ly
laden with ripe and ripening dates. Reclining under the date-trees or
wandering about are many dusky sons and daughters of Scinde, the latter
in bright raiment and with children in no raiment whatever. The heat, the
fruitful date-palms, and the lotus-eating natives combine to make up a
truly tropical scene.

Much of the country population seems to be nomadic, or semi-nomadic,
dwelling in tents with which they remove to the higher ground when the
Indus becomes inundated, and return again to the valley to cultivate and
harvest their crops. They seem a picturesque people mostly, sometimes
strangely incongruous in the matter of apparel, as, for instance, one I
saw wearing a white breech-cloth and a hussar coat. This was the whole
extent of his wardrobe, for he had neither shoes, shirt, nor hat.

Water-buffaloes are wading and swimming about in the overflowed jungle,
browsing off bulrushes and rank grass. Youngsters are sometimes seen
perched on the buffaloes' backs, taking care of the herd.

About Mooltan the aspect of the country changes to level, barren plain,
and this, as we gradually approach Lahore, gives place to a cultivated
country of marvellous richness. Here one first sees the matchless kunkah
roads, traversing the country from town to town, the first glimpse of
which is very reassuring to me.

It is July 28th when I at length find myself in Lahore. The heat is not
only well-nigh unbearable, but dangerous. Prickly heat has seized hold
upon me with a promptness that is anything but agreeable; the thermometer
in my room at Clarke's Hotel registers 108 deg. at midnight. A
punkah-wallah is indispensable night and day.

A couple of days are spent in affixing a new set of tires to my wheel and
seeing something of the lions of Lahore. The Shalamar Mango Gardens, a
few miles east of the city, and Shah-Jehan's fort, museum, etc., are the
regular things to visit.

In the museum is a rare collection of ancient Asiatic arms, some of which
throw a new light on the origin of modern firearms. Here are revolving
muskets that were no doubt used long before the revolving principle was
ever applied to arms in the West. But our narrative must not linger amid
the antiquities of Lahore, fascinating as they may, peradventure, be.

CHAPTER XIV.

THROUGH INDIA.

The heat is intense, being at the end of the heated term at the
commencement of the earliest monsoons. It is certainly not less than 130
deg. Fahr., in the sun