arms, as though in lofty contempt of 130 deg. Fahr.

Vehicles jingle past by the hundred, filled with villagers who have been
visiting or shopping at Lahore or Amritza. Their light bamboo carts are
provided with numbers of little brass cymbals that clash together
musically in response to the motion of the vehicle; the occupants are
fairly loaded down with silver jewellery, and for color and
picturesqueness generally it is safe to assume that "not even Solomon in
all his glory was arrayed like one of these." The women particularly seem
to literally revel in the exuberance of bright coloring adorning their
dusky proportions, the profusion of jewellery, the merry jingle-jangle of
the cymbals, the more than generous heat, and the seeming bountifulness
of everything. These Sikh and Jatni merry-makers early impress me as
being particularly happy and light-hearted people.

Splendid wheeling though it be, it soon becomes distressingly apparent
that propelling a bicycle has now to be considered in connection with the
overpowering heat. Half the distance to Amritza is hardly covered, and
the riding time scarcely two hours, yet it finds me reclining beneath the
shade of a roadside tree more used up than five times the distance would
warrant in a less enervating climate. The greensward around me as I
recline in the shade is teeming with busy insects, and the trees are
swarming with the beautiful winged life of the tropical air. Flocks of
paroquets with most gorgeous plumage--blue, red, green, gold, and every
conceivable hue--flit hither and thither, or sweep past in whirring
flight.

Some of the native pedestrians pause for a moment and cast a wondering
look at the unaccustomed spectacle of a Sahib and a bicycle reclining
alone beneath a wayside tree. All salaam deferentially as they pass by,
but there is a refreshing absence of the spirit of obtrusion that
sometimes made life a burden among the Turks and Persians. In his disgust
at the aggressive curiosity of the Persians, Captain E, my companion from
Meshed to Constantinople, had told me, "You'll find, when you get to
India, that a Sahib there is a Sahib," and the strikingly deferential
demeanor of the natives I have encountered on the road to-day forcibly
reminds me of his remarks.

The myriads of soldier-ants crossing the road in solid phalanx or
climbing the trees, the winged jewels of the air flitting silently here
and there, the picturesque natives and their deferential