lothes, or
scouring out the brass drinking vessel almost everyone carries for
pulling water up from the roadside wells. They are far less particular
about the quality of the water itself than about the cleanliness of the
vessel. Many wells for purely drinking purposes abound, and Brahmans
serve out cool water from little pahnee-chowkees through window-like
openings. Wealthy Hindoos, desirous of performing some meritorious act to
perpetuate their memory when dead, frequently build a pahnee-chowkee by
the roadside and endow it with sufficient land or money to employ a
Brahman to serve out drinking-water to travellers.

Thirty miles from Allahabad, I pause at a wayside well to obtain a drink.
It is high noon, and the well is on unshaded ground. For a brief moment
my broad-brimmed helmet is removed so that a native can pour water into
my hands while I hold them to my mouth. Momentary as is the experience,
it is followed by an ominous throbbing and ringing in the ears--the voice
of the sun's insinuating power. But a very short distance is covered when
I am compelled to seek the shelter of a little road-overseer's chowkee,
the symptoms of fever making their appearance with alarming severity.

The quinine that I provided myself with at Constantinople is brought into
requisition for the first time; it is found to be ruined from not being
kept in an air-tight vessel. A burning fever keeps me wide awake till 2
a.m., and in the absence of a punkah, prickly heat prevents my slumbering
afterward. This wakeful night by the roadside enlightens me to the
interesting fact that the road is teeming with people all night as well
as all day, many preferring to sleep in the shade during the day and
travel at night.

It is fifty miles from my chowkee to Benares, and the dread of being
overtaken with serious illness away from medical assistance urges upon me
the advisability of reaching there to-day, if possible. The morning is
ushered in with a stiff head-wind, and the fever leaves me feeling
anything but equal to pedalling against it when I mount my wheel at early
daybreak. By sheer strength of will I reel off mile after mile, stopping
to rest frequently at villages and under the trees.

A troop of big government elephants are having their hoofs trimmed at a
village where a halt is made to obtain a bite of bread and milk. The
elephants enter unmistakable objections to the process in the way of
trumpeting, and act pretty much like youngste