“You English—­pardon me, I forgot you did not belong to them—­the English, then, have performed most of their great acts of valour as a direct consequence of having wantonly exposed themselves in situations where no sane man would have placed himself.  Look at Balaclava; think of the things they did in the mutiny, and in the first Afghan war; look at the mutiny itself, the result of a hair-brained idea that a country like India could be held for ever with no better defences than the trustworthiness of native officers, and the gratitude of the people for the ‘kindly British rule.’  Poor Cavagnari! when he was here last summer, before leaving on his mission, he said several times he should never came back.  And yet no better man could have been chosen, whether for politics or fighting; if only they had had the sense to protect him.”

Having delivered himself of this eulogy, my friend dropped his exhausted cigarette, lit another, and appeared again absorbed in the triangulation of his matrimonial problem.  I imagined him weighing the question whether he should part with Zobeida and Zuleika and keep Anima, or send Zuleika and Amina about their business, and keep Zobeida to be a light in his household.  At last Kiramat Ali, on the watch in the verandah, announced the saices with the horses, and we descended.

I had expected that a man of Isaacs’ tastes and habits would not be stingy about his horseflesh, and so was prepared for the character of the animals that awaited us.  They were two superb Arab stallions, one of them being a rare specimen of the weight-carrying kind, occasionally seen in the far East.  Small head, small feet, and feather-tailed, but broad in the quarters and deep in the chest, able to carry a twelve-stone man for hours at the stretching, even gallop, that never trembles and never tires; surefooted as a mule, and tender-tempered as a baby.

So we mounted the gentle creatures and rode away.  The mountain on which Simla is situated has a double summit, like a Swiss peak, the one higher than the other.  On the lower height and the neck between the two is built the town, and the bungalows used as offices and residences for the Government officials cover a very considerable, area.  “Jako,” the higher eminence, is thickly covered with a forest of primeval rhododendrons and pines, and though there are outlying bungalows and villas scattered about among the trees near the town, they are so far back from the main road, reserved as I have said for the use of the Viceroy, as far as driving is concerned, that they are not seen in riding along the shady way; and on the opposite side, where the trees are thin, the magnificent view looks far out over the spurs of the mountains, the only human habitation visible being a Catholic convent, which rears its little Italian campanile against the blue sky, and rather adds to the beauty of the scene than otherwise.  As we rode along we continued our talk about the new