ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 135 



was soon told. It had been discovered that the vaccine 

 lymph about to be used had come from the most leprous 

 village in Southern India ! The message was delivered just 

 in time — not an instant to spare ; an accident to man or 

 horse, an extra drink of water on the road — the veriest 

 trifle — and some of us would have been surely doomed to 

 the most awful fate on earth. But those two fine fellows 

 were not chosen at haphazard ; they knew what was 

 wanted of them ; their orders were to ride like the wind, 

 to save lives ; to eat and drink riding ; to stop for nothing ; 

 above all, to be in time. 



I cannot now remember with how many changes of horses 

 these men had covered mile after mile at unslackening 

 gallop, over any sort of ground, and roads that, as we knew, 

 were like dry watercourses ; nor how long or short a time 

 their desperate ride took them ; but I know that they ful- 

 filled their mission grandly, nearly falling out of their saddles 

 with fatigue as they pulled up at their appointed goal. 

 Nor were they forgetful of the good horses that had served 

 them so well ; for we heard them give the syces who were 

 leading the spent animals away a rapid word of caution 

 not to water them directly, only to rinse out their mouths 

 and bathe their faces, legs, and feet, till they should cool 

 down a little. They had not thought of themselves, but 

 F. saw that all was provided for their comfort and rest. 

 The men were Mussulmanis — high-bred, finely strung — 

 whose endurance would give out only with death. Our 

 feelings towards them are not to be described. Besides 

 ourselves, all those hundreds, aye, thousands, of men, 

 women, and children, even the tiny babies, were all to have 

 been subjected to the same deadly risk, if not certainty, 

 of contracting one of the most horrific diseases from which 

 man can suffer. 



I was for heaping presents on these men : gold watches 

 and chains — possessions in which they would especially 



