248 A Sportswoman in India 



Nay, come up hither. From this wave-washed mound 



Unto the farthest flood-brim look with me ; 



Then reach on with thy thought till it be drowned. 



Miles and miles distant though the last line be, 



And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond, 



Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there are more plains. 



And now our road began to grow dusty and also 

 much hotter. At each stage down we cast garment 

 after garment, and the air lost all its old exhilaration 

 and become more oppressive. 



With a last bump and a last jolt the tonga pulled 

 up at Rawal Pindi station, and with the weariness of 

 a ninety-mile drive in a cart without springs upon us, 

 we walked into the busy station, crowded with the 

 familiar Indian native, and the first train we had seen 

 for six months. 



Dinner in the refreshment-room, and we then 

 made ourselves comfortable in our reserved carriage 

 on a siding. I hardly remember when the mail train 

 picked us up ; but at ten o'clock next morning we 

 reached Lahore, and found the Orderly Gunga Sin and 

 a brougham there to meet us. It was too hot to 

 drive up to Mian Mir in an open carriage. 



As we drove, the dismalness of a level land, after 

 Kashmir, came over one the flat stretches of sand, 

 the dusty tamarisk-trees, the glaring white artillery 

 lines, the cavalry lines, passed one after the other. 

 We were down in the plains, down in cantonments 

 again. The sun scorched, the air was alive with the 

 sound of distant bugle calls ; in the evening we should 



