ve south-westerly and into a tunnel and out again
and up from the plain--up and up--high rocky hills on either side with
bushes and trees growing amongst rocks; another Pass of Lennie, I'd like
to call it, on a larger scale. Out of the tunnel, we look down a long
valley to our right with little dried up fields all over the bottom of
it, fading into distant haze. Then another black tunnel opening into
grey rock, and on coming slowly out--we are climbing all the time one
foot in forty-two--we again look down a valley miles away to our left,
and we can see the station Karjat, from which we began this climb up the
Bore Ghat.

The aspect of this country makes me think of sport; the rocky hills, dry
grass, pools, and cover suggest stalking or waiting for game, but
perhaps there is still too much evidence of people--however, I must get
the glasses out and see what they will show up.

Kandala station--a white spot, the guard points out to us far above
us--then into a tunnel, and out, and we are there. To our right are
ridge beyond ridge of hill tops, stretching away into the sunset.

Reader, please draw a breath before this next paragraph.

"The length of the ascent is nearly 16 miles over which there are
26 tunnels with a length of 2,500 yards, eight viaducts, many
smaller bridges. The actual height accomplished by the ascent is
1,850 feet, and the cost of constructing the line was nearly
_L_600,000."

Fairly concentrated mental food, is it not? and only eight lines from
one page of "Murray," and there are one hundred and six lines in a page,
and six hundred and thirty nine pages in the book!!

The sun sets on our right beyond a plain of stubble fields and young
crops and distant hills, and in the sky a rich band of gold, veined with
vermillion, lies above a belt of violet, and higher still a star or two
begin to glitter in the cold blue. To us newcomers, this first sunset we
have seen in India in the open over the high plains filled us with new
and almost solemn interest. But why the feeling was new or strange would
be hard to say; sunsets the world over are alike in many ways, but the
feelings stirred are as different as the lands and the people over which
they set.

A little later we (I should say I, in this case) had quite an adventure
at a dusky siding in this tableland of the Dekkan. As I hastened to our
carriage a beautiful lady bowed to me, a stranger in a far land! And I
bowed too, and