andering tent-life as India. Their language, subjected to analysis,
has been traced in a measure to Sanscrit roots, and although spread
pretty much all over the surface of the globe, this strange, romantic
people are said to recognize one another by a common language, even
should the one hail from India and the other from the frozen North.
Certain professors claim to have discovered a connecting link between the
gypsies of the Occident and the Jats of the Punjab.

A boy tending a sacred cow undertakes to drive that worshipful animal out
of my way as he sees me come bowling briskly down the road. The bovine,
pampered and treated with the greatest deference and consideration from
her earliest calfhood, resents this treatment by making a short but
determined spurt after me as I sweep past. Whether the sacred cows of
India are spoiled by generations of overindulgence, or whether the
variety is constitutionally evil-tempered does not appear, but they one
and all take pugnacious exception to the bicycle. Spurting away from a
chasing Brahmani cow is an every-day experience.

Mr. D has kindly telegraphed from Kurnaul to Nawab Ali Ahmed Khan, a
hospitable Mohammedan gentleman at Paniput, apprising him of my coming.
More ancient even than Kurnaul, Paniput's vast antiquity is reputed to
extend back to the period of the great Pandava War described in the
Mahabharat, and supposed to have been fought nearly four thousand years
ago. The city occupies a commanding position to the left of the road, and
is rendered conspicuous by several white marble domes and minarets.

The nawab and another native gentleman, physician to the Paniput
Hospital, are seated in a dog-cart watching for my appearance, at a fork
in the road near one of the city gates. The nawab's place is a mile and a
half off the main road, but the smooth, level kunkah leads right up to
the fine, commodious bungalow, in which I am duly installed. A tepid
bath, prepared in deference to the nawab's anticipation of my preference,
is awaiting my pleasure, and from the moment of arrival I am the
recipient of unstinted attention. A large reclining chair is placed
immediately beneath the punkah, and a punkah-wallah, ambitious to please,
causes the frilled hangings of this desirable and necessary piece of
furniture to wave vigorously to and fro but a foot or eighteen inches
above my head. A smiling servant kneels at my feet and proceeds to knead
and "groom" the muscles of the legs.