CHAPTER XX. 



HARD LUCK. 



THE middle of September had passed, but the 

 plains were still very hot. It was the year 18 , and 

 the rains in the Bombay Presidency had been very 

 scanty, in fact, there had hardly been any to speak of. 

 In spite of this, or rather perhaps for this very reason, 

 the season had been a healthy one, and there had 

 only been one or two cases of cholera among the 



troops at the station of . 



It was, as I have said, still very hot. So the men 

 who had been on leave to the hills said. We, whose 

 minds went back to the grilling days of May, thought 

 it was not half bad. The cuscus tatties, which alone had 

 made life bearable, had long since been banished. 

 (For the benefit of the uninitiated I may explain that 

 these are screens, woven from the sweet-scented cuscus 

 grass, which exactly fit the doorways on the windward 

 side of the house. During the hot weather they are 

 put up as soon as the sun has a little power, and kept 

 wet all day by a coolie stationed in the verandah. A 

 cool-scented draught of air steals through them, which 

 is the only air admitted to the house, all other doors 

 and windows being tightly closed. With these and a 



