the Maharana of Udaipur, as a love-gift. There is great
friendship between Jodhpur and Udaipur, and the idea of one King going
abroad to shoot game for another has something very pretty and quaint in
it.

Night fell and the Englishman became aware that the conservancy of
Jodhpur might be vastly improved. Strong stenches, say the doctors, are
of no importance; but there came upon every breath of heated air--and in
Jodhpur City the air is warm in mid-winter--the faint, sweet, sickly
reek that one has always been taught to consider specially deadly. A few
months ago there was an impressive outbreak of cholera in Jodhpur, and
the Residency Doctor, who really hoped that the people would be brought
to see sense, did his best to bring forward a general cleansing-scheme.
But the city fathers would have none of it. Their fathers had been
trying to poison themselves in well-defined ways for an indefinite
number of years; and they were not going to have any of the Sahib's
"sweeper-nonsense."

To clinch everything, one travelled member of the community rose in his
place and said: "Why, I've been to Simla. Yes, to Simla! And even _I_
don't want it!"

When the black dusk had shut down, the Englishman climbed up a little
hill and saw the stars come out and shine over the desert. Very far
away, some camel-drivers had lighted a fire and were singing as they sat
by the side of their beasts. Sound travels as far over sand as over
water, and their voices came into the city wall and beat against it in
multiplied echoes.

Then he returned to the House of Strange Stories--the Dak-bungalow--and
passed the time o' day with a light-hearted bagman--a Cockney, in whose
heart there was no thought of India, though he had travelled for years
throughout the length and breadth of the Empire and over New Burma as
well. There was a fort in Jodhpur, but you see that was not in his line
of business exactly, and there were stables, but "you may take my word
for it, them who has much to do with horses is a bad lot. You get hold
of the Maharaja's coachman and he'll drive you all round the shop. I'm
only waiting here collecting money." Jodhpur dak-bungalow seems to be
full of men "waiting here." They lie in long chairs in the verandah and
tell each other interminable stories, or stare citywards and express
their opinion of some dilatory debtor. They are all waiting for
something; and they vary the monotony of a life they make wilfully dull
beyond words,