150 WANDERINGS OF A 



anticipated, the heat by noon became excessive, and our thirst 

 intolerable. No water could be procured save what was 

 strongly impregnated with salt. At last, exhausted, I gave 

 in, and must have been verging on a cowp de soleil, as my 

 senses began to leave me, and I felt that both eyesight and 

 hearing were rapidly failing, accompanied by a loud buzzing 

 sound in both ears. In this condition I lay stretched on one 

 of the red banks, whilst the shickaree set off in search of a 

 spring. I think I may have remained for nearly half-an-hour 

 in this condition when I was roused by the voice of a native, 

 and looking up, beheld a half-naked man carrying a basin of 

 nulk, and platter full of cakes, which he at once begged I 

 would accept. This good Samaritan had seen my distress 

 from his grass-built hut on the top of a neighbouring hill, 

 where he resided for the purpose of guarding a vein of salt. 

 Never can I forget the kindness of the poor fellow, who, un- 

 solicited, came to my aid at a time his services were so sorely 

 needed. Whilst we remained in this part of the district 

 a young man paid us a visit. rHe was employed in the 

 Salt Eevenue Department. He seemed a regular Eobinson 

 Crusoe, having spent many years among these hot ra- 

 vines, almost without a human creature to bear him com- 

 pany. He informed us that he seldom saw a white face from 

 one year's end to another, and during the hot months was 

 obliged to turn night into day when visiting his various posts 

 on the surrounding hUls. He was an example of a race of 

 Englishmen bom and brought up in India without the shadow 

 of an idea of anything beyond Hindostan and its European 

 society, and even the smallest portion of, thought on these 

 points, for in his manners he had most in common with the 

 native, whose language he spoke more fluently than his own. 

 He allowed that his present occupation was considered one of 



