Indian Racing Reminiscences. 



beyond all endurance in the hot weather ; while if they 

 allowed the land to be cultivated by irrigation from 

 the branches of the canal, fever and ague smote them 

 down. 



As Meean Meer is north of the latitude of the regular 

 rains, the hot weather continues from March well into 

 October. Words fail to describe the heat of that blast- 

 furnacelike season. My first experience of it was that 

 the thermometer in my room rarely stood under 98° F. 

 for the greater part of the day, although the house was 

 kept shut from sunrise till long after sunset. As there 

 was no steady wind, as in the North-West Provinces, we 

 were unable to use the grateful Nu/s kJius tatties, ^\•hich 

 are made of bamboo screens covered with a thick layer 

 of a kind of fragrant grass. When a dry, hot wind blows, 

 they are placed to windward in front of an open door- 

 way and kept wet with water, the result being that the 

 air rushing through is rendered delightfully cool. We, 

 of course, employed punkahs, but they do not lower the 

 temperature, although they make it more bearable. 

 Sometimes, towards the evenings of these hot days, we 

 had a remission. The fiery sky suddenly became over- 

 cast ; the troops of crows which had sat on the branches 

 of the stunted trees for hours before, gasping between 



