CHAPTER XII. 



A COLD WEATHER TOUR 



I HAVE occasionally to visit some outlying offices, 

 and one of them is situated beyond the first range 

 of the mountains in the valley of the Doon. The 

 weather being now so pleasant, I decided to make the 

 journey by marching with tents. It was about the 

 middle of November when I set out. The tents, 

 horses, servants, and the carts with the baggage left in 

 the morning ; I followed on my pony in the afternoon. 

 The march was a long one, and I rode leisurely. It 

 was near sunset before I reached the camp. I found 

 it pitched on the margin of a grove of mango-trees, 

 close adjacent to a village. Before the village there 

 stood a great peepul-tree, and not far from it a small 

 white temple and a well. 



The open space between my camp and the village 

 presented a most animated appearance. The sugar- 

 cane crop had just been cut and carried, and the juice 

 was now being pressed out in a mill and boiled. The 

 mill was a machine as simple and clumsy as the 

 Persian wheel, and almost as picturesque. It consisted 

 of a round block of wood, apparently the lower part 

 of the trunk of a tree. The block was fixed firmly in 



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