effects, so I buried myself in red
blankets, and as the rain thundered down, thought of our coolies; I
expect they got from under their hats and went below the floor of our
bungalow. The atmosphere, after an hour, grew suddenly pleasant and
cool--a breeze rose--there was light in the left, and the glint of many
stars--and I pulled on another blanket and slept at last refreshingly.
What a night the Chinese up the road must have had. No jungle however
thick could have kept out that rain, and it is thin where they are, for
many campers have cut down the branches and bamboos for fodder and
firewood. They sleep with only a piece of matting over their bodies, the
wide straw hat over their head and shoulders; and their fires, of
course, were extinguished. The sort of thing our Volunteers enjoyed in
S.A., and for which they got rheumatism and experience, and a medal, and
no opportunity to wear it.

One of the sepoys has cut me a bamboo, so it's time to be off to put on
snake-rings, and get out tackle and try somehow to hang on to one of
these Mahseer that I have heard of so much and of which I know so
little. Local information there is none, but I have spoons and phantoms,
and so--who knows!

CHAPTER XXXVI

[Illustration]

The above notes and remarks, full of hope, were written with a little
impatience to be "on the water." Now, after two hours scrambling through
jungle to and from the river, I've less hope and an empty basket. It was
hot and still down in the glen, like the vale wherein sat grey-haired
Saturn, and--

"Forest on forest hung about his head
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
Not so much life as on a summer's day
Robs not one light seed from the feathered grass,
But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest."

and fruit and flowers too lay sodden under foot. It was tough work
getting through the few hundred yards of jungle of creeper thorns and
boulders to the river's edge. I fished two or three sheltered runs, and
came back soaking from within and without from the heat and wet foliage,
scratched by thorns, with ears drumming from the noise of many waters,
and no basket, and the river not down two inches and muddy as could be!

We must be off again now--or at least let the pack ponies and servants
go.

12th, Monday.--Nampoung, after two hours on our little gees, two hours
that seemed days! Hot and stuffy down in the glens in the din and roar
of the Taiping in spa