e station. The owners of the two
first bungalows were out; at the third the hostess carried wreaths of
flowers, which she was on her way to place on her native butler's grave;
he had died of plague. The next house was full of madonnas and maids
worshipping the latest arrival in the station, a chubby boy of six
months. The father had retired to a quiet corner, but seeing another
mere man, he came out with certain alacrity and suggested a peg and
cheroot. The next house was the doctor's, and the Mrs Doctor and I were
just getting warm over Ireland, and had got to Athlone, Galway, and
Connemara, when the ten minutes, that seem law here, were up, and G.
rose to go, and I'd to leave recollections of potheen, and wet, and peat
reek, and "green beyond green"--such refreshing things even to think of
in this Eastern land, especially for us who are on the wander and know
we will be home soon. But it must be a different feeling for those
people at their posts, tied down by duty, year after year, with the
considerable chance of staying in the little bit of a cemetery with
others who failed to get home. But we must not touch on this aspect of
our peoples life out here, it is too deeply pathetic. At the next house
I did actually get a peg, and it was a pleasing change after buffalo
milk and quinine for days: and mine host, who had been on the "West
Coast," told me his experience of pegs in Africa. "The men," he said,
"who didn't take pegs there at all, all died for certain, and men who
took nips and pegs in excess died too; a few, however, who took them in
moderation survived."

Then we drove towards the sunset and rolling hills, and were overwhelmed
with the volume of colour. Bosky trees lined the road, and the orange
light came through the fretwork of their leaves and branches, and made
the dust rising from the cattle and the people on the red roads and the
deep shadows all aglow with warm, sombre colour; I would I could
remember it exactly. One figure I can still see--there is an open space,
green grass, and Corot like trees on either side reflected in water,
and a girl carrying a black water-pot on her head, crosses the grass in
the rays of the setting sun--a splash of transparent rosy draperies
round a slight brown figure.

Friday.--Rode in morning with the Brother, painted and drove with G. in
the afternoon, tennis and badminton at club, and people to dinner; that
is not such a bad programme, is it? Not exciting, but healthy,