188 SPORT AND TRAVEL PAPERS 



What an existence it was in that fort ! never to be forgotten 

 by any surviving member of its first garrison. Days and 

 months passed, we did not know how passed as if in a long 

 sleep, hidden from all else by a dense curtain of mist and 

 cloud which but rarely lifted; holding no communion, often 

 for weeks together, with the outside world, cut off by flooded 

 country, as we were, through which even dak elephants could 

 not pass and in which many with our mails were lost. 

 Now, at Christmas-time, it had rained for some months : 

 the rain continuing for several more with short interruptions, 

 during which the whole country was enveloped in the very 

 dampest of mists. The result, in the hills around, was 

 a most luxuriant vegetation, among which tree-ferns and 

 bamboos excelled in feathery beauty. In the fort our condition 

 was a wretched one; the poor Sikhs especially, accustomed 

 to a perfectly dry climate, suffered terribly here where nothing 

 was ever dry, clothing and bedding always wet, rations mouldy, 

 and the whole interior of our leaking bamboo huts covered 

 with a rankly growing foetid fungus. 



In this constant moisture thrived swarms of flies, large and 

 small, and mosquitoes the plague no doubt the " Bhoots," 

 or evil spirits of Bhootan was everywhere, in our food, in 

 our drink, in ears, nose and pockets ; the insects crawled 

 up one's sleeve and down one's neck reckless of fate but 

 maddening in their persistency, forbidding sleep except in the 

 middle of the night, when the tormentors themselves urgently 

 required rest ; they ran and fell into the ink and then dried 

 themselves on the pages of a newly written letter, official 

 and in the best handwriting; they got caught between the 

 lids in their frantic efforts to examine the interior of one's 

 eye, went to roost in the hair and cared nothing for punkah 

 or fan. No doubt it was a wretched place this Dalimkote 

 sharing with Assam the highest known rainfall during this 

 apparently never ending wet season, and especially depressing, 

 as half the garrison was always on the sick list with dysentery, 

 fever, and scurvy, thanks to the perpetual damp and mouldy food. 

 There were no striking incidents to mark the time except 

 deaths, nothing to do outside the fort but bury Christians 

 and Mohammedans, and burn the poor dead Sikhs, not to 

 mention the slaughter of some jungle fowl among the hills 



