The courteous native soon explained that he was Isaacs’ agent in Julinder, and that a tar ki khaber, a telegram in short, had warned him to be on the lookout for me.  I was greatly relieved, for it was evident that every arrangement had been made for my comfort, so far as comfort was possible.  Isaacs had asked my assistance, but he had taken every precaution against all superfluous bodily inconvenience to me, and I felt sure that from this point I should move quickly and easily through every difficulty.  And so it proved.  The Mussulman took me to his house, where there was a spacious apartment, occupied by Isaacs when he passed that way.  Every luxury was prepared for the enjoyment of the bath, and a breakfast of no mean taste was served me in my own room.  Then my host entered and explained that he had been directed to make certain arrangements for my journey.  He had laid a dak nearly a hundred miles ahead, and had been ordered to tell me that similar steps had been taken beyond that point as far as my ultimate destination, of which, however, he was ignorant.  My servant, he said, must stay with him and return to Simla with my traps.

So an hour later I mounted for my long ride, provided with a revolver and some rupees in a bag, in case of need.  The country, my entertainer informed me, was considered perfectly safe, unless I feared the tap, the bad kind of fever which infests all the country at the base of the hills.  I was not afraid of this.  My experience is that some people are predisposed to fever, and will generally be attacked by it in their first year in India, whether they are much exposed to it or not, while others seem naturally proof against any amount of malaria, and though they sleep out of doors through the whole rainy season, and tramp about the jungles in the autumn, will never catch the least ague, though they may have all other kinds of ills to contend with.

On and on, galloping along the heavy roads, sometimes over no road at all, only a broad green track, where the fresh grass that had sprung up after the rains was not yet killed by the trampling of the bullocks and the grinding jolt of the heavy cart.  At intervals of seven or eight miles I found a saice with a fresh pony picketed and grazing at the end of the long rope.  The saice was generally squatting near by, with his bag of food and his three-sided kitchen of stones, blackened with the fire from his last meal, beside him; sometimes in the act of cooking his chowpatties, sometimes eating them, according to the time of day.  Several times I stopped to drink some water where it seemed to be good, and I ate a little chocolate from my supply, well knowing the miraculous, sustaining powers of the simple little block of “Menier,” which, with its six small tablets, will not only sustain life, but will supply vigour and energy, for as much as two days, with no other food.  On and on, through the day and the night, past sleeping villages, where