n route to Lahore on a
bone-shaker. He is pedalling ambitiously along, with his umbrella under
his left arm. As we approach each other his swarthy countenance lights up
with a "glad, fraternal smile," and his hand touches his turban in
recognition of the mystic brotherhood of the wheel. There is a mysterious
bond of sympathy recognizable even between the old native-made
bone-shaker and its Punjabi rider and the pale-faced Ferenghi Sahib
mounted on his graceful triumph of Western ingenuity and mechanical
skill. The free display of ivories as we approach, the expectation of
fraternal recognition so plainly evident in his face, and the friendly
and respectful, rather than obsequious, manner of saluting, tell
something of that levelling tendency of the wheel we sometimes hear
spoken of.

The park-like expanse of country on either hand continues as mile after
mile is reeled off; the shady trees, the ruins, the villages, and the
roadside kos-minars, with the perfect highway leading through it all--what
more could wheelman ask than this. A wayside police-chowkee is now seen
ahead, a snug little edifice of brick beneath the sacred branches of a
spreading peepul. A six-foot Sikh, in the red-and-blue turban and neat
blue uniform of the Punjab soldier-police, stands at the door and
executes a stiff military salute as I wheel past. A row of conical white
pillars and a grass-grown plot of ground containing a few bungalows and
camping space for a regiment indicate a military reservation. These
spaces are reserved at intervals of ten or twelve miles all down the
Grand Trunk Road; the distance from each represents a day's march for
Indian troops in time of peace.

A bend in the road, and the bicycle sweeps over a substantial brick
bridge, spanning an irrigating canal large enough to float a three-masted
schooner. The bridge and the ditch convey early evidence of English
enterprise no less conspicuous than the road itself. Neatly trimmed banks
and a tropical luxuriance of overhanging vegetation give the long
straight reach of water the charming appearance of flowing through a
leafy tunnel. Under the stimulus of the monsoon rains and the more than
tropical heat, the soil seems bursting with fatness, and earth, air, and
water are teeming with life. The roadway itself is swarming with
pedestrians, trudging along in both directions; some there are with the
inevitable umbrellas held above their heads, but more are carrying them
under their