soothing, sleep-inducing breezes for the
space of a day or night, by a constant seesawing motion of the string.
Few Europeans are able to sleep at night or exist during the day without
the punkah-wallah's services, for at least nine months in the year. The
slightest negligence on his part at night is sufficient to summon the
sleeper instantly from the land of dreams to the stern reality that the
dusky imp outside has himself dropped off to sleep. A pardonable
imprecation, delivered in loud, threatening tones; or, in the case of a
person vengefully inclined, or once too often made a victim, a stealthy
visit to the open door, a well-aimed boot, and the pendulous punkah again
swings to and fro, banishing the newly awakened prickly heat, and fanning
the recumbent figure on the charpoy with grateful breezes that quickly
send him off to sleep again.

A slight fall of rain during the night tempers somewhat the oppressive
heat, and the zephyrs of the prevailing monsoons blow stiffly against me
as I pedal southward in the early morning. The rain has improved rather
than injured the kunkah road, and it is, moreover, something of a toss-up
as to whether the adverse wind is advantageous or otherwise. On the one
hand it exacts increased muscular effort to ride against it, but on the
other, its beneficent services as a cooler are measurably apparent.

One needs only to traverse the Grand Trunk Road for a few days in order
to obtain a comprehensive idea of India's teeming population. Vehicles
and pedestrians throng the road again this morning, pouring into Amritza
as though to attend some great festival. The impression of some festive
occasion obtains additional color from parties of musicians who keep up a
perpetual tom-tom-ing on their drums as they trudge along; the object of
their noisiness is apparently to gratify their own love of the sounding
rattle of the drums.

At the police-chowkee of Ghundeala, ten miles from Amritza, a halt is
made for rest and a drink of water. To avoid trampling on the caste
prejudices, or the sanctimonious religious feelings of the natives,
everybody drinks from his hands, or from a cheap earthenware dish that
may afterward be smashed. The Sikhs and Mohammedans of the Punjab are far
more reasonable in this matter than are the Brahmans and other ultra-holy
idolaters of the country farther south. Among the Hindoos, where caste
prejudices exist throughout all the strata of society, to avoid the awful
c