the sleeper instantly from the land of dreams to the stern reality that the dusky imp outside has himself dropped off to sleep.  A pardonable imprecation, delivered in loud, threatening tones; or, in the case of a person vengefully inclined, or once too often made a victim, a stealthy visit to the open door, a well-aimed boot, and the pendulous punkah again swings to and fro, banishing the newly awakened prickly heat, and fanning the recumbent figure on the charpoy with grateful breezes that quickly send him off to sleep again.

A slight fall of rain during the night tempers somewhat the oppressive heat, and the zephyrs of the prevailing monsoons blow stiffly against me as I pedal southward in the early morning.  The rain has improved rather than injured the kunkah road, and it is, moreover, something of a toss-up as to whether the adverse wind is advantageous or otherwise.  On the one hand it exacts increased muscular effort to ride against it, but on the other, its beneficent services as a cooler are measurably apparent.

One needs only to traverse the Grand Trunk Road for a few days in order to obtain a comprehensive idea of India’s teeming population.  Vehicles and pedestrians throng the road again this morning, pouring into Amritza as though to attend some great festival.  The impression of some festive occasion obtains additional color from parties of musicians who keep up a perpetual tom-tom-ing on their drums as they trudge along; the object of their noisiness is apparently to gratify their own love of the sounding rattle of the drums.

At the police-chowkee of Ghundeala, ten miles from Amritza, a halt is made for rest and a drink of water.  To avoid trampling on the caste prejudices, or the sanctimonious religious feelings of the natives, everybody drinks from his hands, or from a cheap earthenware dish that may afterward be smashed.  The Sikhs and Mohammedans of the Punjab are far more reasonable in this matter than are the Brahmans and other ultra-holy idolaters of the country farther south.  Among the Hindoos, where caste prejudices exist throughout all the strata of society, to avoid the awful consequences of touching their lips to a vessel out of which some unworthy wretch a shade less holy has previously drunk, the fastidious worshipper of Krishna, Vishnu, or Kamadeva always drinks from his hands, unless possessed of a private drinking vessel of his own.  The hands are held in position to form a trough leading to the mouth; while an assistant pours water in at one end, the recipient receives it at the other.  No little skill and care is required to prevent the water running down one’s sleeve:  the average native seems to think the human throat a gutter down which the water will flow as fast as he can pour it into the hands.

The flowing yellow flood of Beas River, now at flood, and spreading itself over the width of a mile, makes an impassable break in my road soon after mid-day.  A ferryboat usually plies across the stream, but by reason of the broad area of overflow, and the consequent difficulty of working it, it is moored up for the time being.  Fortunately, the Scinde, Punjab & Delhi Railroad crosses the river on a fine bridge near by, with a regular ferry-train service in operation.  Repairing thither, I find, in charge of the ferry-train, an old Anglo-Indian engineer, who prevails upon me to accept his hospitality for the night.