than in our more selfish Western regions, and which has, until quite
recently, obviated for strangers and pilgrims the necessity for hotels, is
now unable to cope with the increasing flood of visitors and wanderers; as
the need becomes more pressing, so will the supply, consequent upon the
demand, improve both in quality and quantity; and we have already heard of
the new Taj Mahal Hotel at Bombay, the fame of which has been trumpeted
through India, and which is said to rival in luxury the palaces of Ritz!
The real and serious difficulty, and one which at present seems
insurmountable, is to secure cleanliness and safety in that Augean
stable--the cook-house. Until the native can be brought to understand the
inadvisability of using tainted water and unclean utensils, and of
permitting the ubiquitous fly to pervade the larder--until, I say, that
millennium can be attained, the danger of enteric and other ills will
always be very great in Indian hotels.
_Friday, October_ 13.--Lunch with Dr. Munro, who surprised us somewhat by
having married a wife since we played golf and bridge together at Gulmarg
only a few weeks ago. Tea, a farewell repast with our invalid--who goes
before a medical board in a few days, and who will then be doubtless sent
home on long sick leave--and the despatch of our heavy luggage direct to
Bombay, occupied us pretty fully for the day; and in the evening, after
dinner, we took up our residence in a carriage drawn up in a siding to be
attached to the 6.30 mail in the morning. Our last recollection of Pindi
was a vision of the faithful Ayata, paid, tipped, and provided with a
flaming "chit," flapping along the road in the bright moonlight, with all
his worldly possessions, _en route_ for Abbotabad and home.
_Saturday, October_ 14.--A prodigious amount of banging, whistling, and
yelling seemed to be necessary before we could be coupled up to the early
train, and sent flying towards Lahore. It was impossible to sleep, and I
was peacefully watching the landscape as it slid past, first in the pink
flush of early dawn, and gradually losing colour as the sun, gaining in
strength, reduced everything to a white hot glow, when, scraping and
bumping into a wayside station, we were suddenly informed that, owing to
hot bearings or heated axles or something, we must quit our carriage at
once, and so, half dressed and wholly wrathful, we were shot out on a hot
and exceedingly gritty platform, with our hand luggage and bedding all of
a heap, and with the whole length of the train to traverse to attain our
new carriage. Sabz Ali being curled up asleep in an "intermediate," was
all unwitting of this upheaval. The officials were impatient, and so Jane
and I were in a thoroughly unchristian frame of mind by the time we were
stowed, hot and greatly fussed, into a stifling compartment, whose
dust-begrimed windows long withstood all endeavours to open them.
We reached Lahore about noon, and, having some six hours to dispose of
there, we spent them in calm contemplation, sitting on the verandah of
Nedou's Hotel. It was really too hot to think of sight-seeing.
_Thursday, October 19_.--Another night in the train brought us to Delhi at
dawn, and we drove up to the execrable caravansary of Mr. Maiden. I do not
propose to write much about Delhi. Every one who has been in India has
visited the capital of the Moguls, whose wealth of splendid buildings
would alone have rendered it a supreme attraction for the sight-seer, even
had it not played the part it did in the Mutiny, and been memorable as the
scene of the storming of the Kashmir Gate and the death of John Nicholson.
We, personally, carried away from Delhi an uncomfortable sense of
disappointment. It was very hot, and Jane fell a victim to the heat or
something, and took to her bed in the comfortless hotel, while I prowled
sadly about the baking streets, and tried to work up an enthusiasm which I
did not feel.
As soon as Jane was fit, we joined forces with a young fellow-countryman
and his sister, who were the only other English people in the hotel, and