attacked by it in their
first year in India, whether they are much exposed to it or not, while
others seem naturally proof against any amount of malaria, and though
they sleep out of doors through the whole rainy season, and tramp about
the jungles in the autumn, will never catch the least ague, though they
may have all other kinds of ills to contend with.

On and on, galloping along the heavy roads, sometimes over no road at
all, only a broad green track, where the fresh grass that had sprung up
after the rains was not yet killed by the trampling of the bullocks and
the grinding jolt of the heavy cart. At intervals of seven or eight
miles I found a saice with a fresh pony picketed and grazing at the end
of the long rope. The saice was generally squatting near by, with his
bag of food and his three-sided kitchen of stones, blackened with the
fire from his last meal, beside him; sometimes in the act of cooking his
chowpatties, sometimes eating them, according to the time of day.
Several times I stopped to drink some water where it seemed to be good,
and I ate a little chocolate from my supply, well knowing the
miraculous, sustaining powers of the simple little block of "Menier,"
which, with its six small tablets, will not only sustain life, but will
supply vigour and energy, for as much as two days, with no other food.
On and on, through the day and the night, past sleeping villages, where
the jackals howled around the open doors of the huts; and across vast
fields of late crops, over hills thickly grown with trees, past the
broad bend of the Sutlej river, and over the plateau toward Sultanpoor,
the cultivation growing scantier and the villages rarer all the while,
as the vast masses of the Himalayas defined themselves more and more
distinctly in the moonlight. Horses of all kinds under me, lean and fat,
short and high, roman-nosed and goose-necked, broken and unbroken; away
and away, shifting saddle and bridle and saddle-bag as I left each tired
mount behind me. Once I passed a stream, and pulling off my boots to
cool my feet, the temptation way too strong, so I hastily threw off my
clothes and plunged in and had a short refreshing bath. Then on, with,
the galloping even triplet of the house's hoofs beneath me, as they came
down in quick succession, as if the earth were a muffled drum and we
were beating an untiring _rataplan_ on her breast.

I must have ridden a hundred and thirty miles before dawn, and the pace
was b