THE STATION 159 



indistinctly visible, and on the part of the beholder 

 extreme fatigue. 



The ordinary day mirage is also sometimes to be 

 seen in India, but only during the hot weather, and 

 in a very bare, open tract of country. I myself have 

 only once beheld it; its appearance then was not at 

 all striking. There was none of that beauty and 

 illusion of trees and buildings which, according to 

 description, accompanies the mirage as seen in the 

 deserts of Africa and Arabia ; there was only in the 

 distance what seemed a sheet of water, nothing more. 



With the above description of the October moon- 

 light my diary for the time abruptly closes ; it 

 commences again after an interval of several months, 

 and then in a station further to the north, to which, 

 in the meantime, I had been transferred. The house 

 I now occupy is not, as before, on the bank of the river, 

 but then it has the compensating advantage of an 

 extremely large garden, and a garden, moreover, in 

 excellent order. The first entry in my diary of any 

 interest records my making the acquaintance of a 

 community of extremely small ants of the red variety; 

 but the particulars of this acquaintance I will relate 

 in the next chapter. 



I 



