266 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



fish, excrement of aquatic "birds, and rotting plants, 

 leads up to a barren sandy plain, on a slight elevation 

 of which stands the cantonment. Clouds of sand and 

 dust dash furiously at the astonished visitor. The 

 dry heat, if the wind is from the land, cracks his skin. 

 He is ready to curse the country as bearing nothing 

 but sand, salt, and soldiers. 



A very little acquaintance with it, however, will 

 convince him. that it has many compensating advan- 

 tages. The dry, elastic, invigorating air of the desert 

 is very exciting, so much so, indeed, that for some 

 days the stranger feels his brain painfully active, and 

 strongly suspects that the European residents in Sind 

 are all insane. From October to March the weather 

 is very pleasant, and though it may be very hot dur- 

 ing the day, yet towards sunset, and on till morning, 

 he finds a sharp cold, unknown in Hindostan, which 

 enables him to enjoy once more the luxuries of a fire 

 and of hot punch. Considering that Sind is in what 

 is called a " rainless district," he is agreeably gratified 

 by seeing magnificent ranges of heavy clouds lying 

 along the hills of Beluchistan, Avhich are only about 

 twenty miles distant, and these coming down in rain 

 on heavy blasts of wind, until the country is changed 

 from dust and sand into mud and water. Oh ! the 

 pleasant relief from those eternal blue skies, about 

 which romantic young ladies in England, who have 

 never experienced them, talk so enthusiastically ! 

 The European in Sind, who has escaped from the 



