clever and honest and understanding the speech and ways of the
English most fully.

[22] Telegram.

"Now it is many days' journey, Sahib, across the desert and the
mountains, from Mekran Kot in Kubristan to Kot Ghazi in India, but at
Kot Ghazi is a fine bungalow, the property of the Jam Saheb, and there
all travellers from his house may sojourn and rest after their long and
perilous travel.

"Taking me and Mir Abdul Haq and Mir Hussein Ali and many men and
servants, among whom was the body-servant, the boy Moussa Isa Somali, he
set forth, a little depressed that we heard not the cry of the
partridge in the fields of Mekran Kot as we started--not exactly a bad
omen, but lacking a good one. And sure enough, ere we won to Kot Ghazi,
his eyes became red and inflamed, very sore and painful to use. So, he
put the tail of his _puggri_[23] about his face and rode all day from
sun-rise to sun-set in darkness, his camel being driven by Abdulali
Gulamali Bokhari--the same who later rose to fame and honour as an
outlaw and was hanged at Peshawar after a brave and successful career.
And being arrived, in due course, at Kot Ghazi, before entering the
bungalow belonging to the Jam Saheb, he knelt his camel at the door of
the shop of a European _hakim_--in English a--er--"

[23] Turban.

"Chemist, Mir Saheb," I suggested.

"Doubtless, since your honour says it--of a _kimmish_, and entering, to
the Eurasian dog therein said in English, of which he knew everything
(and taught me much, as your honour knows), 'Look you. I need lotion for
my eyes, eye medicine, and a bath for them' and the man mixed various
waters and poured them into a blue bottle with red labels, very
beautiful to see, and wrote upon it. Also he gave my brother a small cup
of glass, shaped like the mouth of the _pulla_ fish or the eye-socket of
a man. And my brother, knowing what to do, used the things then and
there, to the wonder of Abdul Haq and Hussein Ali, pouring the liquor
into the glass cup, and holding it to his eyes, and with back-thrown
head washing the eye and soothing it.

"'Shahbas!'[24] quoth he. 'It is good,' and anon we proceeded to the
gun-shop and then to the bungalow belonging to the Jam Saheb. And lo
and behold, here we discovered the dog Ibrahim Mahmud, and my brother
twisted the knife of memory in the wound of insult by ordering him to
quit the room he occupied and seek another, since Mir Jan intended the
room for his body-servant, Mou