ied mud. They go slowly, the walking is rough for bare feet, for the
clay is hard and baked and pitted with cows' feet marks. They drink and
wash their bowls in the dregs in the pond, the water already so dirty
that a self-respecting duck would not swim in it, and wade about
stirring up the mud, then fill their bowls and march away with it for
domestic uses--this sounds bad, but it looks a great deal worse. The
figures though are charming, with balanced bowl on head, and draperies
blown into such folds as a Greek would have loved to model.... But their
faces!--Phew! when you see them closely, are frightful!

It is difficult to catch their movement; they are so restless. All
people who wear loose draperies seem to be so; witness Spanish women,
and the Spanish type of women in our Highlands and Ireland, how they
keep constantly shifting their shawls.

[Illustration]

... The Club in evening--a tiny club, quite nice after a quiet day in
the bungalow. I was introduced to the five men there, who put me through
my paces very gently; I just passed I think, and no more. "Play
bridge?--No. Billiards?--Not much." I began to feel anxious and feared
they'd try cricket. "Tennis?--Yes, dote on tennis!" That smoothed
things, and then we got on to shooting, and all went off at a canter.
One of my inquisitors, Mr Huddleston, had been in Lumsden's Horse (the
Indian contingent in S. Africa), and said he had helped a young brother
of mine out of action at Thaban' Chu.[11] Lumsden's Horse got left there
and lost heavily. I knew this brother had been ridden off the stricken
field on Captain P. Chamney's back under heavy fire, one of these V.C.
doings that were discounted in S. Africa, and knew that two other
fellows rode on either side to steady the sanguinary burden. So here was
one of the two, and I asked who the other was, and he said, "Trooper
Ducat, but Powell mended your brother's head; didn't you meet him in the
Taj Hotel in Bombay?" And I laughed, for I remembered the doctor of the
Taj, a rather retiring man, who generally sat alone at a table in the
middle of the great dining-room; and that whenever he had friends dining
with him, and I looked up, I was safe to find either he or his friends
looking across in my direction, why I couldn't make out. Now it was
explained! He remembered mending a man's forehead that had been broken
by a piece of shell, and concluded from the surname in the Hotel Book,
and possibly family likeness, that