 



" Tok tok tok tok ! " from the glossy new pipal> 

 leaves hammers the little barbet, all head and beak if you 

 can see him punctuating each monotonous note with a 

 sidelong nod, now right, now left. 



Soon Nature will lie wrapped in the noontide silence. 

 The hot weather has come once more, and the exile girds 

 up his loins for resistance, passive though it may be, till 

 relieved at the bursting of the next monsoon rains. The 

 punkah has recommenced its weary flap ; and many an 

 unhappy individual, uncheered even by that priceless thirst 

 which is now his right, is settling into a quiet hypochon- 

 dria. 



But to the shikdri come no discomforting thoughts. 

 Let the sun do his fiercest, and the " brain-fever-bird " 

 his worst, while parched leaves eddy in the scorching blast ; 

 they only remind him that his time of promise is nigh. 

 Unfold the map ; visit each old haunt afresh ; mark as 

 likely those yet unvisited ; welcome the men returned with 

 hopeful news ; settle the route, and overhaul rifle and gun. 

 Hurrah! for April jungles and all they hold in anticipation ; 

 there are compensations for an Indian summer after alL 



