180 ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 



always a garden one could sleep in, but I preferred the house- 

 top, as out of the way of snakes and the troops of noisy 

 jackals which were quite likely to race past one's bed ; not 

 that they would interfere with one in any way, only they 

 were disturbing. On the roof one could slumber in peace, 

 but a thick blanket to catch the heavy night dews had to be 

 laid on the mosquito-net frame overhead. The blanket would 

 be wringing wet by morning. (As I write this I am thinking 

 specially of nights in the Deccan, and also in Coimbatore.) 



An India of oppressive heat is the only one that people 

 who know nothing about it picture to themselves. My 

 own experience of that kind of India, where one could 

 scarcely breathe with a roof over one's head at night, was 

 slight, extending only over a few years ; while I can cer- 

 tainly say that I have known breathless, sultry August 

 nights in our temperate climate of England which were 

 quite as trying. For in India, though the temperature is 

 higher, everything that makes for coolness is studied, no 

 end of appliances to minimise discomfort being within the 

 reach of those with very moderate means. 



Off and on, I stayed a good deal where eleven or twelve 

 degrees of frost, and even more, were common ; where linen 

 and prints were only for the hot weather ; serges and furs 

 being needed for the cold ; where fireplaces were the rule 

 in every room, and the supply of peat and logs — coal we had 

 not — important items in household bills ; and where the life 

 is in many respects very English as to climate and clothing 

 and occupations. This was in the Nilgiri Hills of Southern 

 India, at an elevation of some seven thousand feet ; and 

 Northern India has her Himalayas, the region of eternal 

 snows — called the Snowy Range. 



The truth is, India is so vast. She has many widely 

 diverse climates, in far-reaching tracts, where neither palm 

 trees, nor sand, nor elephants are to be seen — the typical 

 features in imaginary pictures. 



